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jackiestarsister · 3 months

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OUAT Rewatch: Season 7

I finally finished my rewatch today!

Overall thoughts:

~ I was thoroughly prepared to dislike this season, since it started with such a weird and repetitive premise, and got rid of some of the most important characters (Emma, Snow, and David). To my surprise, I really enjoyed the season, and it actually had some of the best bits of writing and acting in the whole show!

~ The actor playing adult Henry does a pretty good job of maintaining the same mannerisms and personality as young Henry!

~ Lana Parilla really shines in this season!

~ I can’t believe I’m saying it, but this season felt kind of like the first! It captured some of the sense of intrigue and suspense that characterized Season 1, when there were so many stories coming together and so many mysteries being unraveled.

~ The biggest plot hole is the existence of Henry’s book. Did he really write it? Did he really publish it? How does it exist within the cursed Hyperion Heights? It seems like part of Henry’s cursed persona, but it wouldn’t make sense for that to be part of the curse, because it reveals so much. Did fate or other forces make it appear, like the first storybook, so the curse could be broken?

Episode 7x01 “Hyperion Heights”

~ Regina wearing purple!!!

~ If Henry has just finished high school, and he was 13 or 14 at the end of Season 6, then four years must have gone by! What was it like for his extended family? Did he split his time between Regina’s house and Emma and Hook’s? How did he and Hook get along as stepfather and stepson?

~ Henry seems very much like Steven Universe, in the way he strives to help others find their happy endings, yet feels out of place and unsure of his own.

~ I have such mixed feelings about Henry and Regina’s scene. On the one hand, it’s natural for emerging adults to want to leave home for a while, and Regina letting Henry go shows her amazing growth from the first couple seasons, when she was doing everything she could to keep him with her. But for Henry to say he doesn’t belong in Storybrooke sounds contrary to everything he did and said about himself and Emma belonging there in the early seasons, particularly the end of Season 3.

~ Where did Henry get the motorcycle? Did August give it to him and/or teach him how to ride it? And what was Regina’s reaction when she found out he was learning?!

~ How can a realm be “new”? Can they simply be created, like the Wish Realm?

~ Henry really brought a motorcycle to a fairy-tale land?

~ Total The Devil Wears Prada homage!

~ It’s so strange to have Regina/Roni witness the same kind of feud between a biological parent and stepparent that she and Emma once had!

~ Victoria referring to “this street” makes it sound like a turf war rather than gentrification!

~ “When someone needs help, I help them.” Nice sentiment but could have been better written. Katara did it better in Avatar: The Last Airbender.

~ “You’re waiting for the perfect first sentence, but no story is perfect. It just needs to start.” Now that’s a great line!

~ Why did Alice bother trapping Henry if she just let him go?

~ Where did Cinderella learn how to fight? And how could anyone fight in a dress like that?!

~ So this cursed version of Hook has a functional left hand?

~ “Operation Glass Slipper is a go” made me laugh! Henry may have grown up, but some things about him haven’t changed.

~ I can’t believe that Regina is now the character giving inspirational monologues!

~ That last shot seems a little too upbeat. Roni’s cursed life is framed as though it is her real life.

Episode 7x02 “A Pirate’s Life”

~ The name of this episode sounds like an unoriginal reference to the silly song from the Disney ride, but it actually has a dark element since Wish Realm Hook tries to steal original Hook’s life!

~ I love that Hook continues training Henry in swordfighting! But Henry’s self-deprecating angst feels so OOC.

~ Such a sweet scene with Hook and Emma!

~ I love that when Henry is in trouble he immediately calls for his parents—all three of them!

~ Finally a Captain Cobra hug!

~ Hook has no patience for other versions of himself, whether past, future, or alternate reality!

~ Hook is still way too easy for other people to overpower and/or capture. You would think a “survivor” like him would be better at defending himself and evading capture.

~ I’m surprised that it’s so easy for Wish Realm Hook to permanently take on the appearance of original Hook, to the point that it carries over into the Land Without Magic. What happened to “magic always comes with a price”? And if it were that easy for a non-magically-gifted person to take on someone else’s appearance, wouldn’t lots of people take advantage of it?

~ “You never have to see me again” sounds like a callback to Snow White’s words to Charming when they first met!

~ Weaver’s words about a daughter being the greatest vulnerability is huge foreshadowing when spoken to Rogers/Hook!

~ Whose little cottage is that? Did they just find an empty home and decide to use it?

~ I never thought I’d see Regina telling Hook to act as a father to Henry in any way, let alone to give him “a pirate-y heart-to-heart”!

~ Henry is wise to be suspicious of someone not acting like themselves: he and his family have encountered many people who were impostors or controlled by someone via their heart.

~ Emma is so nervous and excited, and sounds like she is repeating her own train of thought about becoming a parent!

~ “Let’s see who you are” seems to be the theme of Hook’s arc throughout the show, and now of this Wish Hook too!

~ Each Hook learns to have compassion for his other self!

~ Who ever would have thought that Henry, Regina, and Hook would form their own fellowship? It’s odd, but I love it!

~ Was that ballet music from Swan Lake? That would be quite fitting!

Episode 7x03 “The Garden of Forking Paths”

~ If Cinderella drove the motorcycle from the ball, how could the knights or Tiana have caught up to her?

~ I didn’t expect Henry to find Cinderella so quickly!

~ I can’t believe they recycled the plotline of Archie and Henry in the mines, and acknowledged it in the script!

~ Cinderella should have realized it was way too easy to get into Lady Tremaine’s manor.

~ How did Cinderella guess that Henry was the one with the purest heart?

~ Why would Jacinda even trust such an offer from Victoria? She should at least get it in writing that there would be a condo for her and Lucy.

~ Burning the petition is actually a betrayal of everyone who signed it.

~ Regina stopped someone from making the same mistake(s) she made, particularly sacrificing her father’s heart! So great to see!

~ Jacinda’s speech scene is really cheesy, and kind of overdramatic. Little to nothing has been shown about why the community garden really matters.

~ It’s amazing to see Regina acting as a mentor to someone, and I wouldn’t have expected it to be her future daughter-in-law!

~ They act as though a petition would immediately resolve everything, but that kind of red tape takes time to process!

~ This episode almost feels like a movie.

Episode 7x04 “Beauty”

~ How fitting that Belle’s first episode was called “Skin Deep” and this one is called “Beauty”! I think those are the only episodes of the show that take place on a holiday, and each one is appropriate to its theme: the Rumbelle romance starts during a Valentine’s Day episode, and Belle dies in a Halloween episode. And both episodes reveal Rumplestiltskin/Gold to be “awake,” that is, aware of his true identity!

~ Belle and Gold always talk about how she wanted “to see the world,” but there are actually several worlds they can visit!

~ “I’d rather eat carbs” = They’re totally milking the Devil Wears Prada parallels!

~ Never thought we’d see a blonde Regina, or a Regina who gives “hope speeches”!

~ They seriously used a Frozen costume?

~ Tilly seems like the “wise fool” archetype.

~ THEY FIXED THE TEACUP!

~ I wouldn’t have expected Up to be paired with Beauty and the Beast, but it works for these characters!

~ How sad that the same action that sparked their attraction in her first episode, Belle falling as she opens the curtains, is what signals her death in this episode!

~ Someone walks by in a (cartoon) Belle costume!

~ The scene between Henry and Ivy could have been better written. She wouldn’t open up to him that quickly.

~ So, according to Belle’s interpretation, the only way she and Rumple can be together forever is in death? That’s pretty bleak in one sense.

~ How could Belle continue to age if time was practically still? In other worlds like Neverland, or situations like the Dark Curse, no one ages when time is frozen.

~ Was Gideon offering to kill Rumple with the dagger?!

~ Rogers moves the rook next to the knight!!!

~ Henry and Ivy’s scene at the end feels unnecessary. They already hit the necessary theme and characters beats. The episode could have ended with Weaver and Victoria’s scene, which would have been more ominous.

Episode 7x05 “Greenbacks”

~ Comparing belief to a weed is an interesting, unusual analogy. I doubt it’s meant to tie in with the Parable of the Sower; it kind of implies the opposite meaning.

~ Tiana being a fairy-tale princess from the start feels weird.

~ Tiana’s mother’s lines are too expository, telling rather than showing.

~ Wouldn’t “chaos in the land” create more opportunities for heroes to show up?

~ For Tiana and her mother to pin their hope on her finding a prince to save them, through marriage or otherwise, seems way out of character for them. Movie Tiana did everything she could to pull herself up into a better life all by herself.

~ Why would Tiana seek out Dr. Facilier’s help if she had no way to pay him? Couldn’t she give her necklace or earrings?

~ If Dr. Facilier wanted the ruby in the medal, he could have just named it as the price for his service.

~ Drizella/Ivy being a double agent and playing both sides is a pretty good twist!

Episode 7x06 “Wake Up Call”

~ Henry really kept his Tron lunchbox when he left home for his adult adventures?

~ Regina looks like a completely different person, like a warrior instead of a queen or witch!

~ It’s so funny to see Regina ready to swoop in and protect her son, only for him and his girlfriend to protect themselves!

~ Whereas Regina wanted to crush Henry’s belief in the curse, Roni wants to encourage Lucy’s belief in the hope that it will fade on its own.

~ The season's theme of plants and gardening really becomes apparent in this episode! Drizella refers to magic as something to “cultivate,” and the next scene deals with gardening! And the missing girl’s last name is Gardener!

~ Henry is still drawing on old movies for his real-life actions! Was that fist pump an homage to The Breakfast Club?

~ Regina teaching Drizella to lift rocks = obvious Star Wars reference! But instead of threatening Drizella’s safety, as Regina did with Emma and some Star Wars villains used with their apprentices, Regina endangers herself instead, showing trust that Drizella will save her.

~ “Things are always more fun when you start in the middle.” Sounds like the writers justifying their own story format!

~ “A curse is never worth the cost” seems to go against how it worked out for Snow and Charming when they cast the Dark Curse to return to the Land Without Magic.

~ The way that Roni snarls as Ivy leaves is her most Regina-like moment so far this season!

~ Roni is now in a similar situation to Jefferson in Season 1, knowing the truth that her child does not.

Episode 7x07 “Eloise Gardener”

~ Was Victoria aware that Lucy knows/suspects the truth about her?

~ “Abandoning people just isn’t my thing.” Hook proves the truth of his words in this episode!

~ Good setup/payoff with the lullaby!

~ Gothel pretending to be a victim of Victoria is kind of like Hook pretending to be a survivor of Cora’s attack in Season 2.

Episode 7x08 “Pretty in Blue”

~ I didn’t expect Alice and Hook to find each other so quickly, or for their reunion to be shown so soon after the revelation that she is his daughter!

~ That dialogue between Jacinda and Lucy is pointless. It would have been enough to just show them hugging and crying as they say goodbye.

~ Henry and Ella getting caught in the net together is not only a callback to Snow White and Charming, it’s also a nod to the net trap in Return of the Jedi—especially when one of them asks the other to reach for the sword!

~ “No one wants to be the Kathryn.”

~ Lucy sounds so grown-up and mischievous when she says, “I think I know another dragon you could slay.” It’s the kind of line that Emma, Regina, or one of the other adult protagonists would say.

~ Hook being given a possibly poisoned cake is so ironic, since that’s how Captain Hook tries to kill Peter Pan and the Lost Boys in J.M. Barrie’s novel! Regina even gets rid of the cake with the excuse of “Too much sugar isn’t good for you,” just like Wendy!

~ So many parallels between Henry & Ella and Snow & Charming!

~ Another person named Jack who had a bad run-in with giants? That makes him the third.

~ (Spoiler Alert:) Henry and Jack imitating Han Solo and Lando Calrissian in The Empire Strikes Back may have been foreshadowing the eventual betrayal!

~ Henry not being there when Jacinda comes to see him is so sad, particularly because it didn’t result from some miscommunication, just from lack of communication.

Episode 7x09 “One Little Tear”

~ I really like that they drew on the original story of Rapunzel, beginning with the theft of the witch’s garden by a desperately poor family and the deal they make with her.

~ Lady Tremaine being Rapunzel was NOT something I saw coming! Now their interactions with Gothel as her prisoner make so much more sense. But how can Drizella be working with the person who took her mother from her?

~ Rumple/Gold/Weaver manages to put Victoria off-balance by revealing that he knows the truth about her at the same moment when he admits the truth about himself.

~ Rogers questioning Victoria about how she escaped, and her saying that she didn’t wait for anyone to help her, perfectly describes the preceding scene of her escape from the tower!

~ Throwing objects at mirrors is supposed to be Regina and Snow’s thing, not Rapunzel/Tremaine’s!

~ Sisters building a snowman harkens to Frozen, but sisters falling through ice harkens to Jo and Amy in Little Women.

~ How did they retrieve Anastasia’s body from the ice? For that matter, how did Marcus and Ella survive their dunk in the water? They both would have died from hypothermia without immediate care.

~ It’s really interesting how Victoria doesn’t try to destroy Lucy’s belief in the fairy tale reality; instead she tries to destroy her belief in happy endings. It’s like the difference between faith in God and faith in God’s goodness; in fact, having strong faith can make the disappointment of suffering even harder to bear.

~ It’s nice to see that Rumple/Gold/Weaver is aware of and cares about his great-granddaughter!

~ I wasn’t expecting Anastasia to awaken and Lucy to be at death’s door so early in the season! Those seem like the kind of events that would happen in a season finale.

Episode 7x10 “The Eighth Witch”

~ I’m so confused by the opening scene. Did Henry and Ella get married before having Lucy? Did Lady Tremaine team up with the resistance against her? Did Henry, Ella, Regina, and Wish Realm Hook really stay with the resistance throughout Ella’s pregnancy? Did they raise Lucy in that realm, or were they just visiting Tiana’s castle for Lucy’s birthday?

~ What makes Drizella’s threat a “prophecy”? She doesn’t have clairvoyance, does she?

~ Is Lucy really supposed to be eight years old in the present day? She looks like she could be ten or twelve!

~ Why would Tiana have statue-Drizella in such a prominent place in her courtyard?!

~ The Wicked Witch of the West running a cycling class is so OUAT!

~ That was a pretty great entrance for grown-up Robin! It’s nice to see that she has a good relationship with Regina. But I have to wonder what she knows about her father, and whether she knows her brother Roland.

~ “She sure has grown up fast.” “Not in our realm.” What is that supposed to mean?! Which realm did Zelena settle down in, and which one are they referring to?

~ “I’m not here to discuss timelines.” What a cop-out!!! The writers really don’t even care about the passage of time anymore, despite the fact that this show’s theme and structure are centered around time!

~ Zelena is now in the position that Emma was in with Walsh and her fake life in New York!

~ So Zelena is the one giving heroic pep talks now?

~ I’m surprised they showed that flashback scene again!

~ It seems odd and unusual for Ella, Henry’s own wife, to stop the others from going after him in order to focus on the bigger problem.

~ So Regina doesn’t have to give up the heart of the thing she loves most again? It’s enough that she did it once?

~ Regina and Henry are basically in the same situation Emma and Hook were when she made him a Dark One to save his life.

~ Hook gave up the chance to be a father to Alice so Ella would be able to remain Lucy’s mother! That’s an incredibly selfless sacrifice.

~ They really decided to make Alice and Robin a couple without any prior buildup.

~ It’s ironic that Gothel once imprisoned Rapunzel in a tower, but now throws her into a pit!

Episode 7x11 “The Secret Garden”

~ “… and we’re going to do it together” is Snow and David’s line, not Regina’s!

~ What makes Zelena suddenly change her mind about teaming up with “Nook”?

~ It makes sense for Hook to decide to trust his gut, since that is the same advice his counterpart gave to Emma in Season 3. But the gut feelings in each situation are opposites: Emma’s told her something was wrong, but Hook’s is telling him that the illusion is the truth.

~ Hook saying “Memento mori,” Latin for “Remember your death,” is pretty ironic—almost uncharacteristic—since everyone talks about how he is a survivor!

~ I laughed out loud when Madame Leota was revealed! Now they’re drawing on Disney rides, not just movies? What’s to stop them from including Jack Sparrow, then?

~ Who was Gothel trying to raise in the séance?

~ “I won’t let them take you” could be interpreted two ways, as protection or imprisonment!

~ The Resurrection Amulet looks like something out of a Marvel movie, not a fairy tale. It reminds me of Tony Stark’s arc reactor heart or the Eye of Agamotto.

~ The part when everyone is shouting at each other while Gothel tries to kill Zelena doesn’t come across well. But the action sequence afterward was cool.

~ “You were going to risk your life for me.” No, she was going to outright sacrifice her life!

~ It’s interesting that Robin met both of Alice’s parents before meeting Alice herself!

~ Once again, the show breaks its own rules. Characters have said before that no magic can bring back the dead, but apparently the Resurrection Amulet can do exactly that.

~ Robin is the first “next generation” character we see dealing with the legacies of her parents.

~ I can’t believe the writers made Gothel the one to wake Lucy, and gave Victoria the “atonement through sacrifice” treatment.

~ I totally saw the blood test confirmation coming, but not Dr. Sage’s death, though in hindsight it was clearly foreshadowed!

~ This might actually be one of the best episodes of the season!

Episode 7x12 “A Taste of the Heights”

~ Henry producing a podcast makes complete sense! If he had been a bit older at the start of the show, he probably would have done that kind of thing about Storybrooke!

~ I knew that man was Naveen as soon as he appeared onscreen!

Episode 7x13 “Knightfall”

~ It’s fascinating to see a version of Hook approach a version of Rumplestiltskin for help, without them having any shared adventures or mutual friends or relatives.

~ I’m surprised to see such a young Ahab, young enough to call Hook an “old man.”

~ Now Maui is real too? Does that mean Moana is real?

~ It’s so good to finally see Regina and Lucy together, both knowing the truth!

Episode 7x14 “The Girl in the Tower”

~ Alice blowing out the candles is a clear parallel to Emma in the pilot episode!

~ Ivy is actually quite sweet with Henry in this episode.

~ It seems like the writers really like the trope of future lovers attacking and/or trapping each other when they first meet.

~ I’m very surprised that Rogers and Henry would leave Tilly unsupervised, even if they believe in her innocence.

~ Regina letting Lucy snoop around a dangerous voodoo doctor’s lair … seems quite risky, and miles away from the Regina of the first few seasons!

~ Robin hotwiring Sheriff Emma Swan’s yellow bug = a truly legendary feat!

~ So the yellow bug just showed up without a driver to provide a getaway? Like the Weasleys’ car in Harry Potter?

~ How is the tower still intact? Wasn’t it in ruins before Alice and Hook saw each other and Henry and Ella went on their Wonderland adventure?

~ So many actual Alice in Wonderland lines and allusions in this episode!

~ The question of whether you actually exist is more relevant for Alice/Tilly and Wish Hook/Rogers than anyone else, since they come from a realm that only exists because of a wish someone made!

~ I love how this episode explores Alice’s complicated and contradictory emotions about leaving the tower.

~ Alice says “bloody” just like Hook!

~ OMG Alice and Robin read each others’ books!!!

~ Finally, someone offered Tilly an actual, safe place to stay!

~ This may have been one of my favorite episodes of this season!

Episode 7x15 “Sisterhood”

~ It seems weird that Henry has probably spent more time with Wish Hook than with his actual stepfather Hook, to the point that Wish Hook is one of his best friends. How does OG Hook and the rest of his family feel about that?

~ Lucy is just like Henry in the way she sets people up with phone messages and fake invitations!

~ Henry says he “can’t tell if Jacinda and I are meant for each other anymore.” When did he ever feel that they were?

~ I was not expecting Jacinda to walk in after Henry agreed to that ridiculous rom-com-style challenge!

~ So many different characters talk about fate in this episode!

~ Is Henry quoting Star Wars again when he says it’s “an impossible shot”?

~ Gothel is just like the serpent in the Garden of Eden, making people turn on each other by planting fear and doubt about each other’s intentions.

~ The special effects used for Anastasia’s magic are pretty awesome! We don’t often see those kinds of feats in the Land Without Magic, or practical effects in the series as a whole.

~ Drizella’s lines at the climax with Anastasia are uncharacteristically cheesy. And her final line, “I guess you underestimated the power of sisterhood,” is completely unnecessary, just verbalizing what was already implied.

~ I’m surprised that they took Tremaine/Victoria, Drizella/Ivy, and Anastasia out of the story at this point. Was there simply no more room for them?

~ I knew something big would happen with Nick, but I wasn’t expecting him to be the “candy killer”! I had actually wondered, when Gretel talked about her brother traveling under another name, whether Jack/Nick might be Hansel.

Episode 7x16 “Breadcrumbs”

~ This episode plays a lot with what is real and what is fake.

~ Ella kissing Henry for luck is definitely a Star Wars reference!

~ Would it really be so bad to be a character in someone else’s story? It seems rather self-centered for Henry to want to be the heroic main character. And many great stories are about not just one person, but two or more; that’s how it is with most love stories.

~ Why would the killer leave his annotated book behind at the scene of the crime? Did he want it to be found? It seems far too convenient.

~ Hook/Rogers is basically doing the same thing in both timelines, trying to help his kids!

~ If the map and the ring were real, why couldn’t Hook take Henry on a real journey to find Davy Jones’ locker? Just so Henry could have the satisfaction of beating a pirate captain?

~ “I don’t need a great story. I just want a great life.”

~ It’s great to see Henry, who has always been into great stories and grand gestures, to realize he does not need all that to impress Ella or get what he really wants, a family.

~ Is that realm simply called the “magical kingdom”?

Episode 7x17 “Chosen”

~ How can there be starving children in Arendell? How dare that witch malign Elsa that way!

~ That teaser seems positively cartoonish.

~ Mickey Mouse-shaped pancakes!

~ It’s interesting to see Zelena be one of the characters that is trying to move on from her past but feels it catching up to her, like Regina, Rumple, and Hook in previous seasons.

~ Shouting that Kelly has a real daughter and fiancé was a really dumb move on Henry’s part.

~ I was wondering when Chad would show up; but I’m surprised that he turned out to be a truly normal guy, unconnected with the fairy tales. This show has made me expect twists.

~ I guess the title “Chosen” refers to both Weaver’s joke about Zelena and Chad choosing to be with her.

Episode 7x18 “The Guardian”

~ Weaver saying “Be my guest” probably wasn’t an intentional Beauty and the Beast reference, but it’s still funny!

~ That rotating shot of Alice entering Facilier’s house is pretty cool!

~ I had wondered whether Alice could use magic, since her mother is a witch!

~ Alice’s test scene is fascinating! Rumplestiltskin’s impish form comes out as he slips into that old, crazy way of talking. It’s also kind of the opposite of how he pushed Regina to crush hearts in order to turn her evil; instead he’s trying to prove that Alice is pure of heart.

~ Aside from the irony that this series actually showed the Underworld, it’s interesting to see characters in a TV show talk seriously about what the afterlife might be like.

~ Belle’s echoed lines might have been better delivered as a flashback in Rumple’s head.

~ It’s amazing that after all the times Rumple grasped at the dagger because he was afraid of losing his power, he now chooses it against his own self-interest, because he does not want to burden someone else with it.

~ I wouldn’t have expected any Hook’s child to have Rumplestiltskin as a father figure, but that’s what their dynamic ends up feeling like! I guess Alice/Tilly is like the daughter Rumple/Gold/Weaver never had.

~ What I don’t understand is what Hook and Rumple did for the eight or so years before the curse. Did they simply put their respective quests on hold?

~ Regina/Roni and Weaver’s scene is amazing! Regina is finally fed up enough to cut ties with him.

~ They just had to give Henry another Star Wars allusion!

Episode 7x19 “Flower Child”

~ It’s so exciting and satisfying to see the various characters piecing together the truth! It’s a different direction than the first season went in.

~ Why/how would the curse bring Henry’s belongings from Storybrooke and Ella’s glass slipper into Jacinda and Lucy’s home?

~ So, Gothel is the origin of the magic beans, and the Land Without Magic? But how does she fit into the Wish Realm?

~ I wasn’t expecting Samdi/Facilier to actually do something good! I thought he was using Lucy for his own ends.

~ So, Jacinda just lets Lucy run off unsupervised?

~ I don’t like that Facilier was killed off. We never get a definitive answer about his intentions, whether he was good or evil at his core. I guess he’ll forever be a mystery.

Episode 7x20 “Is This Henry Mills?”

~ Regina was part of that coven?!

~ So Storybrooke has a college! I had wondered about that, since no one aged during the first curse. Did it open after the curse was broken?

~ How does Lucy even know Weaver? Is she aware that he is her great-grandfather Rumplestiltskin?

~ GRANNY!

~ Time travel?! So that’s why the story is still in the “present day” rather than a decade or two in the future. But wasn’t that supposed to be impossible, outside of the one time Zelena succeeded in casting such a spell?

~ Regina and Henry’s scene in the bar might be one of the best in the whole series! The writing and emotional acting are fantastic.

~ I guess if Alice from Wonderland had magic, she would use it to change people’s sizes!

~ Tiny was the one who gave Henry the magic bean!? Where has he been since Season 2?

~ How can Regina/Roni say she has nothing left to lose? Her family is still alive!

~ I knew Henry was going to break the curse by kissing Regina!

~ Henry’s letter to Regina is beautiful!

Episode 7x21 “Homecoming”

~ They never provide a caption for time or place when it would actually be helpful! I spent the whole teaser wondering if it was Henry from the Enchanted Forest or the Wish Realm.

~ Friendzoning is painful no matter what realm you’re in!

~ Starfish sounds like such a silly nickname, but Colin O’Donoghue manages to deliver it with so much sadness, it’s heartbreaking!

~ How long was the curse in effect? How long did it take Lucy to figure out that they were cursed?

~ It’s so weird to see Rumplestiltskin, with scaly skin and old-fashioned clothes, in a modern-day setting!

~ Regina, Gold, and (a version of) Hook—the three villainous protagonists throughout the series—drinking together and toasting to revenge is oddly fitting!

~ Why would Hook assume that this rescue mission is a last grand adventure?

~ Cruella de Vil using a sword is not something I ever expected to see!

~ The music during Henry and Cruella’s fight is my jam!

~ I love that Henry raises the question, “Who really deserves a happy ending?”

~ “The one enemy I can never defeat is myself.”

~ This finale feels like Avengers: Endgame, with all different minor characters making appearances and past formative events being revisited!

~ I can’t believe how self-aware these lines were, while still managing to sound poetic: “That is indeed a complicated story. The timelines alone would make one’s head spin. Only a true Author could weave such a tale.”

~ I love the Apprentice’s next line, “Every story an Author has ever written lives in his heart.”

~ The way the Apprentice leans on his sword at the end of his scene makes it look almost like the Sword in the Stone!

~ Ever since Regina killed the Wish Realm versions of Snow and David, and took Emma back to Storybrooke, I wondered what happened to Wish Realm Henry. No one ever seemed concerned about what happened to him, which was really weird. I’m glad they finally addressed that!

~ ABOUT BLOODY TIME they got back to Storybrooke!

Episode 7x22 “Leaving Storybrooke”

~ Grumpy/Leroy is unusually cheerful!

~ Having a “Leaving Storybrooke” sign for the title sequence pulled at my heartstrings!

~ Pulling others to wallow in one’s darkness sounds like the Devil being lonely in Hell.

~ Regina and Robin Hood’s dream scene is beautiful!!! “Our story was so short.” “That doesn’t make it any less epic.”

~ Regina finally got the feather from Robin!!! It only took two seasons!

~ Rumple saw Hook as the closest thing he had to a friend? I can’t really buy that.

~ Was there some deleted scene of Zelena helping Robin and Alice get to the Wish Realm? And how did they get Maui’s fishhook to the others?

~ “Aren’t spells just stories of a kind?” More like the other way around: stories are basically spells that entrance the audience. I’m pretty sure there’s an etymological connection.

~ They brought the Blue Fairy back just so they could kill her off?

~ Hook and Robin’s scene is so sweet! Since she grew up without a father, it’s nice to see her gain a father figure.

~ Wait, so Snow and David came from Storybrooke to help Henry? Why weren’t they with Zelena, Robin, and Alice when they arrived in the Wish Realm?

~ Does that roundtable meeting at Regina’s castle take place in the original Enchanted Forest, or the Wish Realm version?

~ How did Snow and David get the storybooks without Wish Rumple or Wish Henry noticing?

~ How would Wish Rumple’s plan work, if there are alternate versions of everyone across the realms?

~ “You don’t do the right thing for a reward. You do it because it’s right.”

~ Rumple giving his heart to save (a version of) Hook and Hook’s child is an amazing twist, given their history with hearts and children!

~ If they were taken back in time, how was Rumple able to be reunited with Belle? Wouldn’t she still be alive at that point in the timeline?

~ What about Gideon?! He and Rumple never got to say goodbye! Does he now have to spend the rest of his adult life without either of his parents?

~ So, the young version of Henry seen at the end is the Wish Realm version, right? Because the present-day young version is off having his adventures in other realms?

~ How do they reconcile Regina becoming the Good Queen and all the future and alternate versions of everyone being in Storybrooke, without messing up the timeline? They pretty much let go of all the Back to the Future logic that characterized Emma and Hook’s time-traveling.

~ Did they really hold an election for a single queen to rule all the realms? What about the established leaders of the various realms? And how could Regina be elected without knowing about it?

~ Regina didn’t want to be crowned without Emma and Hook there!

~ Smee is back!!! But is it the original Smee or Wish Realm Smee? ~ That ending montage of flashbacks with Regina’s voiceover was beautiful. This season began and ended with voiceover monologues from Regina.

#Once Upon a Time #ABC's Once Upon a Time #Once Upon a Time analysis #Once Upon a Time reactions

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vavuska · 3 years

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CRUELLA, THE STORY OF A PUPPY SLAUGHTER (Part 2)

Here for part 1:

Part 1 - Summary:

In the previous part we saw how was originally described Cruella de Vil in Dodie Smith's 101 Dalmatians: a rich heiress, bossy, cruel toward animals, obsessed with fancy jewls, luxury and also fur coats. Cruella met Anita at school, they were in friendly terms, even if Anita described Cruella as a menacing student, expelled from school for drinking ink. Dodie Smith wrote that Cruella comes from a troublesome family: her ancestor was a serial killer, with the supernatural ability to summon storms and a tail (reference to Bram Stoker's Dracula and the devil). Cruella has strange eating habits (uses a lot of pepper, the Devil's spice) and is usually cold (as a corpse or a vampire). Cruella was so obsessed with fur to marry a furrier not for love but only for his job. Cruella's husband is weak and she is the dominant element in the couple, she also forced him to take her surname after their marriage.

We saw also the rapresentation of Cruella in 1961 cartoon version of 101 Dalmatians. Cruella is still a old friend of Anita. Her main colors are red (her loudy red car is the fist thing we see of Cruella) — expressing blood, anger, determination and passion — and green (she is always surrounded by nasty green smoke that comes from her cigarette) that rapresents envy, sickness and greed.

Her appearance is very particular, because she looks like a skeleton and her skin is very white - pale, very different from the healthy pink one of the other characters. She looks like a corpse, she looks sick in this 1961 version of 101 Dalmatians.

Her entrance is accompanied by a song, written by Roger, in which he anticipates the evil intention of Cruella and underlight the disturbing connotations of her surname (Count de Ville is one of Dracula's alias; Cruella de Vil is a pun name on “cruel devil”).

3 - Cruella in 1996

The 1996 live action of 101 Dalmatians the entrance of Cruella is anticipated by a sequence in which we heard a news London Zoo discovered the excoriated carcass of its prized 3-year-old female Siberian tiger, then the news reporter says that according to animal protection groups that monitor the international trade that a white Siberian tiger's fur is so rare that the offer of a pelt would surely draw the attention in contraband. And then the journalist ask “Who cold do something so horrible?”

Then enters Cruella. She wears veiled garment complete with Balenciaga-inspired extreme shoulders and floor-length black and white fur cape.

We saw this mysterious woman with veiled face and a long fur coat - we doesn't know she is Cruella yet - , exiting from her black and white 1974 Panther Deville, license plate “De Vil”. This version of the car is more closed to the book's one.

In Dodie Smith's book, Cruella's chauffeur-driven car is black-and-white striped, which Mr. Dearly describes as “a moving zebra crossing”, and Cruella boasts that it has the loudest horn in London, which she insists on sounding for the Dearly couple.

We saw Cruella shaking the ashes of her cigarette on the shiny and impeccable shoes of her vallet Alzonzo, while he tries to not look bothered by this lack of respect, and then we saw Cruella entering in a luxurious place called “House of De Vil”. Her red cigarette holder — switching from the turquoise the 1966 animated version favored — matched with her brilliant red lipstick, makes a great contrast to her black and white attire and also underlight the psychology of color typical of Disney villains: red is associated with malice, evil (hell and the devil), blood, danger, strength, power, determination and passion.

Now we have a sight of this long railway-like white hallway surrounded by exotic fur-clothes. Now we know she is a stylist and that she is maybe the one who cold be interested in the fur of the dead Siberian tiger.

A crowd of terrified / adoring employees hurry to greet the woman: “Good morning, Miss De Vil”.

Finally Cruella enters in her office and takes off her hat with veil, reveling her double-colored hair. She is Cruella De Vil in all her glory.

This sequence recalls openly the Devil Wears Prada.

This version of Cruella played by Glenn Close is much more human that the 1961 version. She is more charismatic too and also more fashionable. Her entrance is not as scary as the 1961 version, but shows her obsession for fur, her violation of the law and abuse on animals (also at those at risk of extinction) and her high level stylist house of fashion.

She isn't Anita's friend anymore, she is Anita's boss.

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While walking to her office, Cruella meets Anita, played by Joely Richardson. She spots that Anita is working on a new model (no more white tiger stripes, but dalmatian's spots). Anita's design catches her eyes and interest, as well as Anita's dog, Perdi: they had a strange chat about Perdi's fur. That, knowing already the plot of the movie and the news details Roger and Pongo were hearing in the previous scene, well, this conversation sounds a lot disturbing.

Cruella: “Anita, darling.”

Anita: “Good morning, Cruella.”

Cruella: “What a charming dog.”

Anita: “Thank you.”

Cruella: “Spots?”

Anita: “Yes, she’s dalmatian.”

Cruella: “lnspiration?”

Anita: “Yes.”

Cruella: “Long hair or short?”

Anita: “Short.”

Cruella: “Coarse or fine?”

Anita: “l’m afraid it is a little coarse.”

Cruella: “Pity!”

Anita: “But it was very fine when she was a puppy.”

Cruella: “Redemption! We need to have a little girl talk. Come to my office. Bring the drawing.”

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Ok. The next scene contains a very popular quote from this movie.

We are in Cruella's office: she has just invited Anita to talk about her design. Cruella wants a new coat and would love to wear the one that has just see at Anita's desk. Let's remeber she doesn't want to wear Anita's puppies already, for now is just an abstract idea about someone else's puppies, but they are still talking about Dalmatians' spots, compared with leopard ones and Anita seems to be perfectly fine. I don't think she knows already of Cruella's criminal way to obtain fur from animals at risk of extinction that her henchmen steal from Zoos, but Anita works for a woman who loves to wear REAL fur. I just can't imagine Cruella wearing any faux fur coat. This is not a crime, because it's legal wear fur coats made of mink, sable and ermine and such, but I found very weird that Anita is not having any suspect about Cruella's intention, because she is working on a model of striped tiger fur and Cruella lives for fur, worship fur. She just could not accept to wear faux fur.

However, Anita doesn't seem bothered at all by this strange talk about her dog's fur (yes, dog are not coats), but as a woman who works for fashion/fur industry and loves dogs she should know that in some parts of the world it is legal using cat and dogs to make clothes. I simply can't understand why she is not having any reaction at Cruella's strage interest about Perdi's fur.

Cruella and Anita talk about their work and Cruella makes lovely appreciation for Anita's drawings: she says she is talented and she doesn't want to risk to lose her pen.

That's now that Anita says she would not left Cruella's House for another job, she would left only if she decided to be a stay-at-home mother and wife. Well, no, she talks more genericly of "plans" with a hypothetical, for now, husband/boyfriend, and this could means everything, for example moving to another city, the assumption about marriage is an association made by Cruella that told us a lot of things about how producers would she looks, compared with the family-oriented Disney business plan. This is a very relevant issue we was also in her 1961 version: the losing comparison between Anita's family's oriented live choice and Cruella's — who is sigle, rich and indipendent — one. Cruella loves only her fur coats, while Anita have an husband, a simple house and also a lot of dogs. Cruella is alone, evil, ugly, wears a lot of make up, and not happy, while Anita is married, preatty but in a natural way and happy of her simple lifestyle with her husband and their dogs.

Cruella: “Now, darling, tell me more about these spots. l did leopard spots in the ‘80s. Well, dalmatian spots are a little different, aren’t they? Cozy. Classic.”

Anita: “Cuddly. Less trashy.”

Cruella: “Exactly! Do you like spots, Frederick?”

Frederick: “Oh, l don’t believe so, Madame. l thought we liked stripes this year.”

Cruella: “What kind of sycophant are you?”

Frederick: “Um, what kind of sycophant would you like me to be?”

Cruella: “Frederick… l’m beginning to see spots. What would it cost us to start again on next year’s line?”

Frederick: “Millions.”

Cruella: “Can we afford it?”

Frederick: “Well, yes--”

Cruella: “Pay it, darling. Now go away. l have to talk to Anita.”

(...)

Cruella: “Sit down, please. How long have you been working for me?”

Anita: “Uh, two years last August.”

Cruella: “And you’ve done wonderful work in that time.”

Anita: “Thank you.”

Cruella: “l don’t see you socially, do l?”

Anita: No.

Cruella: “And you’re not very well-known, despite your obvious talent.”

Anita: “Well, notoriety doesn’t mean very much to me.”

Cruella: “Your work is fresh and clean, unfettered, unpretentious. lt sells. And one of these days… my competitors are going to suss out who you are… and they’re going to try to steal you away.”

Anita: “Oh, no. lf l left, it wouldn’t be for another job.”

Cruella: “Oh, really?bWhat would it be for?”

Anita: “Well, l don’t know. Um, if l met someone, if working here didn’t fit in with our plans.”

Cruella: “Marriage.”

Anita: “Perhaps.”

Cruella: “More good women have been lost to marriage… than to war, famine, disease and disaster. You have talent, darling. Don’t squander it.”

Anita: “Well, l don’t think that it’s something we have to worry about. l don’t have any prospects.”

Cruella: “Thank God.”

Cruella makes a very cynical — but historically appropriate and also very sharable — critic about marriage. She was right, expecially because of what we saw about her 1960s version and how she is rooted in anti-feminism and in an open condamn of women's growing emancipation from the “traditional family role” imposed by media in the 1950s and 1960s, rapresented by 1961's Anita. However, Cruella is a cruel, evil villaness, so what she says to Anita is just a condamn made by Disney on women who choose career over family and love.

But, here, Cruella is not a friend of Anita who gives her a kind and appreciable life advice (if we ignore that Cruella is evil), Cruella is Anita's boss and doesn't want to lose a valuable and talented employee, so from this point of view her statement sounds a lot more controversial: women in the 50s lost their job if they got married, they were fired because most of the time bosses made them sign a contract with a marriage bar that allow employers to withdraw from the contract, so their contract would terminate on marriage, or said in a simple way: employers used to fire the soon-to-be wife, because it was clear for them that a wife should focus more on family and house care than on a career (that's because the soon-to-be wife is going to have an husband, the bread-giver of the family).

Nowdays, it's a bitter different, but women that want to have also a family are discriminated in workplaces: employers ask constantly in job interviews of they plan to have a family, if they have some relationships or if they are single. That's because employers would lose money paying for maternity leaves to their female employees that cannot work for some month. A young woman in fertile age with a stable relationship is a risk for a employer more than a young man in fertile age with a stable relationship. A newly mom is more closed to chose a lesser paid job or a part time one compatible to her family then a newly dad.

And also this quote, remember we are talking about the 90s, gives a clear flashback on women's unstable careers back then, but also puts in highlines some stereotypes about women who menage to balance both work and family: their quility of work is lower than before (this is said by Cruella to the new-mom Anita, we will see it below), they are not productive enough, they makes employers lose money, ecc. Nowadays, unlike in the 90s there is a constant svalutation of women who chose to put family first: they have no free time, they have no a social life (well, some shy single woman like Anita doesn't have a frizzy social life too), some kind of lifes are better than others (luxury and exotics vacation are better than reading books, dancing and going to bars with friends is better than playing sports or painting, ecc.) and if they dare to go out with their friends or take time for themselves and their hobbies, society is still ready to shame them for “not being good mothers”. That's not right: everyone should be able to live their life as they want, to have a frizzy social life or just enjoying a little time for themselves, without receiving criticism of any sort.

In the US the marriage bar, the practice of restricting the employment of married women was never explicitly eliminated by federal laws. Marriage bars were widely relaxed in wartime, during World War I and World War II due to an increase in the demand for labor in the assistance of war efforts (mostly because men were at the front).

Since the 1960s, the practice has widely been regarded as employment inequality and sexual discrimination, and has been either discontinued or outlawed by anti-discrimination laws. For example, in Italy marriage bar is declared illegal with law nr. 7 of 1963, that establishes the prohibition of dismissal of female workers for reasons of marriage (later extended also to male workers), and law nr. 1204 of 1971 prohibited dismissal of the working mother within the first year of the child's age (maternity bar).

The main reason of the bar is that married women were supported by their husbands, therefore they did not need jobs. However, marriage bars provided more opportunity for those whom proponents viewed as "actually" needing employment, such as single women or married men (needed to support the family).

Discrimination against married female teachers in the US was not terminated until 1964 with the passing of the Civil Rights Act.

Marriage bars generally affected educated, middle-class married women, particularly native-born white women. Their occupations were that of teaching and clerical work. Lower class women and women of color who took jobs in manufacturing, waitressing, and domestic servants were often unaffected by marriage bars.

However, some State law provides protection for people discriminated for their marital status. For example, in California, discrimination in employment based on marital status is against the law. Under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), it is illegal for an employer to discriminate based on an applicant’s marital status or perceived marital status.

Under the FEHA, it is an unlawful employment practice for an employer to treat an applicant or employee differently based on the employee’s marital status. This includes: Refusing to hire or employ, Refusing to select a person for a training program, Firing, bearing, or discharging an employee, Discriminating against a person in compensation or in terms, conditions, or privileges of employment.

Marital status could refer to whether an individual is married or not, has been married, or plans to get married. This includes: Currently married, Divorced, Married to a same-sex partner or opposite-sex partner, Engaged to be married, Married but separated, Married but seeking a divorce, Widowed, Annulled marriage, Plans to get married someday, Plans to never get married, Other marital states.

Forty years ago, on October 31, 1978, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) was signed into law to prohibit discrimination in the workplace on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. Since its passage, more women have been able to continue working while pregnant; they have also been able to work further into their pregnancies without being forced to leave their jobs.

Pregnancy discrimination involves treating a woman (an applicant or employee) unfavorably because of pregnancy, childbirth or a medical condition related to pregnancy or childbirth. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) forbids discrimination based on pregnancy when it comes to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, promotions, layoff, training, fringe benefits, such as leave and health insurance and any other term or condition of employment. Pregnancy discrimination also includes perceived bias when expectant employees experience subtly hostile behaviors such as social isolation, negative stereotyping and negative or rude interpersonal treatment such as lower performance expectations, transferring the pregnant employee to less-desirable shifts or assignments or inappropriate jokes and intrusive comments.

Claims of pregnancy discrimination filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) increased sharply in the 1990s and 2000s, and pregnancy discrimination remains a widespread problem across all industries and regions of the United States. Yet statistics show that in the last 10 years, more than 50,000 pregnancy discrimination claims were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Fair Employment Practices Agencies in the United States.

So, yes. Disney here touched a lot of points in about two levels:

Family is more important than a career (successful, unmarried stylist Cruella is the evil one) and if you, a working woman, put career over family you are wrong. Nowday, we know that there isn't anything wrong about putting career first, but also we know that there isn't anything wrong also on putting family first or find a balance between the two. The important thing we should remember is that if we have not equality in working places, we should have not real free choices about our dream life;

It's perfectly fine excluding women in stable relationships or women with children from workplaces, because their work would not be at the level of a single woman, that can sacrifice her free time working late (employers exploitation logic deny free time);

Only child-free single women should be allowed to work, but only until they meet a soul mate (reminiscent of the old Disney penchant for old traditional gender roles).

However, returning at the plot, after that Anita reassures Cruella that she has no marriage prospects on the horizon, Cruella asked to Alonzo to bring Anita's drawings to her and the two women start to discuss about Anita's work, because Cruella want to add a long fur stole to Anita's original model: “I look wonderful in spots”, says Cruella,“we could do this in linen. It would be stunning in fur”. Then Anita remarks that would not be appropriate wearing fur in April, so Cruella give her famous lines: “But it’s my only true love, darling. l live for fur. l worship fur. After all, is there a woman in all this wretched world who doesn’t?” and then makes a joke that anticipates what she will plan to Anita's puppies more over in the movie: “lt is rather amusing, isn’t it? (...) If we make this coat... it would be as if l were wearing your dog.”

Then Anita and Perdi meet Roger (Jeff Daniels) and his dog Pongo, they fall in love and get married. Cruella doesn't like this. Obviously. We see a very enraged Cruella, wearing a black cellophane velvet with black and white coque feather trim, screaming against Anita's “betrayal”, when she read Anita and Roger's wedding publication on a newspaper.

Her anger toward Roger for stealing her best employee, maybe envy for Anita's love (well, it’s Disney), are promptly consoled, when her two henchmen bring her a little present from Mr. Skinner (Nomen omen, this surname fits perfectly creepy scared guy that work as furrier): it's the Siberian tiger found dead and excoriated in the London Zoo at the beginning of the movie. It was Cruella that wanted her fur and at the end she obtained it.

This Mr. Skinner (John Shrapnel) is a sadic taxidermist that enjoys killing and skinning animals alive, just like he did to the female white tiger at the London Zoo. He doesn't speak beacause when he was young, a dog attacked him by tearing open his throat and ripping out his vocal cords in the process, leaving him with a bad scar on his neck and is a little based on Mr. de Vil, Cruella's husband in Dodie Smith's book, but with the difference that Mr. Skinner has a more strong and menacing personality, while Mr. de Vil was weak and totally dependent by Cruella's desires.

Near the end of the movie, we will see in a crescendo of more explicit references to animal abuse, this charming version of Cruella de Vill ordering Cruella De Vil to Mr. Skinner to kill the dogs, because she fells that the police's suspicion are mounting against her: “poison them,” says Cruella “drown them, bash them on the head. Got any chloroform? I don't care how you kill the little beasts, just do it, and do it now!”

(See here for references: X and X)

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In second relevant scene, Roger and Anita are out, walking the dogs, when Anita spots Cruella's car. In fact, as happen at the beginning the black and white 1974 Panther Deville is the first element we see in this scene and anticipate the entrance of Cruella. Recognizing the car, Anita runs to home and there she found Cruella. She welcomes in a very lovely way Anita in her own home, but she is very rude with Roger, who tries his best to be polite during the whole scene. Cruella then mocks Roger about his job (he is a videogame designer, a well paid job nowadays, but that in the 90s can just make snobbish people like Cruella turn up their noses, it's not the classical respectable professions “to make money”). Anita and Roger are just returned from their honeymoon and Creulla acts very nicely toward Anita, she says she missed her and their exchange of ideas, but she isn't happy when Roger announce they are going to have a baby, but Cruella remarks that “she has no use for children”, but she is very interested in Pongo and Perdi's puppies.

Unlike her cartoon version Cruella during the movie shows a lot of different, hiconic and fashionable outfits: at her visit at Anita and Roger's house, she wears a zebra coat dress with mink sleeves with matching Russian-inspired hat, red PVC boots that match with gloves in the same color and material (long fake red nails on each finger) and her red cigarette holder. Her dress also features a practical detail: a cigarette case paired with ammo cartridges as if they are military medals. The zebra stripes also give off the impression of bones or a rib cage for that extra goth vibe. Her lips are permanently stained the color of crimson, while her winged eyeliner adds to her high drama aesthetic.

Despite being set in contemporary London, everything about Cruella's closet defies a specific time period. It is as if she stepped in from the '60s of the original story combined with a century's worth of high fashion references. This is very logic: people have a lot of clothes and is natural for a very fashionable stylist to have and wear a lot of haute couture outfits.

Cruella: “And you must be Rufus.”

Roger: “No, it’s-- it’s Roger. And it’s a pleasure, Miss De Vil.”

Cruella: “What’s a pleasure?”

Roger: “Uh, making your acquaintance.”

Cruella: “Such a sweet thought. l wish l could reciprocate. Tell me, darling, you married him for his dog. Oh, darling, l’ve missed you so. l hate that you’ve taken leave.”

Anita: “But l’m still working. Um, you’ve been getting my sketches?”

Cruella: “Well, it’s not the same thing. l miss the interaction-- And what is it that you do… that allows you to support Anita in such… splendor?”

Roger: “l design video games.”

Cruella: “Video games? ls he having me on?”

Anita: “Oh, no, he’s very good at it. Um, and it’s a growing business.”

Cruella: “Those horrible noisy things that children play with on their televisions?Someone designs them? What a senseless thing to do with your life.”

Roger: “Oh, did Anita tell you the news? She’s going to have a baby.”

Cruella: “ls this true?”

Anita: “Yes.”

Cruella: “Oh, you poor thing! l’m so sorry.”

Anita: “We’re very excited about it, Cruella.”

Cruella: “You can’t be serious.”

Roger: “She is!”

Cruella: “Well, what can l say? Accidents will happen.”

Anita: “We’re having puppies, too!”

Cruella: “Puppies! You have been a busy boy. Well, l must say, that’s somewhat better news. l adore puppies! l’ll expect a decline in your work product.”

Anita: “Oh, l shouldn’t think so.”

Cruella: “Be sure to let me know when the blessed event occurs.”

Anita: “Oh, well, it won’t be for another eight months.”

Cruella: “The puppies, darling. l’ve no use for babies.”

Again here we have a remark of how horrible is Cruella as boss (she says to Anita she expect a decline in her work, and this would make her useless and less precious for Cruella's House) and as person: according to Disney people who doesn't like children are horrible and cruel, but there is a double meaning in Cruella's word: “Iʼve no use for babies” could mean both that she is not interested in maternity (that's perfectly legit, not all like children, are comfortable with them or just dream to have children someday) but also that she couldn't find any material use of babies, while for puppies we know she knows well how to use them: as material for a new fur coat.

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The next scene is a classical recall to the original Disney cartoon of 1961: it's a stormy night and during the lightning flash for a few frames only, we see Cruella as a complete silhouette while few second after she opens the door and enters in Anita and Roger's house, with a big menacing smile on her face.

Pattern clashing will not only stand, but it is also encouraged, as the tiger cape with a leopard lining reveals. Paired with a leather skirt and tiger bodice featuring claw clasps

Again there is the recurring joke about Cruella misnaming Roger (Rufus, Rupert, Roland), if it's intentional (and this version of Cruella doesn't seem to left anything casual) it's a clear remark about how she dislikes Roger, the guy that stole her best designer, if it's not intentional, shows how Cruella find him irrelevant for her purpose at the point she doesn't even bother to rember his name to flatter him. Cruella is not polite or kind to Roger as she is with Anita. She doesn't need Roger, she need Anita and hates Roger for turning down Anita's value for her interests.

In this scene Cruella uses the same words she uses in the 1961 version (“How marvelous. How marvelous! How perfect... Oh, the devil take it! They’re mongrels! No spots! No spots at all! What horrible little white rats!”), but with something new that shows her uncaring nature (“All right, put them in a bag. l’ll take them with me now.”) and again mocks Roger for his “strange” and not prestigious job, when he firstly deny her offer for the puppies (“Oh? You’ve come into some money, have you? Did you design some silly game… that will drive the delinquent kiddies into frenzies of video delight?”).

However, compared to her 1961 alter ego, this Anita is more assertive and talks for herself, saying a determinated “no” to Cruella. Anita also starts to be a bit suspicious about Cruella's intentions (“But, Cruella, what would you do with 15 puppies?”). Roger and Anita this time seems to be equally determinated to refuse Cruella's business proposals.

Cruella crescent rage is underlight by the sounds effects of thunderclaps and it is Anita who says the final “no”.

“All right, keep the little beasts. Do what you like with them. Drown them, for all l care! You’re a fool, Anita! l’ve no use for fools. You’re fired! You’re finished! You’ll never work in fashion again! l’m through with all of you! l’ll get even! Just wait! You’ll be sorry, you fools! You idiots!”

When Roger and Anita refused to sell the puppies, Cruella's rage exploded as happened in the cartoon version (she screams and insults Roger and Anita, she tears the check into a thousand pieces and throws them in Roger's face), but let's remeber she is Anita's boss now: she uses her power and fired Anita's too, now that Anita and Roger refused to Cruella what she want, Anita become immediately useless. In fact Cruella has yet the design for her new outfit, from Anita needed only the puppies and if she cannot obtain them with good manner, well, as happened in the cartoon version, she will steal them.

In the previous part we saw how in the 101 Dalmatians of 1961, the car was the alter ego of Cruella, well, in this 1996 live action, her personality and her obsession is channeled into her outfits. Before it all goes to hell for the fashion maven, her rotation of zebra, leopard, and tiger print reveal she wasn't bluffing when she exclaimed of her fur obsession.

The costumes as designed by three-time Oscar winner Anthony Powell (co-designed with Rosemary Burrows) take Cruella's love of all things animal print to the extreme, delivering jaw-dropping results.

Cruella's entire life is a performance supported by her wardrobe, makeup, and hair. Cruella increases the level of red (it's the outburst of her bloody determination to obtain what se want, it's her mad passion for furs that determinated her end) during the climax with her fur coat of choice, which will soon be ruined by some farm animals. That smell is going to be hard to get rid of, and there aren’t any dry cleaners in prison.

As we saw in the previous part, Cruella's change of luck is well rapresented by her ruined clothes: she is going to jail, her life and career are over, her clothes aren't perfect and fancy anymore.

This happens also in the 102 Dalmatians live action of 2000: red clothing anticipates Cruella's criminal climax, while her ruined clothes are the sign of her defeat.

Nearly at the end of the movie, when her plans are finally reveled, Cruella wears a very unique red “flames” dress: the bodice is organza and silk satin beaded, sequined with a beaded net collar. The skirt is silk satin and nylon net beaded and sequined, lines in ostrich feathers. The headdress is tiered flames made of mirror, metal and painted glass. While her attire during her final metch with the Dalmatian is a black dress with large shoulders that recall Balenciaga, a black lather waist belt and a Gothic necklace with rubies, pearls and diamonds. The fur coat is floor-length black and red, while her headdress is a little hat with black and red feathers.

(See here for references: X and X)

4 - Cruella in Once Upon A Time

More recent version of Cruella can be founded in the ABC TV show Once Upon A Time. I will not make a summary of the themes of the TV because it has a very complex plot and that is not relevant for our comparison. So, let's say only that is a show who feature the adventure of Emma Swan, Snow White (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Prince Charming (Josh Dallas)'s daughter, and her biological son Henry (who was adopted by Regina Mills, the Evil Queen, now mayor of Story Brook) to break the magic curse that turned Enchanted Forest to a modern day Maine town called Storybrook, in which live all the characters from the popular fairy tales we know from Disney adaptations, unaware of their true identities.

Cruella is introduced in Season 4. The evil Rumpelstinskin (Robert Carlyle) recruited her and some other evil lady to regain his Dark Lord magic powers and take his revenge on the people of Storybrook as well as his happy ending.

The first we saw Cruella is at her ungodly hour: she is divorcing from a guy called Mr. Feinberg, strongly in debt and FBI is repossessing her husband's belongings, including her fancy fur coats, her big mansion in Long Island, New York, and her other goods. (See here for references: X)

Cruella plays little importance in the plot, until the Author is released from the book; unable to kill him herself, she pretends to threaten Henry Mills's (Jared S. Gilmore) life to force Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and Regina/Evil Queen (Lana Parrilla) to do so. However, Emma confronts her, not knowing the restriction the Author placed on Cruella, and magically blasts her off a cliff to her death.

The actress chosed to play Cruella de Vil is Victoria Smurfit and her appearance recalls more the 1961 version than Glenn Close. She wears a black night gown with paillettes or little pearls, long red PVC gloves and a white fur coat, but drives her black and white 1974 Panther Deville. However, during the show she is seen also wearing leather black pants, red boots matching with her gloves and several different types of fur coats. Cruella's phone case has dalmatian spot patterns.

Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold snarkily remarks that he recognized Cruella's scent as “desperation and gin”, somewhat suggesting or implying that Cruella is an alcoholic of sorts. Cruella later confirms this, having blamed her misfortunes on “bad judgment and gin”.

Unlike her other version, this Cruella has some a very limited magic powers, and has only been known to accomplish a few specific spells. Her most remarkable power is the ability to control any animal, whether it be a Dalmatian or a Dragon. The green smoke that comes out of Cruella's mouth when she uses persuasion magic on animals is designed to reflect Cruella's green and yellow cigarette smoke in Disney's 101 Dalmatians.

Her other main power is a very limited telekinesis: Cruella is able to enchant her car to drive itself around.

In the 5 Season, after her death, Cruella ends up in the Underworld, a purgatory run by the deity Hades (Gregory Germann). She makes a deal with Hades, who offer her to rule Underworld in his absence and help trap the heroes there. Delighted with the idea of getting to torment souls for eternity, Cruella agrees to the deal. This makes even more evident the similarities with the goddess Hela from Norse Mythology, as both ruled the underworld and have half-black half-white hair.

However, the most important episode about Cruella is “Sympathy for the Devil”, in which we learn about her true story.

"Sympathy for the De Vil" Season 04, Episode 18

In 1920s England, a young and blonde Cruella De Vil (played by Milli Wilkinson as child and Victoria Smurfit as adult) is being mistreated by her mother Madeline (Anna Galvin) as she instructs her Dalmatians to chase her daughter, and is locked in the attic in the same setting that resembles the 1979 Gothic novel Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews. The room where Cruella is locked up is filled with her mother's dog statuettes and dog show trophies. Fast forward to several years later, and that a reporter, who is revealed to be the Author (Patrick Fischler) but is using an alias by the name of Isaac Heller, is paying a visit to the home pretending to seek out a story after having seen Cruella from the attic, only to have Madeline warning him to stay away. Isaac returns and helps Cruella escape from the attic. He then takes Cruella out for a date that includes dinner and dancing. Cruella reveals to Isaac that the reason she was kept in the attic was that she witnessed her mother kill her father and her succeeding husbands; Isaac then reveals to Cruella that he was more than just a reporter and has the ability to use his pen and ink to create magical stories. Isaac proposes that they run away together, and uses his quill and ink to give Cruella her persuasion powers to control animals.

(See here for references: X, X, X and X)

However, for Isaac, his future with Cruella would later take a unique twist that will put his future in danger. When Madeline pays a visit to see him, she tells him that Cruella had lied to him about what actually happened to her husbands: as child Cruella killed her own father, Madeline's first husband, by putting a poisonous flower in his tea. Cruella was a troubled child and her parents had hoped she would grow out of her disturbing behavior. But after Cruella murders her father, her mother fears that Cruella's murderous tendencies will get worse and will become a full fledged serial killer. Not wanting anyone else to get hurt or killed by Cruella and not wanting her daughter to go to prison, Madeline had no choice but to lock her Cruella away from the outside world and keep her close to try to snap Cruella out of her disturbed mind. However Madeline's intentions were in vain as Cruella ended up poisoning her next two husbands. Terrified that Isaac will set her daughter free and start killing more people, Madeline warns Issac to stay away from her, because she is dangerous and can not be saved, while Isaac doesn't believe her, Madeline tells Isaac that Cruella takes everything someone loves and destroys it and tells him to stay away from her or he will suffer the same fate as her two husbands and lose all he holds dear.

(See here for references: X)

When Madeline returns home, Cruella was ready for her, and eventually kills her mother by controlling her Dalmatians and commanding them to attack her.

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Afterwards, Isaac discovers that Cruella has stolen his pen, and goes back to her house to find out that Cruella used her ability to control animals to make her mother's pet Dalmatians turn against her and rip her to shreds, before Cruella herself slaughtered the Dalmatians and made a fur coat out of them.

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«Some people struggle not to be drawn into the darkness. But ever since I was a little girl, I've said... "Why not splash in and have fun?"», says Cruella to an astonished Isaac.

Horrified, Isaac makes a dash for the pen to stop her, but during a struggle the magic ink is spilled onto Cruella. She accidentally ingests some and the ink shows her true colors. As Cruella is about to kill him, Issac uses his powers as the Author to make it so that Cruella can never kill anyone ever again by writing it down on a piece of paper "Cruella De Vil can no longer take away the life of another." As he leaves, Cruella tells him she's not done.

Cruella kept this secret, as intimidation would still work for her needs.

This episode have a lot of Disney reference to the old 1961 version of 101 Dalmatians:

Madeline's car is similar in design and color to Cruella's car from One Hundred and One Dalmatians.

The song that Cruella hears on the radio is a jazz instrumental version of the song "Cruella De Vil", from One Hundred and One Dalmatians.

Ink spills on Cruella, just like Cruella spilled ink on Roger Radcliffe and Pongo in the movie. (One Hundred and One Dalmatians, 1961)

When Cruella uses persuasion magic, the magic comes out of her mouth in the form of green smoke, which is designed to reflect the green and yellow cigarette smoke that Cruella puffs in the movie. (One Hundred and One Dalmatians, 1961)

This 1920s version of Cruella de Vil we see in Once Upon a Time is inspired by Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Interestingly, in "Sympathy for the De Vil", Isaac can be seen reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby. While he is captive in Mr. Gold's cabin, Isaac reads F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. And largely recall what we already saw of Cruella's original version in the book by Dodie Smith: Cruella is a cruel serial killer. She is smart and manipulative, shows no empathy and emotions and uses people for her own needs. She uses Dalmatians as her own weapons to take her revenge on her mother: she turned her own dogs against her and finally removes the last obstacle to her own freedom. Is important to notice that Cruella slaughters and skins the Dalmatians to create a new dalmatian fur coat for her own, that wears victoriously under Isaac horrified eyes. The Dalmatian fur coat is her trophy. Killers like to take trophies and souvenirs from their victims. Keeping some memento — a lock of hair, jewelry, piece of clothing, newspaper clips of the crime — helps prolong, even nourish, their fantasy of the crime or to relive the crime over and over in their minds. Cruella at the end fully reveals herself as the serial killer she is.

When Cruella drinks accidentally Author's ink that transforms her hair black and white, is another reference to the novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith, in which is said that Cruella used to drink ink as a child. The dress Cruella is wearing at the jazz club is the dress Bérénice Bajo wears in the the famous 2011 comedy-drama film The Artist. Also the dancing scene between Cruella and Isaac recalls the one between Bérénice Bajo and Jean Dujardin, when play the role of actors Peppy Miller and George Valentin filming a ball scene for a mute movie.

Conclusion

As we saw, all the version of Cruella that were developed time by time, still share the characteristics of a sadic, cruel villaness.

Glenn Close version of Cruella doesn't care about animals' lifes, doesn't care about workers rights or other person's life projects. She uses creepy hanchmen to obtain what she wants, she steals and plot the death of even rare animals for their fur. She uses and manipulates people.

Victoria Smurfit's Cruella is a real serial killer. She is selfish, cunning, manipulative and the violence against animals is just a moment on her murderous revenge on her mother: she used Madeline's pretious dogs to kill her and then kept their skins as souvenir, as serial killers do.

There's no doubt that all those versions of Cruella are evil and Disney simply can not create any positive emotional connection with a woman who murders dogs. It's simply impossible to explain why Cruella hates dog in a way that can justify abuse toward animals. That is why this Cruella movie with Emma Stone is a huge mistake.

As conclusion, I will borrow again the words of composer Bill Lee from the 60s animated version of 101 Dalmatians to say what I think of trailer with Emma Stone as Cruella:

This vampire bat, this inhuman beast

The world was such a wholesome place until

She ought to be locked up and never released

Cruella, Cruella de Vil

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berlinini · 3 years

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"I think it’s a natural reflex to wonder why Louis isn’t getting the same recognition as Harry when they were bandmates" they are literally different people. Different music, different voice, different face, totally different appeal. I think this is something everyone has clear by now - Louis was, and is the 1d fandom favorite, but there's a world of people outside and Harry was always the favorite there, something many people here can't accept

Except.... no?

1) "but there's a world of people outside and Harry was always the favorite there". Outside where...? Sony's HQ? Harry only got mainstream with Fine Line and that's because the album/ Harry Styles™️ really got pushed. Different appeal? HS1 and FL being so different musically tells you that it's a question of marketing. And Harry has been so heavily marketed for his second album - HS1 definitely didn't do enough to get him recognition as a solo artist. He's only gotten "mainstream" with WS and you can tell a lot of work has been put into that.

So if by "the world of people outside" you mean Irving Azoff and how solo Harry was in the works long before the hiatus, OK. It was decided that Harry would win the 1D Hunger Games and that's not based on what the "general public" wanted. The general public probably disregarded them all as boybands who makes music for obsessive 14 years old girls. Literally any of the boys could have make it as big as Harry - they all got the looks and the talent. It's just the same old industry playbook that there's one successful solo artist that comes out of boybands. The only thing I think Harry had that maybe the others didn't - as they were surprised by the hiatus - is hunger for fame. He wants to be a celebrity, it's clear as day today.

2) Louis could have been marketed just like Harry has been. He was making pop/mainstream music at the start of his solo career. JHO BTY and Miss You had good streaming numbers and proper promo. And then... nothing? LT0 never saw the light. Walls promo and Fine Line promo overlapped. There was no proper promo for Walls.

Just compare Louis' situation with any of the 1D boys and it's just.. not normal? From how long it took to have Walls, to the lack of promo for the Away from Home Festival concert and stream.

3) "Different music, different voice, different face, totally different appeal." Louis still makes music that would play very well on the radio and could have gotten 1 or 2 summer singles, with Always You or Defenseless. Louis has a great voice. Louis has a great face and looks amazing in photoshoots. Different appeal... ok sure - so where's the promo for him to reach people who listen to britpop or "his type of music"? There is literally no effort made to market Louis as a serious solo artist. You said it yourself, Louis was a fans favourite in 1D. So we agree that he has the potential to be a beloved artist? So... what's going on?

Thinking that things just "happened" and Harry was simply "the world's favourite" - well it isn't that simple. May I refer you to this excellent scene in The Devil Wears Prada as a reminder that what is mainstream today is nothing organic - it's people in power making business choices, years before you see the "product". So no, who's getting a song about oral sex on the Billboard 10 (Harry) and who's not getting any type of recognition even though they have a huge, active fanbase (Louis) isn't simply based on them being "different people".

#answered ask #anon #harry styles #louie discourse (serious)#louis promo #the devil wears prada

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sleeplessandstubborn · 4 years

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Emily in Paris or why I stopped caring about the protagonist and I started rooting for the French. Episode 1.

Let’s be clear. I was planning to root for the French anyway. They are in the neighbouring country, I quite like them and I was prepared to confront and make fun about all the stereotypes in this series. Because this was exactly what I expected. Funny, lighthearted and totally braindead (wink wink) escapism in an instagrammed to the top Paris which has the same resemblance with the real one than Vincent Minelli’s... But without Gene Kelly. So what did I think of the first episode?

Meet Emily Cooper from Chicago. She’s young, she is dynamic, she struggles to be liked by everyone and at the beginning of the series. She is a marketing executive about to be promoted or so she thinks.

... Because her boss Madeline (played by Kate Walsh) is going to Paris in order to take work with Savoir, a luxury firm the company (sorry I forgot its name) has just adquired. Madeline is overjoyed because working for a year in Paris is one of her dreams and because French men like mature women, as probed by the fact that their young and hot (sic, but this blog agrees) president married his high school teacher. We’ll never know which plans Madeline had for Frenchmen, whether they are young or hot or not. The case is after two minutes in the series she vomits, which means she’s pregnant and she can’t go anywhere because it’s an truth universally aknowledged that pregnant women can’t go on with their plans.

It’s in the next scene when we meet Emily’s boyfriend, Doug, and when we learn she’s going to Paris in Madeline’s place, in spite of being unprepared and not knowing the language. At this point one wonders how it’s possible that no one else in the company can replace Madeline. All of them are monolingual? Our plucky heroine is not discouraged by the litle fact of knowing virtually nothing about the country in which she’s going to live during the next twelve months. She and Doug - the moment you see the scene you know it wont’ go well - agree on a long distance relationship.

And after a very well done transition, we have crossed the ocean. Yes, this is well done, and I say it unironically. Episodes are short, your show is called Emily in Paris, so, what’s better than having your main lady already in the French capital in less than five minutes. The series goes to the point in this aspect and it’s a good thing to spare us of unnecesary scenes.

So Emily arrives to her apartment with pretty views, confused about in which floor she’s supposed to live (running gag ahead) and already hit on by a French guy on a suit that looks like the love child of Gabriel Attal and Albert Rivera (check it, seriously). I couldn’t take him seriously not only because of that but also because he said that Emily’s appartment was a chambre de bonne. Not by any means. Look, I’ve never lived in Paris but I know that apartment is huge when compared with a real chambre de bonne.

Off to know her working place, Emily has this HUGE smile pasted on her face. I don’t know if this supposed to make her charming and likeable. For me - it’s true than I have this European perspective - she looks a mix between an anxious puppy and a psychopath. I would be scared and would avoid her at all costs. The cultural clash is about to happen.

Yeah, I would look at her too, Julien a.k.a. token black character. You have probably heard about the lack of diversity in this series, I won’t abound in that, others have worded it better. It also an established fact that French people smokes at their workplace, even if in the European Union we have these things called smoking bans that won’t allow it.

And enter Sylvie, Emily’s Parisian boss and supposed main antagonist, à la Devil wears Prada. What to say about Sylvie other than I adore her? Her clothes, her style, her sarcasm. As any rational being would do, Sylvie is pretty dismayed to learn that Emily does not have the slightest idea of French and its already wanting to impose her American perspective and her alleged knowledge of social media. The problem is I don’t know if her posts on Instagram really deserve that much attention. Clash ensues with the rest of her new coworkers. C’est la cata! they comment. I quite agree.

Our fish-out-of-water takes an evening afterwork stroll (this Paris is like one square kilometer and public transport is something you mention but never appears) and calls her boyfriend to state the entire city looks like Ratatouille, which legitimately made me laugh. I am not sure if this reference means that Emily’s filmic culture is that limited or if it’s her boyfriend the one who only knows a movie which takes place in Paris and that’s one is Ratatouille. We know that Emily at least has seen Moulin Rouge and that makes two so probably is Doug’s fault.

Back at home, and since she has forgotten how to count, Emily attempts to open the wrong door. Immediately a wild Frenchman appears; it’s Gabriel, played by Lucas Bravo probably one of these young hot men Madeline would target. He takes the intrusion reasonably well. Especially when it’s discovered that Emily only knows his region, Normandy, from Saving Private Ryan. That makes three films, so definitely I think Doug is the problem here as far as filmic culture goes.

Next day Emily picks a yellow outfit and goes to work, purchasing a pain au chocolat in her way to work. I confess I was underwhelmed when discovered that there wouldn’t be any joke about the Great Civil War that has been going on in France since its earliest days: the partidaries of pain au chocolat vs. the ones of chocolatine. A ferocious, merciless conflict unknown by most nations. A lost opportunity not making this woman someone from the South who bravely defies Parisian conventions calling it chocolatine. I’m team pain au chocolat btw. Naturally when she discovers the wonderful world of flavours she makes another Instagram post. She’s earning more and more followers, Heavens know why.

However, she has a Big Problem with Doing Research. Example given, she doesn’t know her schedule - a problem which could have been solved with reading numbers - and arrives two hours early to her workplace.

Once there she discovers she can’t sit with the cool kids. No one wants to lunch with her, so she decides to miserably sit by herself at the park, where we met her best new friend. Her name’s Mindy, she’s from Shangai and she’s working as au pair, while teaching Mandarin to the two blond children she’s looking after. We’ll later discover more about her. She instantly detects the American in Emily and offers her help to this awkward but at the same time arrogant newcomer.

Meanwhile at Savoir, Emily has earned a sobriquet. La Plouc, which is adopted by Sylvie and most of her coworkers even if Luc seems more or less reluctant to say it. La Plouc means the hick, as she instantly discovers thanks to an online translator. It’s really not a good day for our heroine, and she cames back home - remember that thing about this Paris being one square kilometer? - walking. Co-worker and someone who for some resason reminds me to the posh-y version of Philippe Poutou - check it - Luc passes by as she sits lonely by herself and apologizes for calling her la Plouc earlier. He also claims she’s arrogant for coming to Paris without speaking or even understanding French - which is true - and tells her people is probably scared as her new, modern ideas. Which makes no sense at all and it’s probably a white lie.

Meanwhile and for some reason her totally inocuous posts in Instagram makes her earn more and more followers. During the night, her oblivious to timezones boyfriend call her and they have - or attempt to have - a totally awkward and unsexy session of cybersex. At the end Emily is so frustrated that she tries to use her electric vibrator which leads to the short-circuit of the entire building. Fortunately before she has the oportunity of getting closer to the device in question. And that’s how Episode 1 ends.

What did I think? It’s fun and pretty to look at. Even prettier to rant about. As long as your brain remains carefully shut off in the meantime and you don’t take it that seriously you are going to enjoy it I guess. At least it’s my case.

Still frustrated for not covering the Great Civil War tho.

#emily in paris

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smimon · 3 years

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Does anyone know any movies/shows about the fashion industry? One day I’m going to write a story set in a fashion house and I’m looking for inspiration and potential shout-outs I could make. Preferably stuff that is pretty popular in at least one country so that the shout-out can be noticed. And it doesn’t have to be in English!

So far on my short list I have:

The Devil Wears Prada

Ugly Betty

Cruella

Top Model???

Actual informative media (documentaries etc.) on the topic are also welcome! They’ll be used for reference, but in this post I’m talking about the existing presence of the topic in popular culture - you know, I don’t want only to know what I’m writing about, but also how did others write about it before me... learn from their works and stuff...

Edit: thanks for suggestions! Adding:

Project Runway

Coco avant Chanel (2009)

Yves Saint Laurent (2014)

Phantom Thread (2017)

The Dressmaker (2015)

I am going to watch so many movies to write like two or three scenes haha that’s because I don’t know shit about fashion industry :V

#if anyone of you know something I'll be grateful for suggestions!#anonymous asks are on. just in case #edit: still accepting! if you remember anything in the next six months please send in

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researchblogrj · 3 years

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Styling in the Film

Baz Luhramnn’s Romeo and Juliet combines traditional Shakespearian language with modern aesthetics.

The costuming in Romeo and Juliet has become one the memorable aesthetics of all films.

The costuming specifically focused as ‘non dateable’, meaning that the clothing could not date the film and render it timeless.

A modern 90s aesthetic is combined with traditional religious/cultural imagery, with crosses shaved into the characters heads and hanging on chains on their necks.

The majority of the costuming influences come from the differences between the Montagues and the Capulets.

“The Capulets’ style is more decorative and the Montague kids are more utilitarian...The Capulets wear ornamental and expensive pieces of clothing, and bullet-proof vests have become required accessories...it’s a place where guns are the norm so life and clothing would have changed to adapt to that. The Capulets are more manicured and preening and wear clothes that are extremely well-cut and body conscious.”

— KYM BARRETT

An exhibition of the costuming in Romeo and Juliet is shown in the Ballroom scene, where Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time. The purity of the young lovers contrasting from the garish and viced guests is directly shown through their costuming.

Romeo and Juliet’s costuming are simple; with clean lines and pale/light colours.

The guests however are over-the-top and sinister, a mix of different elements and fabrics.

Each character’s costume directly represents their inner motives.

- Lady Capulet is dressed as Cleopatra; a reference to her possible infidelity and anxiety about her waning beauty.

- Lord Capulet wears a toga, referencing a roman emperor who is powerful and can do whatever he wants.

- Tybalt is dressed as the devil, accompanied by two skeletons, which I don’t think I need to explain, but it references Tybalt’s views and his future.

- Mercutio dressed in drag, showing that he’s not on any side of the feud.

- Romeo is dressed as a knight in shining armour, youthful and searching for his love.

- Juliet dressed as an angel, representing her beauty and purity, her innocence and naivety.

“The ballroom set was a way of contrasting the simplicity of Romeo and Juliet and their love to the harshness of the world that surrounds them- a world that is more concerned with appearances. It also makes it very clear that there is a reason they are together. They are both outsiders in the extraordinary over-the-top place.”

— KYM BARRETT

Kym Barrett’s costuming in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo & Juliet is a perfect example of how fashion can be used to deepen a character as well as add an unique aesthetic to the overall film. The idea of presenting a Shakespearian story in a modern context seems crazy and unachievable, but choosing unique clothing to match the incredibly unique storyline puts Luhrmann’s adaptation into both a homage to the original, as well as into a league of it’s own.

Character Styling

Capulet

Led by Tybalt are dressed in Dolce & Gabbana’s diffusion line; D&G. Dressed in black and streamlined garments create a sense of simplicity.

Their accessories are dripping in embellishment with hand-crafted belt buckles, shoes, gun holsters and jewellery show off a sense of opulence.

Styled in thick, quilted vests adding a decorative yet protective look.

They are a little more intense which can be seen from their super-serious black-and-red clothing.

Montague

They are far more laid-back and utilitarian.

Created by Prada, their open Hawaiian shirts, workwear pants/shorts and combat boots create a sense of uniqueness and shows the influence of the warm climate.

Spiked and bright pink hair adds another later of distinction, as well as referencing their childish and carefree behaviour.

Romeo

Romeo wears unbuttoned Hawaiian shirts and utilitarian clothing, he keeps a sense of simplicity to his look, opting not to dye his hair bright pink or spike it up like the other young members of the Montague family.

Juliet

Whilst the Capulet’s tend to choose black garments, Juliet gravitates towards lighter colours and flowing silhouettes.

The first time we meet Juliet, she’s got her head under water.

The first outfit we see her in is an angel costume—all white.

Juliet’s costume choice is a huge departure from the Capulets’ usual black garments, and a direct opposite to Tybalt himself at the party—since he dresses up as the devil.

Juliet's looks are subtle, simple, and down to earth.

In one scene in one scene when she's waiting for the Nurse to dish about Romeo, she's styled in just a white t-shirt and jeans.

- Caitlyn

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groupstylingmoviebrief · 3 years