#similar to the complicated history of barbie I suppose

[7central]

barbie spoiler

Ryan Gosling really tricked everyone with his promo circuit embodying Ken as a mindless trophy husband who just loves Barbie. kinda makes it disappointing when you watch the movie and he invents friendzone mentality and the patriarchy lol

[giffingthingsss]

Had a three-day weekend and saw all the movies. Well, three of them. 

Mission Impossible: Would be an A+ if not for a couple things. 

Indiana Jones: I can’t really think of anything that annoyed me about it, but I watched it after MI. A few similar set pieces and MI being a better experience overall make it good but not the best thing I saw. Not really fair, but hey. 

Barbie: It had its moments. The trailer was better. 

Elaboration with spoilers:

Mission Impossible was nearly impossible to beat. However, the Russians speaking English with Russian accents and too much exposition make it not perfect. Subtitle the opening scene and trim down the poetic audience hand-holding and you’ve got the perfect summer action movie experience.

Dial of Destiny was a nice ending for Indy, imho. And I thought Ford did a very good job with it. 

It could be annoying that it always has to be Nazis, but it was okay. And as plot convenient as it is that they wound up in the same era they had been talking about all movie long, it worked for me. 

Indy able to actually witness the history he loves. The tragedy of him feeling he has nothing tying him to the present. Me actually rooting for him to stay back there so he could have some morsel of happiness, only to thankfully have my mind changed by the ending. I just thought it was bittersweet and lovely. 

Barbie. Alas, I caved to tumblr hype and funny trailers. It was a mixed bag. I chuckled a few times. I think I would have liked it better if I watched it in my living room. 

I just have to ask: do people really think this deeply about dolls? Is that a thing? That’s really weird. Then again I never had a barbie. Maybe she’s what messes people up, idk. I had a water baby. It was squishy. I liked the squishy. 

My favorite part was the ending between Barbie and the woman who created her. I’ve always said that the people who sell beauty are just average-looking schlubs trying to put their kids through college. 

You’re supposed to look at a model on a magazine cover and go, ‘oooh. pretty. I will buy it and take it home so i can longer look at the pretty.’ Not ‘I’m not as pretty as that product. I hate myself now.’ 

Yeah, 90% of people aren’t that pretty. Including the people selling you the pretty. They just bait the hook with pretty so you’ll buy it. It pays for the rest of us ugly schlubs who write the articles, who photograph, who sort mail in the mail room. The pretty is a product; it’s a mcdonald’s cheeseburger, not the basis for your self-esteem. At least it shouldn’t be. For every gorgeous actor there are fifty overweight balding dudes holding lights on their face so they can pay their mortgage. 

I also like to look at the pretty. I like complication too. I like a story. I like an interesting face. More than one type of bait works on me. 

I did like the few lovely moments of Barbie connecting with real people, of embracing the beautiful mess of real life. Thought Margot did a great job. 

In conclusion: 

If you want to watch a bittersweet send off to a beloved character, watch Dial of Destiny. If you want to be entertained, watch Dead Reckoning. If you want to sort through a complicated mess of social and political talking points and write tumblr screeds about them, watch Barbie. 

[celinamarniss]

Visual depictions of women in the Thrawn Trilogy comics; or, how much I hate the effing catsuit

As you may have noticed, I bought digital copies of the Thrawn Trilogy comics, and reread the series (though honestly? I skimmed a lot. Most of Dark Force Rising). 

I HAVE NO REGRETS. 

The thing about the series that interested me the most was the art. There are three artistic teams across the series, each with a slightly different style. Here's the gang:

  I can't say enough good things about the background work the first artistic team does. Gorgeous planets, interesting interior design, fun page layouts. BUT. I have some of issues when it comes to the way the artist who drew the issue draws people. ESPECIALLY with their depictions of women. Get ready for my feminist killjoy rant on how comics are terrible. 

Let's start with Leia. 

Part I: PUT SOME DAMN CLOTHES ON LEIA.

Leia is one of our lead characters, obviously. And how she's depicted isn't all that bad, most of the time. In Heir she seems to be wearing some sort of black catsuit covered with a weird yellow vest, but she's more clothed than a lot of the other characters. But thennnn the comic will put her in situations in which she isn't wearing anything at all. 

Of course you had to manufacture a situation in which your female lead wouldn't be wearing any clothes. 

Then there's a whole scene where she runs around wearing only her underwear:  

This goes on for six pages. 

She INTERROGATES A PRISONER IN HER UNDERWEAR. There is no good reason this should be happening. 

WHY. COMICS WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS. 

It’s less of a problem in the following books, especially in The Last Command, where she wears a variety of formal and casual outfits, and doesn’t loose her clothes for no reason at all.  And then we come to our second female lead, Mara. Part II: THE EFFING CATSUIT

According to what I've heard from fandom, these comics are the first appearance of Mara's catsuit. I have no proof of that, but the catsuit is never described as what Mara's wearing at any point in the original novels (in fact, if described at all, she tends to wear long sleeves to cover her holdout blaster). 

I don't know who's to blame for that decision, if it was the artist's choice or someone on the creative team or at Lucasfilm. I wouldn't be shocked if it was the artist's decision, especially the lack of sleeves, considering the fact sleeves are pretty scarce in general: 

Space is cold! Don't these space people want to be cosy???

Like I said, I don't have proof that the sleeves catsuit originated here, but ...I would not be surprised. I am fully prepared to lay the blame on this anti-sleeve artist.

(side note: Luke looses his sleeves a LOT in these comics, and you could argue some level of objectification there, but not at the same degree as the women, and the context is different, anyway. 

Know who never looses his clothes at any point? Han Solo.)  

The first appearance of the catsuit: 

(she’s a charmer!)

It's not just what she's wearing. She's nearly always posed in ways that bring her boobs and butt to attention. 

She's literally reduced to tits and ass in this frame: 

I'm like ....really? REALLY?

The art team switches in Dark Force Rising and again in The Last Command, but the problem remains consistent. 

She's a barbie. 

Just...look. Breasts don't do that in a skintight suit, unless she's wearing a push-up bra underneath, and why would she do that???? 

We don’t see Karrde’s ass featured in every frame! 

She even assembles weaponry... without her clothes on. OH COME ON. 

There's the pose again. 

And yeah, I know, this is how women in comics look. That doesn't mean I want it in my Star Wars, or that I can't go into a frothing rage every once and while. I know I’m probably overreacting, but this is the image that’s defined Mara for so long, and I resent that.  First of all, the catsuit is meant to objectify and over-sexualize a female character. That's straight up what's going on here. Someone looked at this complicated female character who had a prominent role in the series and decided they needed to make her more palpable to male fans by making her "sexier." It's misogynistic. 

(yes, women can enjoy looking at other women in catsuits, but the machine behind star wars has always been more interested in catering to what they perceive the male fans want.)

I hate the catsuit so much. 

Not only does it objectify Mara, it drives me crazy how out-of-character the catsuit is. Mara was trained to operate from the shadows, and not to draw attention to herself. She blends in. A skintight catsuit is way too flashy, in a universe where skintight catsuits aren't the norm. It just doesn’t make sense for her character. 

Most of all, Mara’s practical, something a catsuit is not. How is she supposed to move in that thing? How does she hide her holdout? How does she pee? 

You know what's practical and pretty common in Star Wars? A flight suit! But that doesn't seem to be what they're going for here. 

A practical flight suit! With pockets! 

This is what I imagine Mara wearing a lot of the time, or the pants/shirt/jacket/boots outfit that a lot of the other characters in the movies wear. You know, to blend in! 

(I might buy an argument for her wearing a black jumpsuit when running secret missions, but not so much working as a smuggler on the Fringe!) 

That first appearance of the catsuit in the panels above? She's having a meeting with her boss. A business meeting in which she makes clear that she won't use her body as leverage to gain a promotion. She holds positions of authority throughout the books, and I can't help but suspect that that catsuit is undermining that authority (something Mara would never stand for!) 

The catsuit might be justified if Mara was the type of character to use her sexuality and physical appearance to get what she wants, but that's not something she ever does in the novels. (In contrast to Shada, for instance, who does use her physical appearance as a smokescreen). 

And the lack of sleeves just BUGS me. Mara's signature weapon is a holdout blaster that she hides up her sleeves. It's a plot point! GIVE HER SLEEVES. 

The catsuit isn't mentioned in her debut appearance in the Thrawn Trilogy, and isn't described in most of the books (it starts to show up in one or two books written long after it was established as her signature visual). 

Relatedly, Mara's figure is often compared to that of a dancer's, and if that's meant to evoke a ballet dancer, which I think it is, that's a very distinct body type that tends to be lean and muscular, and very much not voluptuous. Apparently the artists of the comics didn't get that memo. (Can we stop with the balloon boobs? please?) She's also usually depicted with her hair down, which also doesn't strike me as very sensible, especially going into a combat situation! 

Almost all art of Mara features the catsuit. It's all over the place, in official and fan art. When people google Mara, that's what they see. Occasionally, the suit is rendered in a way that isn't too objectifying, but there are some pretty egregious examples of the opposite. I won't post any examples; they're easy to find. Many of them are of her during her career the Emperor's Hand, when Mara was about 16-21. She was a teenager. 

Ew. 

Obviously, there's nothing I can do about the catsuit and the fact that it's permanently linked to Mara's image. I just try to keep it off my blog (I don't reblog images of Leia's slave outfit either, for the same reasons). I would love LOVE to see new art of Mara that didn't feature the catsuit. There are so many good artists doing fantastic new Star Wars art out there! Give my girl some love. PS. Club Jade has a similar article on the catsuit, with a little more detail on the catsuit's history and some discussion in the comments worth looking into.