What Ho, Wee Readers, and welcome to another rant… I mean well thought out think piece. If you’ve been here before, you should know how this goes by now – so let’s just sit back and enjoy the ride.
Speaking of ride, you know what book I’ve just finished…The Great Gatsby. I know those two things aren’t related but I had no segway into this part of the post, and I didn’t want to wait around and think of a proper one.
Anyway, getting back on topic ; The Great Gatsby is a book written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, first published in 1925. It is considered, I am told, as one of the great classics of American Literature. And held up in many an English course, as a master of the literary device. I will ruin what should have been the conclusion of my post, by stating here, that it is not a very good book.
Yes, shocking isn’t it – this great “masterpiece” is in actuality a boring, highly convoluted story of the death of a criminal. Full of boring, very shallowly written characters.
But please, let me explain before you raise your pitchforks.
Part the First: Pretty Pros, Do Not a Good Story Make
I’m not denying that in certain ways, the Great Gatsby is a very well written book. It’s pros after all are beautiful, having an almost hypnotic quality to them when listened to in audio form.
However I would ask my Wee readers to look past that, past the gentle rhythm of those phrases, to what they’re actually saying. What is the story of the Great Gatsby? Aplogies for any spoilers ahead.
Our Narrator Nick, moves into a small cottage right beside the mansion of the “mysterious” Jay Gatsby, who throws wild parties every single night. I mean he sounds like the worst kind of neighbor to me, but like I don’t think Nick seems to mind. He’s much too busy congratulating himself over his own “honesty” and “virtue” to really hear the din anyway. These partieas are apparently so wild that you can just turn up and you’ll be let in, no invitation needed. In fact most if not all the guest weren’t invited, only Nick, at his little cabin, recives an invitation.
I’m going to speed past this bit as quickly as I can, as that’s how bored I am now right now. So bear with me. Turns out Gatsby is in love with Nick’s cousin Daisy, who lives across the lake with her rich husband and child, and all the parties he’s thrown have been to catch her attention. Nick agrees to basically set up a date with the two of them, and they begin an affair.
But don’t worry, before you start to think that something morally questionable is going on , let me assure you, Daisy’s husband is a racist arsehole. Of course this is a book published in 1925, about elite American society, so basically all the characters are that. But it’s somehow supposed to be different with him.
He’s also having an affair with a mechanic’s wife, which is viewed as a bad thing he’s doing – which to be fair, it is – but it’s fine when Daisy does it apparently. Anyway a lot of confusing faffing around in each other’s cars later, Daisy accidentally runs over Tom’s mistress but because of some car swapping shinaggings, everyone thinks it’s Gatsby instead. So the mistress’s husband shoots him and most people don’t even bother to show up to his funeral.
And that’s it, stripped of all its pretty prose and liquistic tricks, that is the story of the great Gatsby. A sad, convoluted tale of a criminal’s pointless murder. Okay, I’ve throughly depressed myself, onto the next part.
Part the Second: The Green Light and the Literary Device
But wait, I hear you say – isn’t The Great Gatsby famous for its ingenious use of literary devices? The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, symbolically embodying Jay Gatsby’s undying love, desperation, and inability to fully achieve the American dream? Yes, I will give you that, it’s an ingenious use of a literarily device – for if we’re too busy staring into that startlingly green light, we don’t see anything it’s hiding. We don’t examine whether that love is more a reflection of Gatsby’s yearning for wealth and position than it is any real affection for Daisy. We don’t look at the depths that desperation has led him too, or how skewd this version of the American dream really is.
If we’re looking too hard into the light, into the deeper meaning behind it, and patting ourselves on the back for how clever we are for spotting it, we don’t see that the author has twisted himself up so hard trying to make Gatsby’s death a tragedy, that he’s accidentally made it a contrived aubserdity. Really it’s a work of genius on Fitzgerald’s part, it’s a pity he didn’t use any of that genius to write a better book in the first place.
Part the Third: The (2013) Adaptation, and it’s Genius
So if we were to look for a good adaptation of this book, this literary classic what we should really be looking for is not one that keeps strictly to every wobbly plot point of the original. No what we need is one that keeps to the spirit of the book. To the showmanship and illusion of the green light and the elegant pros of Fitzgerald’s masterpiece.
To me, ignorant pion that I am, that film will always be the 2013 adaption, staring Leonardo Decapreo. But wait I hear the snobs in the back of the room cry, isn’t that a bad adaption? Isn’t it too flashy and over stylised, saturated with modern music and a casting more concerned with big names than actually capability? Well, I can’t say you’re wrong on all accounts – though as for Gatsby I’d argue stunt casting or a big name of some kind was the only way to make the character work to a modern audience – that’s not my argument here. No my point is that like the book before it, this film uses it bright colours, it’s stylised editing, it’s banging soundtrack and let’s face it , it’s big named casting to hide that it’s still telling the same kind of bland, convoluted story of a man getting killed because he was in the wrong car at the wrong time, that the book left behind.
I mean it works, arguably even better than the book’s tricks – I really enjoyed this film. The song “Young and Beutiful” makes Gatsby’s and Daisy’s affair seem deep and meaningful, even though honestly it’s anything but on either side.
Though if you’re still determined to watch a more honest interpretation of The Great Gatsby, might I recommend The Family Guy Adaption?
So that’s my take on The Great Gatsby, a strange and convoluted story, ending in a strange and covulted death. Hidden under layers of tricks and bright green lights. But maybe you saw more to it than I did, if so tell me down below in the comments – it’s why I have them in the first place.
If you’ve enjoyed this trashing of an American classic, why not follow the Wee Blog if you haven’t already. And check me out on Twitter, Instagram, Mastodon, Pinterest, Tumblr,TikTok,Facebook and Kofi. Also remember to sign up for the Wee Mailing List before April 5th for my first feelings on three great works of literature. Until next time, Wee Readers, keep safe and have a very Bonny day.
What Ho Wee Readers, and welcome to another addition of The Wee Archive, this time in Star Wars flavour. Remember to sign up to the Wee Mailing List, to receive stuff like this all the sooner.
The Royal Election – or the Stupidest Criticism of the Prequel Trilogy that has or will ever exist in this world.
The Star Wars Prequel Trilogy gets a lot of flak from the wider pop culture lexicon, doesn’t it? For a long while a hatred of the three film fall of Anakin Skywalker was assumed as the default, by people both in and out of the fandom. And while they have received a bit of a boost in popularity since the sequel Trilogy came out and showed us all what an actual bad Star Wars trilogy looks like, it would be difficult to say that that hatred just up and vanished into nothing. Everything from the comedic side character of Jar Jar Binks to the heavier focus on political intrigue, has been criticised and made fun of.
And honestly, I can’t fault that…not because I agree with it, I don’t. But if someone did find the political talk too complicated to understand, or found Jar Jar Binks kind of humour grating, that would certainly spoil a lot of the films for you. Same goes for the acting, the direction or even the CGI. If that bothered someone, then yes that would make the prequel films, bad Star Wars films for that person. I may think that person is wrong, but their logic is sound. If it bothered you, then that criticism is at least partly valid.
But you know what criticism never is?
Queen Amidala was elected, that’s so unrealistic.
I’m seen this thrown around a lot on the internet, both as a ‘legitimate criticism’ and as throwaway line and it always really annoyed me. Especially because when fans of the prequel fire back in its defense, it’s almost always with the same retour; that some countries do elect their monarchy.
Because here’s the truth of the matter…we’re talking about Star Wars here. The franchise that is set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…why are we trying to match them to our one planet society at all? Oh, royalty isn’t supposed to be elected in your world view, random person on the internet…you do realise you’re watching a space opera, right? I mean these are films set in the world where entire planets are treated more like countries – or states if you’re American – and artificial intelligence is somehow so widespread that it’s become boring and mundane. .
This has been something that has really bothered me for years, but I always figured it was something people said when they ran out of anything else to gripe about the prequels. Like, yeah you may think the CGI is obnoxious but apparently so did everybody else on the internet, and it’s really not interesting anymore. So, the would-be critic looks around and spots another little flaw that perhaps hasn’t been talked about quite as much. And there, we have a brand-new thing to whine about. Which would be…well…not fine…but at least I could follow the logic. No one wants their voice to be lost in the crowd. But here’s the thing, it’s the response from the prequel fans, that same response done time and time again, that threw me. Because if you’re arguing against a completely nit-picky critique that doesn’t actually say anything about the film’s quality, why is your response to nit-pick right back. Why does it matter if some people on earth elect their monarchy? Star Wars isn’t set on earth, why engage with that kind critique at all? And then a horrible thought accrued to me, a horrible depressing thought. It’s not about critiquing or defending Star Wars at all. It’s about making ourselves look smarter than the other side.
As I said at the start of this now that I’m looking back quite bitter sounding rant, it was a popular thing to bash the Prequel trilogy. In a sense it made you look like you were smarter than others. Jar Jar Binks was too low brow for these critiques, and the forced love plot point was silly. Okay, I’ve kind known there was a bit of self-congratulating about hating the prequels for a few years now, so no surprise there. But then we have the flip side of the argument, and honestly, I can’t say that fans of the prequels are any less guilty of this intellectual posturing. Yeah, even me when I was much younger – it’s fun to think that the people that whine about the politics in the prequel films, just weren’t smart enough to understand it, but honestly the truth is that it’s just not true. Whether you liked something or not is not a mark of your intelligence, it’s not even really a mark of your morality – it’s just a random fact.
Thus, what can we conclude? Well, maybe there will always be people that hate the prequel trilogy – we may think they’re wrong but that doesn’t automatically make them stupid. And vice versa, just because someone loves the prequels doesn’t make them an idiot or a nostalgia obsessed baby. Thus perhaps, just perhaps, we should stop trying to trip each other up with nit-picks that say nothing about the series we’re watching at all. And finally, if there really is someone out there that found the fact that a space opera had a minor different political system to what is considered normal on earth, so awful that it ruined the film for them…maybe they shouldn’t be watching Star Wars.
What Ho Wee Readers, I hope you’ve all been keeping optimistic in these troubling times of ours. I know it’s difficult, and with any hope there’s not a World War been declared by the time you’re finally reading these words – but still, I think it’s wise advice to live by. Let’s try and be optimistic, reality doesn’t need to factor into the equation. And if there was ever a shinning beacon of optimism for the future, it’s Star Trek – or at least the original show. To be honest I’ve never watched Next Generation, and the later shows were too busy poking holes in that initial optimistic federation, for much of their own optimism to sneak in. Not that that’s bad thing on a story level, it’s actually quite interesting – and something I’d quite like to get into later – but there was something so hopeful about the Original Trek, that none of those later shows could quite capture.
Just the idea that humanity has not only finally managed to put aside its differences – and grow beyond its prejudices – and has come together to reach for the stars, is a very nice thought. Especially with people so dived as they are now. And not only have we managed to reach and travel through the stars, but we find that we are not alone in the universe. There are others out there, different perhaps, alien, but intelligent and friendly. People that we can work with to build an even great galactic civilisation, a federation if you will.
And this, Wee Readers, is where we come to my favorite character in all of Trek: they call him Mister Spock. He is an alien – or at least mostly. While he does have a human mother, for the most part his role in the narrative is to expresses the alien view of the federation. Sure, there might be other alien characters that the crew meet along their journey, but in regards to the main cast Spock is pretty much the only alien on the ship. In fact, scratch that, he is the only alien on the ship period – something that’s once again pretty much unique to the original series of Trek in particular. That is while the other shows feature and focused on a predominantly human cast as well, they often will have more than a single non-human entity in the main cast. Even Discovery had other alien crew members in bit parts – I’m assuming, I lost interest half way through season one.
And I think there’s a reason for this, that is why the original serious would choose to focus on a crew of a ship that is predominantly human in origin – despite the federation actually being made up of many species. And it’s more than just the affects and make up budgets – although I’m certain that was a contributing factor. No when you watch through the series in rapid successes – as I am doing now – you begin to pick up on a theme that I never realised was there before. The theme of humanity, what makes us what we are – and if we were to go into space, live inside spaceships how much of our humanity might we lose?
This is why – to an extent – when it comes to talk about non-human members of the federation and beyond, they’re more focused on how they reflect back against humanity. How does the Vulcan culture, which values logic and suppression of emotion – not lack of them, suppression of emotion – hold up against raw human gut instinct, and embrace of our emotions. Often, at least in the first series of the original show – it does not. Not I feel because the creators were arguing against logic and rational based reasoning, but because in its heart, Star Trek is a show about Humans traveling through space. And thus, the question, of what makes a human a human, or what makes us worthy to travel through the stars is infinitely more important to the narrative, than what makes a Vulcan worthy. Thus – again at least in season one – Spock is there to add opposition to the purely human advice of Dr. Mccoy to Kirk, and perhaps to acknowledge – at least passively – that there are aliens that we can call our close allies.
I would like to reiterate that this is not a bad thing – humans after all, are Star Teck’s primary and only demographic thus far. However, while I can acknowledge the reason why such decisions were made, and even their narrative strength, their existence implies some uncomfortable realities of the show’s universe.
For instance: while narratively the reason why McCoy is constantly challenging, and dismissing Spock’s Vulcan logic – and by extension heritage – is because his purpose in many of the episodes is to argue for the power of humanity, and emotionality – let’s take a look at his actions ‘in universe’. He loudly, and repeatedly, chides his superior officer – often stepping into actually insulting him – based on said officer’s different cultural background. He is insubordinate, and undermining of Spock whenever the Vulcan is in command, and strangely enough for a doctor working in space, very hostile to Spock’s alien biology. Now, you might say that that last one is just McCoy’s frustration on not being able to treat his patient as well as he could, if he were purely human. And while I could fire back that McCoy is a Starfleet Doctor, he should be at least partly used to treating non-human patients without throwing a hissy fit each time, I would never insult you like that. Besides, either way – what we are left with is a man whose actions make him seem hostile to one of the founding species of the Federation. A man, who most troubling of all, is never reprimanded for said actions.
It’s always either tied up with a joke at the end, often about how Spock is too stubborn to admit he has feelings (specifically emphasised human feelings) – or never mentioned at all. As a dangling plot thread, it annoys me to no end; but as micro-example of how the Federation – and in particular Starfleet – treats its non-human members, it’s actually kind of disturbing. In the first live-action series of Star Trek Spock seems to be the only non-human citizen of the federation on board of Starfleet’s flag Star ship – and he better get used to be treated like shit even by his subordinates, if he wants to remain there.
I know, I know even I can see I’m being a bit harsh with that last statement – after all, Kirk respects Spock. In fact, they’re so close that not only did they give birth to the Slash fanfiction genre, but Gene Rodenberry created a whole new word for their relationship. Personally, I think it would have been simpler just to admit that they were a bit gay for each other, but it was the sixties so maybe the world just wasn’t ready yet.
But let’s jump forward about a hundred years or so to the new era of Star Trek. For while I haven’t really watched The Next Generation yet – and hence I won’t really be talking about it here – I have watched large chunks of Voyager and the beginning of DS9 – before I got bored of that particular show and wandered off. All of which has left me with the ability to comfortably say that humanity – as presented in the nineties star trek shows – was kind of insufferable. I mean we get it, earth is a paradise, and you’ve advance so fast from the war hungering savages you once were, that it impresses all the good aliens. And the only ones who talk smack about you are either jerks, fascists or Ferengi. We get it, that’s the truth as it is presented in the show – hope for our collective future yadda, yadda, yadda – but honesty I’m on the Ferengi’s side here, that’s really annoying to sit through. It also, from a purely narrative perspective, gives the federation characters – i.e., the mostly human or heavily human aligned and codded characters – excuse to treat those who don’t align perfectly with human emotionality and current ‘ethical and economic’ standards (if you’ll pardon the language again) like shit.
Whether you’re a logical Vulcan, a driven ferengi, or an honorable warrior of the Klingons – if your people don’t align perfectly with the federation on everything from the way you dress (onesies for everyone please), to the way you express yourself (never through violence and every time we feel an emotion, we’re going to loudly proclaim it even if it’s a horribly inappropriate time). Get ready to be talked down to by a species that only mastered space travel in the last few hundred years, like you’re a toddler in a strop.
Now honestly, even as I say all this, I don’t really think the federation is meant to be set up like this – as I said before it’s a natural outcome of one species making shows, or indeed any form of entertainment about another. We might see a similar outcome even if we stay close to home – has anyone casually used the term Neanderthal to mean stupid or violent lately? Yes, I thought so. Indeed, if we look at the case of the Neanderthal, and other variations of the human species, we might even discover the source of this constant quest for validation in the sci-fi writer.
After all, why was it us that survived?
Why was it homo-sapiens that went on to win the supremacy of the species, and populate the planet with our ilk?
Are we such a violent species, that we butchered everyone else?
Or are we just that innately superior? Our brains more developed and highly skilled in some way. Maybe it was because we could talk and they couldn’t. (Not true, but go off I guess). Maybe we could dream and they couldn’t – as there are no living Neanderthals (that I know of) we’ll probably never have a clear answer beyond what we can guess at their remains. But regardless on where you lie on that debate, one thing is clear amongst these theories – there has to be a reason why.
It couldn’t just be by chance, or luck. There has to be a measurable reason why we’re still here, and they aren’t.
We’re homo sapiens.
And in one form or other, we are exceptional.
Thus, when a writer, or a producer, or an actor looks up to the stars and decides to create a piece of fiction in which we are no longer the only (perceived) sentient form of life – they must contend with this question also. There has to be a reason Humanity is worthy to go amongst the stars, to exist in a world where we are not the only form of dominant life. Surely even amongst species that have had space faring technology centuries before us, we are unique, we are interesting and worthy of fascination from beings beyond our wildest dreams.
Because in the end the most terrifying question, isn’t are we alone in the universe; it’s if we aren’t alone in the universe, what makes us so special then? Because, and here’s the true driving force of all this clumsiness in the writing of the federation – what if we’re not? What if we’re just one species amongst a thousand more, and not even a particularly advanced one. What if, we don’t matter a great deal at all in the wider scope of things?
And that, dear reader, is a terrifying thought.
If you’ve enjoyed this little delve into existential dreams, and horrible questions plaguing my mind each night why not follow the Wee Blog if you haven’t already? Also check out my Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Tumblr, and Goodreads. And sign up for the Wee Mailing List by April 30th to find out my top five fictional aliens. Also why not pop through to my Kofi page and buy me a wee cup of coffee. Until next time Wee Readers, stay safe, stay sane, and have a very bonny day.
What How Wee Readers – well I hope you all had a good holiday time in december – and for all our sakes let’s hope 2022, is slightly less depressing than 2021. Yet there are still bright days in even the darkest times, and I have to admit something quite exciting happened to me. I’ve finally, I have a new job! While this is undoubtedly a good thing, because it’s a housekeeping job it’s very physically hard work, and because I’m high functioning autistic – I also find it very emotionally draining too.
Which for the sake of this post means that after work, I usually collapse on my sofa and binge watch my current favorite Netflix show: Jane the Virgin. Jane the Virgin is a very loose adaption of the Venezuelan telenovela Juana la Virgin; that premiered on the CW network in 2014 and finally reached the end of its five season long run, on July 31st 2019. The series tells the story of devout catholic Jane Villanueva, who has promised her grandmother that she will stay a virgin until she gets married. A prospect that doesn’t look that far away when it looks like her long-time boyfriend – Michael Cordero Jr – is set to propose. However, things start going wrong when during a routine smear test – Jane gets accidently artificially inseminated.
And things only get stranger from there.
Who is Michael?
Michael is introduced to us as a hardworking, and cunning detective – who loves Jane with all the power of his still beating heart. His purpose in the story is to be one point of the love triangle between Jane, Rafael and himself. #TeamMicheal for life, if you couldn’t tell – not uncommon plot point even outside of the Romance drama. Can anyone say, Hunger Games – pour some out for my hommies on #TeamGale, we can’t win them all.
While Rafael represents new and exciting love in Jane’s life – being the father of her artificially conceived baby – Michael is the old and the familiar. The love that has stayed true, long before the plot got involved. And part of the conflict for the story is which kind of love will Jane choose – the flashy new kind, or the old and true.
Ultimately Michael is a person of two sides – he is a brave man who could have well been the hero of his own story. And he is an inconvenient man, who could well have been the villain of Rafael’s story. But ultimately, he is neither because in the end this is not Michael’s story, or Rafael’s story, it’s Jane’s story.
Thus, to truly understand Michael as a character we must examine his role in Jane’s story, and how he ultimately subverts it. And what is his role you might ask?
The disposable fiancé
To best illustrate exactly what the Disposable Fiancé is as a trope, I would like you to think back to one of those terrible Christmas films you saw over the holiday. Don’t look at me like that, we all see at least one, don’t lie to yourself. Okay you’ve got the film in your head, good. Now unless the film is very specific, you’ll probably going to come across some surprising similarities between each of their plots.
First, you’ll have a woman who thinks she’s satisfied with her city life, complete with city long-term boyfriend/ fiancé. But then suddenly, inciting incident happens and she has to pick up and move/ stay temporarily in a sweet, innocent, village out in the country. Something that I can tell you for a fact, is not true, the village I used to live in was not innocent or wholesome at all. Anyway, where was I, oh yes – where finally she meets the one true love. Who sometimes is a lot nicer than the original fiancé, but most of the time is only better because he visualizes a superior way of life.
The strangeness here is not really that so many films follow the same formula over and over again, it’s Netflix, that’s basically all they do now. It’s not even notable that the choice between a person’s social life is encapsulated in their love interests – I mean that’s basically every piece of fiction ever. No, what I find notable is the wrong path is illustrated by such a long-term relationship.
My point, if this life is wrong for her and she’s so easily going to throw it away – why make them engaged at all?
Could it be high-lightening how we as a society are always looking over the hedge at what we don’t have – to fill that aching void inside ourselves? Could be, we are a capitalist society after all. Or could it be that to establish the strength of the writer’s preferred couple, the heroine’s romantic-false lead has to be a big enough threat to the course of true love. And we can’t have him be that, by being a caring and loving partner – after all, then we might feel bad that he’s being emotionally cheated on.
Or perhaps there’s no reason at all.
Regardless of the reason why ,through this example we have established some basic facts, and common traits of our Disposable fiancé.
He’s established a long-term relationship with the heroine before the start of the story.
He often engages in morally dubious actions – to establish that we’re not supposed to be rooting for him as the end goal love interest.
He’s often encapsulates the kind of world (and or mind set) our heroine needs to escape and or grow out of.
When the main couple does get together, the fact that this man has to have his heart broken so that our lovebirds can have their happy ending – is treated like a good thing, if it’s mentioned at all.
Before the events of the story, the heroine believes she’s happy with him.
Ways in which Jane the Virgin stays true to the disposable fiancé trope
An already established relationship with the female lead – yep, Michael proposes to Jane in the very first episode, and if the plot hadn’t already gotten started, she would defiantly have said yes.
Morally dubious actions – Though a good man deep down and where it matters, Michael does engage in some shifty behavior at the start of the show. Including but not limited to, bribing Petra to break off her affair with Roman so Jane will give the baby to her; and conducting an illegal search of Rafael’s (the rival to Jane’s heart) secret safe, without a warrant.
Heroine is (or at least believes she’s) happy before the story – yes, Jane is very happy with Michael before the plot.
Ultimately though what segments Michael as at least in part a disposable fiancé, is that he and Jane are not endgame for the series. So, in the narrative sense no matter how far the story goes to relay Michael’s worthiness as a character, he will always be disposable. And that’s a sad thought for any character.
Ways in which it subverts the disposable fiancé trope
Encapsulates the kind of life that the Heroine doesn’t need – No, there’s no hints that what Michael and Jane want at the beginning of the series – marriage, kids, a happy and stable family life – ever diverge.
His heartbreak is treated as joke at best, or a triumph of the hero at worst – No, whenever Jane and Michael break it off, both parties’ feelings on the matter are treated with the kind of seriousness that such things deserve.
However, the neat list aside, I belive that what really subverts this ‘disposable finance’ trope in Jane the Virgin, is the fact that Michael stays in the story far longer than your average disposable boyfriend/fiancé should. He’s there throughout the story doing his detective work, or reminding Jane of their time together. Often not deliberately just by still continuing to exist in the story.
Which is ultimately one of the strengths of not only Michael as a character but Jane the Virgin as a whole – it goes beyond the ‘main’ couple getting together. Of course, there’s nothing wrong, per say, with a story ending there. But by going past that point – past the first break up of Jane and Michael. Where Jane realises Michael’s being lying to her about Petra’s affair, and just can’t trust him anymore. Past the point where she tearfully gives him his ring back; and even past the point when that same night she madly kisses Rafael, and gets together with him. By going past that point, the show highlights that often the main weakness of the ‘disposable fiancé’ trope is not actually the fiancé himself. Counterintuitive as that sounds. Sure, in a lot of the more badly written Netflix /Hallmark films he is a card-carrying scumbag with no greater depth to his character than a speed bump. But to be honest, fixing his character won’t fix the story. You can make him the nicest guy on the planet if you want, or at least make him feel like a real person. But either way something in the story will feel hollow and that’s because the fault lies not in the character himself but the role he represents.
For if such a long term, well-established relationship is nothing but disposable, then the love that is replacing it must be something truly transcendent. And that’s a lot to put on any relationship, let alone one that’s so often in its infancy. While I have watched some films that try to answer this by illustrating the superiority of the new love interest – often on a moral ground – to the old one, sometimes they don’t even try that much. Relying instead on how terrible the ‘disposable fiancé’ was/is to establish the final romantic choice of the heroine as the right one.
By going past this point – where the main couple get together – Jane the Virgin establishes the weakness in the premise that new is automatically better. As because they are such a new relationship, Jane and Rafael don’t really know each other at this point. By no accounts a strange phenomenon; but because the circumstances around their connection are so unusual, with possible hints that they are destined to be – this causes both parties to rush into a deeper commitment than was strictly healthy for their fledgeling relationship. With Rafael even trying to by-pass the early stages and skip straight to marriage before either party is really ready for it.
While (Spoiler) Jane and Rafael do end up being endgame, because the narrative doesn’t take that shortcut of having all their relationship conflict be from an external source – i.e., a disposable fiancé – their relationship is allowed to grow and mature at a more natural rate. Thus it feels in some ways much more real.
So, in conclusion, Michael is great and if Jane and Rafael want to be together – that’s fine, he doesn’t need them.
If you’ve enjoyed this weird ramble of mine, don’t forget to follow the Wee Writing Blog if you haven’t already and check me out on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Tumblr and Goodreads for all that good stuff. Also sign up for the Wee Mailing List before February the 28th to find out the five best looking men on Jane the Virgin and why. Until next time Wee Readers, stay safe and have a very bonny day.
What ho Wee Readers, I hope you are all as well as can be hoped for in this desperate time of ours. For me myself, I’ve beaten the deep apathy I developed for finishing a book during the lockdown – and am well on my way to completing my GoodReads Reading Challenge. Please do not check if that is true, until at least a week after you’ve read this post, come on at least give me a chance to back up my lies with some facts.
Joking aside, my recent renewed interest in reading is why I’ve chosen this topic for my Post today. I have just – just being a relative term of course – finished a book called Serenity Found: More Unauthorized Essays on Joss Whedon’s Firefly Universe, which is a book of essays regarding the (at time of the book’s release), ‘recent’ film Serenity, and the show Firefly of which it was a sequel to. Now, before we get into anything deeper, I’d just like to say that I love the show Firefly. I think it’s a brilliantly written thing, with a cast of funny and likable characters. Really the only actual problem I can see with the show, and by extension the film itself is the lack of diversity in both the main cast and the background players. And when I say lack of diversity, I don’t actually mean that they’re all just white people – although let’s be honest in a Joss Whedon run project, that would not have been surprising – there are people of colour in the main cast. Rather, that seeing as it is set in a world where America and China have combined to become one giant space faring society – and part of the show’s world flavor comes from the interaction of Chinese and America culture – it’s strange that there are no Chinese members of the cast.
And it’s even weirded that the narrative doesn’t comment on it at all – in this Chinese inspired world, where are all the Chinese people? Something to think on certainly, but not why we’re here today. No, why we’re here today is the book called Serenity Found: More Unauthorized Essays on Joss Whedon’s Firefly Universe. Which is a very good book, full of essays that are insightful, and filled with interesting points of view on this fascinating world. Unfortunately, we’re not going to talk about that today, no instead we’re going to zero in on one small problem I found both in this book and its predecessor.
Namely, well…
If I asked you to tell me what you liked about something, say a particular work of fiction, or what you thought made it such a fascinating story – how would you answer that question? Would you tell me about your favourite character, how you were drawn to them? Would you tell me about the dialogue, and the general writing of the story? Might you even tell me about the themes, and what you thought the message of the tale was? All good things, that if I asked that question, I clearly want to know your oppion on. But you know what I don’t want to hear…
“Well, unlike [entirely different piece of fiction that in no way relates to the one I ask about] …”
Basically, if I buy a book of essays about ‘Firefly’ or its film ‘Serenity’; then I clearly want to hear the authors oppion on those two works of fiction – what I did not pay for, were the authors oppions on Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate SG1, or any of the other dozen or so shows they whined about. Now don’t get me wrong I love Star Wars, see my previous posts on the subject if you don’t belive me:
I love Star Trek – the majority of their shows, anyway.
And I have no strong oppion on Stargate SG1 whatsoever.
They just weren’t why I bought that book.
Now all these essays were written by intelligent people, who had clearly thought out and carefully structured their argument to the full height of effectiveness. And yet time, and time again we get paragraph after paragraph explaining why Firefly is good, not simply because it is a well written piece of art – but because it is better than other pieces of art. In a sense we cannot truly see (or at least discuss) Firefly’s brilliance, without first illustrating why everything else is stupid.
We cannot speak about its strong female characters, and how great it is that they are allowed to be both strong and feminine, without first delving into why Stargate SG1 did not do this.
We cannot speak about the cleverness of the character’s banter, and Firefly’s humour – without first asserting that ‘Star Wars’ has no humour whatsoever. (A fact that was not true in the 1970s, and is still not true now).
We cannot speak about the depth of the characters, and the skill that must have gone into writing them – without first clarifying characters on Star Trek mount to little nothing but their job title. And if you think differently than clearly, you’ve just been tricked by a good actor.
Is this starting to sound annoying, or repetitive – good because that’s how I felt reading it. Now, I know what some of you might be thinking – Wee Lassie, aren’t you over reacting? Sure, it’s annoying for an essay to go out of its way to insult more than one of your favourite franchises, but aren’t they just discussing the market? Showing the reader where ‘Firefly’ and ‘Serenity’ stands in the great tapestry of Science Fiction? What, in a sense makes it stand out? And while I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily wrong – it felt more than that reading it.
It felt like Firefly couldn’t just be a good show, worth watching – it had to be better than everything else. Otherwise, it was nothing at all.
It felt like they weren’t just critiquing bits of other Science Fiction – but tearing them down, so Firefly could be built up in their stead.
Sure, in most ‘social worlds’ competition can be healthy – even in the market of Science Fiction. But my question is, at what point are we taking it too far? At what point are we competing not because we want to grow and succeed as people, or creators, or what not – but because we simply have no other way to communicate? At what point is it no longer enough for something to simply be good in of itself to be worth something?
And this attitude is evident in not just Science Fiction communities – but our wider culture as well. Think of any piece of popular culture, media, or online discussion that tries to be ‘feminist’ by implying that woman are innately better than men. Usually because men are depicted as stupid, or simple, or lazy, or just not as good as the fabulous women in the show/film/ anecdote. Don’t look at me like that, we’ve all seen something like this at least once in our lives.
But this I would like to point out is not actual feminism, because real feminism is about lifting people up to be on an even keel with each other; not tearing them down. There’s another word for that, but it’s not feminism. This notion – that to be a proper feminist property your female characters have to be superior in every way to their male counterparts – is an innately sexist one, really on both sides of the supposed gender wars. On the male side, it shows young boys that they don’t have the right to be respected, even if they’re good people. While on the female side, it heaps untold pressure onto young girls – to not only succeed in the specific way our culture deems appropriate, but to outcompete their male co-workers. It is no longer enough to be a strong and successful woman, now they have to be stronger and more successful than men (their competitors) – otherwise they haven’t accomplished anything at all.
And there’s that same notion again – the notion that if there are no losers in this game of life, how can there ever be winners?
This is not an indictment of competition in of itself – sometimes it is good to push ourselves to strive to the standards of others in our field. Rather it’s the indictment of the filter of competition, or the language of it. That is when the only way our society can express approval of a work of art, a political movement, a real living human being, is through putting down someone or something else. Has our world view become just a little skewed? Do we really have no other way of viewing or describing our world, but by these kill or be killed standards?
But what do you think? Am I blowing this all out of proportion? Part of me hopes I am – but I’ve seen people go ballistic with the Star Wars vs. Star Trek debate, so I don’t really think so. Let me know down in the comments, its why I have them in the first place.
If you’ve enjoyed this wee rant of mine – much shorter than usual, but that’s not always a bad thing – why not follow the Wee Blog if you haven’t already. Also check me out on Twitter,Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest and Goodreads for all that good stuff. And don’t forget to sign up to the Wee Mailing list by the 21st of December for a special Christmas-themed addition of the Newsletter. Until next time Wee Readers, stay safe, stay strong and a have a very bonny day.
Okay, hold your loved ones tight Wee Readers, it’s time for anecdote. When my grandmother was a little girl she went to a posh girl’s school, because of her high IQ. But it’s important to note that though she was not posh, at all back then, many of her classmates were. In fact, they were the posh of the posh, they were the upper-class. The kind of people that take their children on fox hunts.
Now sometimes when these posh of the posh girls would come back from their summer holidays, it would be noticed that they had dried blood behind their ears, or sometimes still smeared across their faces. My god, I hear you saying, what had happened to these poor children during their summer holidays? Aha, say I – but I’ve already given you the answer already. You see, when a young person – and we are talking young here, these were children – participates in their first fox hunt, when the fox is caught its blood is smeared over the child’s face and worst of all, if you can belive it, they’re not allowed to wash it off. It has to be left to dry and flake off by itself.
A disgusting, foul smelling thing that no longer feels like it should belong in our modern world – speaking of which….
Let’s talk about Downton Abbey.
For those lucky few not in the know, Downtown Abbey was a historical drama set just after the sinking of the titanic, written by Julian Fellows, that ran from 2010 to 2015, and later received a follow up film in 2019, with a sequel planned for 2022. The series started off with a strong first season, with good dialogue and intriguing plot twists ripped right from real stories of the time, but gradually declined in quality. Season two while not the worst the series would ever produce, was mainly pulled along by the natural intrigue of WWI, and seasons three-six coasted on soap-opera like shockers, when they weren’t just repeating their own stories over and over again. I think even fans of the show would agree, that this was not a well written series.
But what I find sad is that it didn’t really have to be, as I said before the first season was actually decent up to a point, and even the later seasons had glimmers of something. Story threads that could have gone somewhere, characters that were occasionally likable. The setting at least should have provided it with many interesting turns for the story. But nothing ever came of it; and I always wondered why, and then I watched the film and suddenly everything was so bright and clear. Oh, not because it was a good film, or in the least entertaining, it’s not, it’s trash from start to finish – in fact in some ways it’s actually much worse than the tv show; because as a film the expectations for it are automatically much higher. You were given a film to play with Julian Fellows, kindly please do something with it other than meander around for two hours. I mean the closest thing we got to a main story, was the servant subplot where they kidnapped the visiting royal staff so they could serve the King and Queen instead. This is not what I wanted from the writer of Lady Sybil’s death scene.
No what made everything so much clearer to me is because the writing was so bad, any form of subtlety with the underlying message of Downton, in a sense the reason the whole phenomena was started, had been dropped. And what is that message you might ask, well my dear wee reader, it’s the warm feeling of nostalgia you might have looking back on a happy time in your childhood, or in fact any time before this whole Covid mess began. But Downton doesn’t want you feeling that way about things that actually matter to your life; no Downton has its priorities right – it wants you feeling that way about the past, sure, but the distant past. The past where the upper class ruled benignly over counties, that really needed them to survive. Where Masters and servants coexisted in a wonderful symbiotic relationship, and were basically family.
Of course, such a time never existed but that won’t stop Downton from spinning its enchanted tale of the place. Weren’t things just so much better? The poor happier and more content – the decent ones anyway – and the rich finally allowed to show just how regal and elegant they could be?
Don’t you wish you could live back then? That today’s world could be more like that?
And now we’ve found the trap.
Everything in Downton, every plot thread, every character you may love or hate is used for this purpose. Don’t belive me, let’s take a look.
Lady Mary
I think even fans of Lady Mary can admit that she was a bit of a b word, she was intentionally written that way so that when she met the middle-class heir, and her ice queen tendencies would begin to unthaw, we could see the real, feeling person hidden underneath. Or at least I assume that was the intention, honestly to me the happier Mary grew with her situation the less her actress seemed to care about her performance. But regardless I’m getting off track.
The point of Mary as a character is to highlight how the rich suffer, nothing less and nothing more. That is not to say that as a woman in the early 20th century Mary does not suffer – indeed the main plot of the show is kicked off by the fact that due to a specific law in Britain at the time, Mary as a woman cannot inherit either her father’s estate or her mother’s inheritance. But when we look at her life through the lens of the time in which she lived, rather than are own, we might discover that Mary’s troubles are not in fact the great hardships, or soap opera-esc drama the narrative encourages us to see them as.
Yes, in comparison with some women today, Mary has significantly less rights and power in her situation – but she is still the eldest (and favored) daughter of the earl of Grantham. She lives a luxurious life waited on by an entire army of servants. I know all this by fact, and yet when I re-watched season one I felt genuine pity for Lady Mary, nay a genuine desire to see her succeed and obtain Downton Abbey for her own. And then I had to stop and think… why? What actually made Mary more deserving of Downton and all its wealth, than Mathew or any other inbred twit that came to claim it?
Because she’s an Earl’s daughter?
Because she’s a woman?
That can’t be it, if real feminism has taught us anything it’s that a person’s worth, or their abilities cannot truly be judged by their gender. And yet through the cunning manipulation of the basic form of feminism – i.e., woman is kept from something that she would have automatically received had she been born with a Y chromosome – Fellows manages to make the audience root for a character who is at their very core, a terrible human being.
Which is the point, the Crawleys shouldn’t have to change to win the plebian audience’s approval, the audience must change their mind.
But then again, she’s not by far the most manipulatively written character of this kind on the show. For instance, I can legitimately say that she’s a terrible person and probably not get much push back down in the comments. Which is in slight contrast to our next piece on the board.
Lady Edith
Like her sister before her Lady Edith is the embodiment of the plight of the wealthy, or at least the wealthy young woman. While there are some ‘feminist’ leanings to her character, like her running a magazine, and her journalist carrier – for the most part Fellows gains the audience sympathy, not by leaning into any outer social justice cause, but just by shitting on her. From the first moment she appears on screen, in actual mourning for her dead cousin – Lady Edith is treated like garbage by almost every member of her family, with only Lady Sybil showing any sympathy. Which is its own problem, but I’ll get into that later.
She’s left at the alter by her elderly fiancé, conceives a child out of wedlock and is forced to hide it, and has her long awaited happily ever after yanked away not one episode from the final by her spiteful sister, Mary. Who then goes onto have her own literal fairy-tale wedding in the very next episode – I know, I know I shouldn’t be getting hung up on that, but it’s just so annoying.
The trick here is that unlike Mary, her suffering is not merely seen by the audience’s modern perspective – Edith is suffering no matter what value system you subscribe to. It sucks that she can’t come right out and say this is my daughter, it sucks that she’s left at the altar, it sucks that her family talks about her like she’s a hideously deformed beast, despite the fact that by most people’s standards she’s still very pretty.
So, it’s very easy and very understandable to feel pity for Edith Crawley, and yet we mustn’t forget as the show clearly wants us to, that Edith’s troubles are not the height of tragedy the post WWI world had to offer. Indeed, that’s true even on the show itself. Yes, it sucks that she had to hide her daughter but unlike say someone like Housemaid Ethel, she gets to keep her child – after some chicanery with the Drewe farm.
And speaking of the Drewe Family, can we just stop for a second, and speak about how absolutely terribly they were treated by the Crawleys and Edith in particular. They take in this child, raise it like their own for the first – I don’t know how time works on Downton, people don’t age normally, but let’s say – year of their life, with the wife completely ignorant of any connection the child might have to the Crawleys of Downton Abbey. All the while Lady Edith seems to have taken a random liking to the girl, and keeps popping in, gradually eroding more and more of the Drewe Family’s privacy. Eventually it all comes out, and the little orphan girl turns out to be Lady Edith’s love child; so, when she’s snatched away by her birth mother, not only do the Drew’s have no legal claim to this child that they have loved and cared for her entire life, but after an unfortunate incident where Mrs. Drewe tries to take the baby back, now they’ve even lost their farm, and their livelihood.
I suppose it just goes to show, that just because Lady Edith’s own suffering is genuine, doesn’t mean she’s not capable of inflicting it on others.
It’s so bad that even Robert Crawley, high lord of all of the Downton world, has to comment on how badly the poor Drewes have been treated. I mean he does nothing to fix it, but he gets to mention it, thus making him seem somewhat more reasonable than the women in his family. Speaking of which…
Robert
When you think of Downtown Abbey and Creator’s pets – that is a character who the writer clearly adores, but the audience (or at least the majority of them) cannot stand – you may think casually of Lady Mary. Who is allowed to continue being a bitch throughout the majority of the show. But I would like to draw your eye to an individual even more deserving of such a title…one, Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham.
Robert is a spoilt autocrat, content in his power and his place in the world as it was – this is how season 1, with its superior writing, tricks us into liking him. Of course, Robert seems more reasonable than his stuck-up daughters, his thoughtless wife, and his (wonderfully) bitchy mother, he’s getting his way. And it is only in season three and four, when his mistakes, and character flaws become more relevant to the main story, in which the audience is finally allowed to see Robert for who he has always been. A spoilt little boy, playing at being the great lord of the castle. He is the kind of man so focused on showering his new heir and surrogate son with praise that he doesn’t even realise that he’s reduced his daughter to tears. He’s the kind of lord who will kiss his widowed maid, in a sense forcing her to resign and loose her position. He’s the kind of creature so focused on being right, and looking like the great lord, that he will ignore the advice of a trusted physician just because he’s not fashionable.
But wait I hear you say, Wee Lassie, in season three and four he’s punished for his mistakes. He loses his daughter; he loses half the power to run his own estate. And to that I say look closer, yes, on the surface he does seem to be punished for his mistakes, and his crimes, but when you really think about it, he suffers much less than he really should. He lost his wife’s fortune in bad, nay stupid investments, and when he’s saved by Mathew’s inheritance; he expects things to go back to the way they were before. So, when Mathew proposes making Downton self-sustaining, this comes as a shock and he throws a fit, several fits in fact. Still, Mathew and later Tom and Mary are persistent and Downton is saved. If we were in the realm of reality, Downton would not have been saved, there would be no last-minute inheritance from Mathew’s dead fiancé’s dead father (yes, it’s as melodramatic and daft as it sounds), and Robert would have to live with the consequences of his action.
But we’re not in reality anymore, we’ve stepped through the door to the Downton Zone, where everything and everyone bends just a little to accommodate Robert Crawley’s wishes. Still don’t belive me? Think back to Lady Sybil’s death; caused undeniably by Robert and that fancy Doctor ignoring the signs of pre-eclampsia in Sybil. A fact that he’s called out on by his wife in the end of the episode, and it almost ruins their marriage. Until of course Maggie Smith steps in and forces the local doctor – who had caught the signs but had been ignored – to lie and tell Robert and Cora there really was no hope. The world bends around him, so that Robert doesn’t have to bear that guilt anymore. But my point is, if Robert’s actions are to actually mean something, then he has to bear the guilt of them. He has to bear, until his own dying day; the fact that he killed his daughter.
But that would never happen, not to Robert Crawley, Earl of Grantham.
Not to Julien Fellows’ aristocratic hero of the upper-class.
Please, consequences are for the poor.
Which leads us to…
Tom
Tom Branson, oh poor Tom Branson. It’s clear when he first appeared on our screens all the way back in 2010 that he was always intended as the love interest for Lady Sybil. Which is why when Fellows came back with season two, the lack of focus on the relationship, or at least the pre relationship between the socialist chauffer and the spirited youngest daughter of the earl of Grantham, seemed so strange. But looking back on it now, with the film fresh in my mind, it no longer does.
An actual in-depth romance would have to actually acknowledge the class discrepancies between the pair. Perhaps even confront Sybil’s unchallenged assumptions and prejudices; a process that would last longer than a single scene, and effect the rest of both the characters’ lives. But fuck that, clearly, it’s much more important to give that screen time over to the imprisoned Bates, despite the fact that he is doing absolutely nothing interesting at all. And I am thoroughly convinced that Bates got that screen time because, unlike early Branson, not only upholds the status quo that keeps the Crawley’s on top, he revels in it.
The fact that this clearly already planned Romance was shoved into the end of season two reveals Tom Branson’s second role in the narrative, and one that Fellows clearly finds way more important than his brief stint as Lady Sybil’s husband. That is, Tome Branson the reformed Marxist. That is much more than he is a love interest, Tom Branson is the character set to have his political beliefs proven misguided, torn down, and rebuilt in a way that the writer finds much more agreeable. If this were a more leftist – or at the very least neutrally written – show this role would probably have been filled by one of the Crawley Sisters, but then again that’s not Downton. Now I’m not saying that Marxism and socialism don’t have their flaws, they do, just like every other political belief system on earth. But when you have your socialist character go off to America sometime in season five, I think – and come back claiming that the fair treatment of the American Worker has left him with a better feeling towards Capitalism as a whole, it’s clear that you’re not going to get a nuanced critique of socialism in this show.
And speaking of non-nuanced characters…
Lady Sybil
I’m going to say something controversial here – so I’d just like to remind the reader that I don’t actually hate lady Sybil, there’s nothing there to hate, and that’s the problem. Because lady Sybil, or at least how she is presented in the show, is insidious
Okay put down those pitchforks, let me explain myself. What do you think of when you picture Lady Sybil as a character? No, not her death or the fact that she ran away with the chauffer – those are things she did. I’m talking about her innate character, who she was as a person – that’s right, she was nice and cared for the less fortunate. Certainly not bad traits to have as a character by any account, but it’s interesting to note that unlike her sisters – who began the story as Bitch one and Bitch two – Sybil doesn’t have anywhere to go from there. She remains nice and concerned for the less fortunate right up until the day she died, but those two attributes were never expanded upon.
And what’s strange is if they had been, then Sybil could have been one of the most interesting characters on the show. In fact, the beginning of season two even looks like it’s going that way – with Sybil unfulfilled in her life and deciding to train to be a nurse. But the fact is, we never see that training – she just goes off one day to her nurse school, and the next time we see her, boom she’s a nurse and working with Doctor Clarkson. Imagine for a moment a version of Downton Abbey that let us see that transition, that showed us Lady Sybil’s struggles with the hard manual labor that was now required of her, or her difficulties relating to the other nursing students because of the differences in their class. Imation a Lady Sybil that grows from this, that realises that her privileged upbringing has not only left her unfulfilled, but woefully ignorant of the suffering others.
I don’t know, maybe it’s just the socialist in me, but wouldn’t that be a much more interesting story line, then oh no she ran away with the Chauffer.
And speaking of the Chauffer, as I mentioned in Branson’s own segment wouldn’t it have been much more interesting to show actual romance blooming between them – rather than just the claims of love from Branson’s side, and then suddenly after the war is over, they decide to elope. That’s not a story that’s an afterthought. But then again, falling in love and conducting a secret romance with a man who was not only of a lower social standing than her, but her actual servant, would require Sybil to show that she needed growth as a character. Closest we come to is a brief scene when Sybil shows how ignorant she is to what the British Government have put the Irish through, with the truly atrocious line of:
‘I know we weren’t our best in Ireland.’
Which could have been interesting, but again we never follow up on it so nothing really happens. And Sybil can remain just good, no need of a noticeable change in her demeaner, no need to face hard truths of her world. Just nice Sybil, who was a good person, who everybody loved and wasn’t it so sad that she died.
Now I know what you’re thinking, sure Wee Lassie, that sounds like a kind of dull character but where does the insidious part come in? Well, think of it, Wee Reader, think of a character who wasn’t just been born into wealth but the kind of upper-class near royalty elite that derived their power from the continuous degradation of the lower classes. Now think of that character, true they are innately kind, but even an innately kind person raised in that world would take on some uncomfortable beliefs. And yet we’re never really shown that in Lady Sybil, she’s not even mildly unpleasant, which is really kind of weird, especially when you consider how her sisters first started.
But then again as with most creative decisions we can trace this back to the underlining message that governs all of Downton Abbey. That is, that the system of the elites ruling and lording over all is not inherently broken and based on a warped sense of superiority. No, the system itself isn’t broken, it’s just that the good elites are no longer in charge. Perhaps Lady Sybil herself would find this idea abominable, but that’s the story her character helps to preserve. The fair elite, the kind Millionaire, the good king – all fictions, all completely unable to be true in the system in which they were created.
Well, I hear you say, that was certainly an impassioned argument against the dangers of inborn power structures, and British nostalgia for them – but that little story at the beginning about the girls with their faces painted with blood…what was that? And how did it have anything to do with the rest of the post? And I say – why thank you, I was hoping someone would bring that back up again. That story was to help with a little trick I use when watching these kinds of shows. Because Downton is certainly not alone in its nostalgia for this kind of world, it’s just one of the most obvious because it’s so badly written. Particularly by the time the film came out.
But other shows with a similar thesis can often sneak under the radar, with deceptive tricks like better writing, deeper characters, and actual plot. Think of shows like The Crown: which on the surface is showing some of the darker more messier elements of the royal family – my favourite episode is the one when old Uncle David is shown to be a Nazi sympathiser – but at its deepest core, it’s arguing that the Royal Family are not only still relevant, but needed, in British society.
Which in 2021, is not true – they don’t even really rule us anymore, not officially anyway, which to my mind is kind of the only point to royalty. I mean they’re a mode of Governance, if they no longer Govern then why are they still here?
But regardless, it would be the height of hypocrisy for me to tell people to just not watch shows like the Crown – I even get the appeal of Downton Abbey, Maggie Smith is a blast, and the soap opera storylines do pull you in. But the fact still remains that they have terrible messages about the way the world should be run – and thus I recommend that the next time you find yourself watching one of these shows, for whatever reason, remember that odds are likely these people have gone fox hunting some time in their life. Which if you will recall means that they’ve not only had their faces painted in blood, but left it on long enough for it to dry and flake off.
I’m not saying do it all of the time, just some – and you’ll find suddenly they don’t seem so regal anymore.
It’s just a thought.
If you’ve enjoyed this long-winded rant on the deeply broken basis for Western society masquerading as a rant about a terrible period drama, why not follow the wee blog if you haven’t already. Also check me out on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook, and Goodreads. Also don’t forget to click the button down below to support this blog on Kofi. And remember to sign up for the Wee Mailing list before November 12th to find out the 12 video essays I found the most fascinating/distracting during this terrible time on earth. I usually try to have the mailing list posts have something connecting them to the main blog post they’re advertised on, but I was just so sick of Downton Abbey by the time I finished this article, that I just couldn’t anymore. So enjoy this list instead. Until next time Wee Readers stay safe, stay vigilant and have a very bonny day.
What Ho Wee Readers, for anyone who subscribes to my Wee Mailing List, you will remember that come last update I talked about the various shows that I binged watch during this apocalypse, we’re all currently living through. And if you remember well, one of those shows was the Buffy spin-off, Angel staring David Boreanaz as the titular hero.
For anyone not in the know, Angel ran from 1999-2004 and centered round Buffy Summers’ former flame: Angel, most notable for being a vampire with a soul. It was originally envisioned as a kind of supernatural detective show, being more focused on case-by-case episodes and less on overarching soap-opera-esc storylines that had become Buffy’s bread and butter by that point. And for, roughly a season and a half it did that – and I’d say it did it really well. For while Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a show confined to its allegories – confusing as they became in season six – Angel could let itself be more flexible with the monsters and ideas it wanted to try out. Girl who electrocutes people, sure go ahead! Psychic demon who can read your destiny when you sing Karaoke? Hell, why not make him a recurring character.
Of course, anyone even remotely familiar with it will know that this notion of Angel as a case-by-case show didn’t last very long. And by around let’s say half-way through season 2, with the resurrection of (spoilers!!) Angel’s sire Darla, the show’s plot very quickly became just as soap-operay if not more so as Buffy before it. And I’m not even saying that as a bad thing, a lot of these plots were really interesting and unique – my personal favorite is the mystical pregnancy storyline in season 3 (the show did have several over the course of its five season long run, but this was by far the best). I’m just trying to give you a clear idea on what the show was and what it became: a paranormal detective show, to a supernatural soap-opera to, whatever they were trying to do with season 5. But throughout all that change the one constant in the show remains the focus on Angel; just like it’s parent show, while all the characters are given some form of development and plotlines of their own, ultimately, it’s our title hero that keeps the main share of the focus.
And that’s fine, in fact given the ever-shifting nature of both these shows, having the focus on a main central character is probably a good grounding factor. That being said if I did have one complaint it’s that, and I realised this at the beginning of season 4, I actually find Angel really annoying as a character.
I know, I know liking characters is completely objective, and it’s not like Buffy Summers doesn’t have her share of people that find her annoying – I’ve never been one of them, but I do acknowledge their existence. And me finding Angel annoying (at least in the later seasons) really shouldn’t be enough of a topic to make a whole blogpost about. After all I found Cordelia unlikable and annoying right up to the end of season 3, when the last shot of her actual character was shown, and I’m not going to rant about that for over a thousand words. And yet what I found interesting about this revolution is when it happened: Angel is describing what he believes makes a champion.
Angel: Nothing in the world is the way it ought to be. It’s harsh, and cruel. But that’s why there’s us – champions. Doesn’t matter where we come from, what we’ve done or suffered, or even if we make difference. We live as though the world is as it should be, to show it what it can be. You’re not a part of that yet. I hope you will be.
As the main character, and a main character that is heavily favored by the writers to come out on top in any moral argument (except for season 5 for some strange reason, he was arguably doing a lot better than previous seasons) – Angel’s views on what makes a champion a champion holds a lot more wait then the other supporting cast. And come season four Angel’s definition of a champion is someone who lives morally, regardless of whether he succeeds at actually helping people. The methods matter more than the outcome.
It’s an interesting take on the concept of a champion, and strangely one that seems at least partially opposed to the definition that was laid out in Angel’s very first episode by the character of Doyle. Namely that a champion is someone who helps the helpless. And that was it, no disqualifiers, no strangely specific moral hoops, just be of use to people that need you. Under this definition absolutely anyone could be a champion, and you didn’t necessarily have to kick vampire butt to do it. We can see this in characters like Anne (a character who started in Buffy, but who comes back in Angel) who runs a home for homeless teens. She is literally helping the helpless, thus by Doyle’s definition of the word she is a champion even though we never see her handle a stake once. It’s also notable that in her first episode we’re shown her grappling with a presumably morally dubious action, of accepting money for her children’s home even though it comes from Wolfram & Heart (the main bad guy of the series). While the episode does give a sort of work around, where she can get the money and not take it from Wolfram & Hart (Angel steals it for her) it’s interesting that the money still ends up splatted in blood (it’s a long story) that she quite literally has to wipe off. But in the end, she takes it because that ill-gotten money will do more for her kids, then her clean conscious ever could.
I’m not saying that being a completely morally upstanding person, who doesn’t compromise on their principles should be in anyway excluded from someone who saves innocents (particularly in fiction). I’m a big fan of characters like Captain America in that regard (both Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson). And if that had been how Angel had started off characterizing what it means to be a champion, that would be fine, but it didn’t and that’s what strange.
But I know what you’re thinking right about now; Wee Lassie, this has all been very well written and clearly well thought out, but why does it matter? So, the show Angel plays fast and loose with some of the dictionary, it’s not like the enjoyment of the entire show was predicated on it. And I’ll follow you to that peer, no there are large sections of Angel that are not ruined at all by this, fun characters, good episodes all throughout even the shakiest of seasons. You could in fact go several episodes in a row where this flip flopping on meaning bears no ill effect on the likability of their stories at all. But then, you go back and try and binge watch all five seasons and cracks begin to show.
The idea of being a champion, or at least of Angel being a champion is baked into the very core of the show. In much the same way that Buffy being a Slayer was baked into the very core of her show. In fact, as Angel goes on it seems that the word is used as the show’s version of a slayer, thematically speaking. But the difference is ‘a slayer’ was created by Joss Whedon and his merry team of writers to be its own specific thing. And a specific thing that is very well explained in the show itself. However, a Champion by contrast is not only a pre-existing concept, but it’s one that with its flip flopping on meaning, the show makes accidentally nebulous. It’s fine to tell us Angel is a champion, or so and so was a champion, but when the show’s own narrative can’t seem to keep the meaning of the word consistent, how are we supposed to interrupt that? Do they mean Angel helps, the helpless? Or that he is entirely good and virtuous? Perhaps it only means that he intends to do good? And as such when characters state with utter certainty that he is a champion or he is the real the champion, it comes off as false. Or at the very least, as a character not speaking as themselves but rather as a puppet for the writers to shill their pet.
So, I think the only question that remains is why change the definition at all? Well to answer that I could just tell you the conclusion I’ve come to, but I’d think it would be far more entertaining for the both of us, to show you instead.
So cast your eyes below, as I review several of the characters (both hero and antagonist) and see by the strictures of both definitions of the word, if they are champions.
Holtz
One of the most successful, non-superpowered vampire hunters in the Buffyverse. After Angel raped and killed his wife, snapped his infant son’s neck, and turned his daughter into a vampire, Holtz spent the rest of his life seeking vengeance. Ending in him making a deal with a demon, showing up in the 21st century and making all sorts of trouble for the main characters.
Definition 1: Helps the Helpless
Yes, both before Angelus destroys his family and afterwards. Even at his most antagonistic Holts helps the helpless because he’s still killing Vampires. In one of his first scenes with his acolyte Justine he kills a vampire right in front of her; we’re meant to take this as a dark reflection of a slayer and watcher relationship. Holtz is manipulating her, and yet I’ve never been able to get all the people; the people that had he been allowed to continue living, that vampire would have murdered, out of my head. The action may have been done for less than pure reasons, and yet it is still helping the helpless.
Judges say:
A Champion
Definition 2: Lives an entirely Moral Life
Before Angelus kills his family, it’s impossible to say for sure but given everything we’re shown of his family’s deaths, it seems likely that he did live an entirely good, moral life. Between their deaths and him making a pact with that demon, while he is consumed with vengeance, it seems likely he still lived a virtuous life beyond that. After the demon, no, his every waking breath is dedicated to vengeance on Angel; leading an idolised virtuous life is not a priority at all.
Judges Say:
No Longer a Champion
Gunn
A good man, and a truly skilled Vampire Hunter whose been hunting the nasty things since he was twelve.
Definition 1: Helps the Helpless
Like most of the Angel investigation team, Gunn is a difficult one to pin down in this regard. When he first arrives on the scene, he is defending his neighbourhood from a nest of vampires, and putting himself in considerable danger to do so. So that seems pretty cut and dry, and yet when he joins the AI team officially in season two things become a little murkier. They all ‘help the helpless’ but much like the rest of the AI team, Gunn becomes much too reliant on Cordelia’s visions to tell him where he should help, and therefore when she is not there to give them, he does nothing. That’s not even me being unkind, that’s stated in the show itself. And then there’s season three and four’s whole debacle but I’ll get into that more later.
And then we have Season 5, which I was very complementary to in my last newsletter – but then again that was before I saw the disastrous end of it all and realised, they had absolutely no idea where they were going with it at all. But regardless, Charles Gunn has one of the more interesting storylines, with him fully embracing the power the AI team now wields as the leaders of Wolfram & Heart. With that kind of money, they can do more than just save individual victims from the things that go bump in the night. They can help with the aftermath, set up funds and homes for children that lost their parents to vampires; and really start to make a change in how the fight against evil is won. In other words help the helpless at the most fundamental level.
Judges say:
Season 2 – Champion
Season 3-4 – Not a Champion
Season 5 – A Champion, though of a different kind than before.
Definition 2: Lives an entirely Moral Life
Well, that’s the hard thing about this definition, because it’s so vague it’s difficult to attribute it to anyone. If it means living life by your own moral standards, then we could say that baring a brief time in season 4 Gunn is a champion throughout Angel. Even in season five before (spoilers) Fred’s death. The same could be said if it means living a moral life as seen by wider society, since in season 2 he is protecting his neighborhood and helping out at a homeless center; while in season 3-4 he’s still fighting the good fight, just getting paid for it. And season 5, well season five was a mess for everybody. However, if the definition only refers to what Angel sees as a moral life, then we can only assume his oppion holds the narrative weight for what defines a champion. And his oppion on Gunn is problematic, he seems to view him as a stupid if well-meaning kid when they first meet; nothing but extra muscle when he’s working for Angel Incorporated, and a moral traitor in season 5 when they’re working for Wolfram and Heart.
Judges say
Inconclusive
Connor
Angel’s son, born from two vampires (Angel and Darla) and raised in a hell dimension by Holtz. Honestly it makes less sense in context.
Definition 1: Helps the Helpless
Connor helps a lot of people in season 3 and early season 4 (arguably more than Angel). So, for a time he is a champion; however, than the main arch of season 4 happened and well…everything shot downhill from there.
Judges Say
Only for a short time.
Definition 2: Lives an entirely Moral Life
By all forms of this definition that I laid out in Gunn’s section no, it’s sad but no. It’s clear if you really look at it that Connor only views himself as a moral individual when he first returns from Hell seeking to kill Angel. If we look at it from a wider society perspective, he once again falls short, since his rescues come off as more wanting to hunt things than actually saving people. And then we have Angel, and since that petulant speech up nearer the beginning of this post was directed at Connor, we don’t need to dig that hard to find what the soulful blood sucker thinks of his offspring.
Judges Say:
Not a Champion
Angel
A Vampire who has a soul.
Definition 1: Helps the Helpless
In seasons 1 to 2, I would say yes without a drop of hesitation in my voice. But then everything changed when the Darla storyline attacked. But all joking aside, when Darla (Angel’s sire and former lover) was resurrected, Angel’s obsession with first her and then getting revenge for her turned him from a bland if inoffensive heroic character to a raging douche bag who hurt everyone and everything around him. And while this change was clearly intentional, and something that the plot encouraged Angel to move beyond, it revealed a nastiness to Angel’s character that he never really did.
But a mildly unpleasant hero is a still a hero, and then we got season three, and with the introduction of the miraculous birth of Darla and Angel’s son, Angel as someone who must continually prove that he is a champion is almost forgotten. While the ‘helping the helpless’ doesn’t completely stop, as this is still at least pretending to be a monster of the week show, it’s notable that that’s no longer the focus of the show. In fact, as I mentioned in Gunn’s section without the visions or some kind of monetary insensitive, neither Angel or his team seem very interested in helping anyone.
And then we have season 5, where Angel is counterintuitively at his most passive in regards to his ability to do heroic deeds, and his most desperate to be a champion. I found it very hard to ignore while watching Angel whine about being in charge of Wolfram &Heart (the LA branch anyway) that his main complaint was often that he no longer felt like a hero. This was even despite the fact that he’d been given proof that not only were they still helping people, but on a much larger scale than they ever could have in their previous location.
Judges Say:
To begin with, but lost his motivation for the fight along the way.
Definition 2: Lives an entirely Moral Life
Given the speech up there he clearly thinks he does, but honestly given some of his decisions particularly at the end of season 5 – I won’t give anything away just in case this mainly negative post has for some reason made someone want to check out the show, but his actions are truly disgusting – it would be hard to argue that this view of himself lined up in anyway with reality.
In seasons 1-4 we could claim that he is living a somewhat moral life in regards to how society at large sees it. He isn’t hurting anyone – which as a vampire, even a vampire with a soul, he is quite capable of doing – and he’s for the most part fighting the forces of evil. This only changes is season 5 when Angel is arguable at his most morally dubious (or at least a moral dubiousness that the writers will admit to); though strangely this is a moral failing that comes not from within Angel himself, but is rather forced upon him. By Wolfram & Heart, by the Black Circle, even by the more human members of his team. Angel is passive in his fall from grace; even the choice to join Wolfram & Heart didn’t come about from a character flaw as it arguably did for the rest of AI, but from the truly noble desire to save his child.
It’s almost as if the world bends around Angel, so that in his own standards at least, he can continue to call himself a champion
Judges say
I’ll leave this up to the reader.
So, if you’ve been following my tangent this far, you may have guessed where I’m going with this. That is, if you follow the series of events throughout series 3-4 it is clear that with the arrival of his son and all the plot-threads that came with that, Angel’s main focus turned inward rather than outward. All the energy that would have in the past been dedicated to helping as many of the helpless as he could, now stayed focused on protecting his son, providing for his son, and later in the season (spoilers) reclaiming his son. None bad priorities by any account, but all focused on the good of the few (and in particular the few that Angel considers his) rather than the good of the many. I’m not criticizing this, merely noting it as a fact in the show’s change of direction. Because in truth for the story this shouldn’t have necessarily be an issue. After all, unlike say Buffy herself Angel is not locked into his role as a hero, he is not a slayer. In the past he has chosen to fight evil in part to redeem himself, but often just because he felt it was the right thing to do – but he could stop, he could walk away or choose to turn his back on the world and the fight to preserve it. And yet to do so would be to give up being a champion; because being a champion on those early episodes was an active concept you had to keep performing. Help the helpless, or you weren’t a champion. Now they could have done this, made Angel have to decide what mattered more to him, the ones he loved, or he’s supposed great destiny. That would actually be a very interesting storyline, one that not even its parent show managed to tackle.
Except…as I noted before, the writers seemed really married to the idea of a “champion” being the Angel equivalent of Buffy’s “slayer”. Angel was the star of the show; therefore, he must be a champion. So, if the definition of “champion” as someone who helps the helpless no longer fit him, then the definition must be changed. Because in the end, that’s all Angel had. Unlike characters like Buffy or Spike, or heck even Xander there wasn’t really much to Angel. He could be blandly heroic, or mysterious, but once you got past that to what should have been the character that lay beyond, there wasn’t really much of anything. While Spike could flip flop from enemy to ally like he was having some kind of spasm, and still remain entertaining through his well-defined personality; and Buffy could confront the realities of life alongside her destiny as the Slayer, because of her innately heroic and loving nature; with Angel, you really had to take the writers word for it that he was interesting beyond the notion that he was a champion.
But the reality is just because you keep telling us someone is a champion, doesn’t make us belive it.
If you’ve enjoyed this terribly delayed rant of mine, remember to follow the wee blog if you haven’t already and don’t forget to check me out on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and Goodreads for all that good stuff. And click the button at the bottom of the post to buy me a wee cup of coffee on Kofi. Also don’t forget to sign up for the Wee Mailing List by the 27th of September to find out which three Angel characters would have done better in Buffy (hint the last one will surprise you). So, until next time Wee Readers, don’t forget to stay safe, stay awake and have a very bonny day.
What Ho Wee Readers – well it’s been a rough couple of years hasn’t it, but I feel like we’re reach end of the tunnel. Soon the only mask any of us will be forced to look at is that stupid one we wear each Halloween. But until that day, I think it’s important to focus on the positive – and while the lockdowns across the world have had many, many downsides – one of the upsides for those of us whose situation wasn’t threatened by it, was the extra time the lockdown offered to go on a streaming binge. To finally watch through all those shows you’d liked in passing, but never had the time to fully commit to before. Well, you’re stuck in your house trying not to dwell on the apocalypse we’re all currently living through – what else you gonna do? Wow, that was a long and rather bitter way to introduce our current topic; I apologies wee readers, I don’t know where that came from.
Anyway, long story short – this lockdown I binged watched ‘How I Met your Mother’. For those of you not in the know, ‘How I met your mother’ was a sitcom that ran from 2005 to 2014, staring Josh Radnor as Main Character Ted Mosby and Bob Saget as Ted’s older self as he narrates the story of how he met their mother to his two kids. Alongside Ted on his journey to meet the love of his life – which spans a full nine seasons – is Ted’s best friend from college Marshall Eriksen played by Jason Segel; Marshall’s fiancé Lily Aldrin play by Alyson Hannigan (from Buffy fame); new girl Robin Scherbatsky played by Cobie Smulders (before the Avengers) and finally my favorite character (yes, I’m a giant cliché) playboy Barney Stinson played by Neil Patrick Harris.
It is a show that has been accused of being a rip-off of Friends, a criticism that while I think is a little harsh and not quite seeing the whole scope of either show, is at least somewhat correct in some of the minor details. For instance, while I don’t actually think either Lily or Marshall has any similarities to Monica and Chandler, other than being a married couple – which if you’ll stay with me isn’t a similarity, so much as a common form of relationship ; on the other hand, the other three main characters do have some noticeable similarities to the cast of Friends. Take Ted Mosby our protagonist, who is so similar to Ross Gellar that he might as well have been cloned. Hey look at that, they’re both teachers at a university, and they even have the exact same hairstyle – I smell foul play. Then we have Robin, who while being slightly more of an original person than Ted, does have some strong shared traits with Rachel – being the newest member of the gang, dating the nerdy sensitive professor, and being career goal oriented – and Monica – her difficult relationship with her parents, her tom boyish nature and her hair colour. At last, and most bizarrely of all we have our boy Barney Stinson who seems to be a weird amalgamation of Chandler’s unknowable corporate life, Joey’s womanizing, and Phoebe’s wild mood swings, hair colour, and abandonment by her father, and reconnection with his second family years later. I made that last one sound a lot similar that it appeared on screen, but I just find it weird that two such different characters like Barney Stinson and Phoebe Buffay have so much in common.
But strange similarities aside what I find the biggest difference between these two sitcoms is the narrative voice.
What I mean is that when we watch an episode of Friends, no matter how ridiculous the characters may be acting, that is what actually happened in their lives. There’s no hint to the audience that anything we’re being shown is a lie to the characters, or that there’s some stronger narrative force pulling them forward beyond their own dumb decisions. Ross and Rachel sleep together and Rachel becomes pregnant; yes, the people watching might think that that was done to get a good story, or heighten the drama between the on-and-off-again-couple, but to the characters that was just something that happened in their lives. The same cannot be said about ‘How I met your Mother’. Because in the end ‘How I met your mother’ is not actually show about a group of friends figuring their lives out in New York, it’s the show about Ted Mosby telling his kids how he figured his life out.
It’s such a simple plot device, and yet it changes the way we view everything about this show. It transforms what would have been a still decently funny show, with suspiciously strong similarities to Friends, into something much more interesting, and indeed memorable. For that framing device, that ever present narrative voice, provides a second barrier between the realty of the audience and the reality of the characters. To take a famous example, just because we see one of the characters get high from a sandwich instead of weed; doesn’t mean that in the universe of How I met your Mother, sandwiches are a narcotic. It’s not like Friends where when we look at the screen all we see is the reality of that fictional universe. There are two realities of the Himym universe: the one the audience sees (the memories of older Ted); and the one the characters actually experienced (the true reality of the Himym universe).
Of course, this observation is nothing particularly new – the narrative voice of older Ted often admits when he changes things, or outright forgets facts and even the names of the women he dated. One of my favorite instances of this was the episode ‘Bagpipes’; where the sound of the aforementioned pipes replaces the actual sex noises Ted’s upstairs neighbors were making in the true reality. It’s interesting to note that in one episode of Friends Monica and Rachel have a similar problem with their upstairs neighbor, but there’s no hint of the show trying to hide what those noises actually are. Honestly, I think the bagpipes make it funnier. But regardless, all this leads us to the conclusion that the narrative voice cannot be trusted.
And I know what your gonna say, well gee Wee Lassie, that’s a lot words for Ted is an unreliable narrator; whose okay with telling his kids about all the women he slept with over the years, but somehow thinks they need to be shielded from the reality that their father used to smoke pot. I say to that, wow, that was a specific thing to say that I entirely agree with. But beyond that, my actual point is that Ted as the unreliable narrator goes beyond the parts of the story where he obviously slips up or forgets something. It goes beyond what the audience can clearly recognize as the lie. Yes, for those of you in the deep know, I am going – very briefly – into that theory.
I refer of course to the fan theory started on Reddit that Older Ted portrays Barney as a serial womanize, and let’s face it, a bit of a douche – so that when he reveals that he wants to pursue his friend’s ex-wife romantically, his kids will be all on bored. There is some legitimacy to this theory – beyond viewers wanting to enjoy a problematic character with a morally clean conscience. In fact, Neil Patrick Harris (Barney’s actor) subscribes to it himself; citing episodes like “The Bad Patch” – where Barney and Robin are unhappy in their relationship and so let themselves go. This includes Robin losing large chunks of her hair and teeth and Barney gain 75lb. However, voiceover Ted admits to his kids that while Barney and Robin only let themselves go a little bit, this is what it felt like to him. Thus, Harris concludes, there is evidence for Ted’s revisions to his friends lives (I paraphrase of course). I thought my sandwich example was funnier, but you do you Harris, you do you.
However here in 2021 on The Wee Writing Lassie Blog, I would like to make an amendment to this theory. Oh, not that it’s not happening – giving all the evidence, and support from some of the creative talent behind Barney Stinson, it clearly is. But rather why it’s happening. That is, in the theory Ted is deliberately portraying Barney as a jerk, because he wants his kids to support Ted and Robin’s relationship. And yet in that pre-recorded ending, it is the kids themselves who reach this conclusion, and Ted who is shocked by it. Of course, he could just be lying, but giving the romantic framing of the final shot of Ted with the blue French horn – it is unlikely the writers intended for Ted to be quite so intentionally manipulative of his own children. Thus, the reality the audience must accept, is that Ted did intend to tell his kids how he met their mother – as the title suggests – but unconsciously revealed how he’s actually always loved Aunt Robin.
So thus, Ted portraying one of his close friends as such a terrible person, with the intention of pursuing Robin, is simply not plausible in the show’s reality. And yet, you can’t exactly argue that some of the things Ted says about Barney aren’t deliberately intended to make his kids think less of their surrogate uncle. I mean the Playbook alone is horrific if you look past the humour of the series. But that leaves the hanging question, why is Ted doing this, if it indeed has nothing to do with Robin?
Well to that I say, it may have nothing to do with Ted’s feelings for Robin, but it absolutely has everything to do with Ted’s feelings for himself. That is as the kind of man Ted wants both himself and his kids to see him as. A good guy, a terrific friend, a gifted intellectual, whose only flaw if you could really call it a flaw was that in his younger years he always went after the wrong woman. But really that’s a side effect of him being a hopeless romantic, something he himself has to bear, and nothing he dumps on other people time and time again. For any of you even vaguely familiar with the various plots and episodes of How I met your Mother, you may recognize this as complete horseshit. Ted has indeed many flaws – not least among which is that his absurdly specific list of requirements for his perfect woman, makes him treat the many real women he dates through the course of the nine seasons of Himym, terribly. Even managing to dump the same girl twice, both times on her birthday. But I’m not going to focus on the terrible way he treats women – not because there isn’t enough to talk about (there very much is) but because others have done so more thoroughly and better than I’d ever have the time to.
No, instead as the title might suggest, today we’re going to look at the way he treats his friends – and in particular, Barney Stinson. Ted treats Barney like shit, I mean don’t get me wrong Ted treats most people in his life like complete shit, but unlike the others the narrative passively implies that the audience should see Ted’s mistreatment of Barney as commendable. Or at the very least something that we shouldn’t condemn Ted for.
After all Barney is awful, so why shouldn’t he constantly be put down by the man he views as his best friend? Why shouldn’t he be actively excluded from the friend group when Ted no longer has need of his wingman services (s02e10: Single Stamina – where after four fifths of the group end up paired together, they no longer want to go out [even to get a beer], with the unsubtle implication they only needed to do that because they were single before, actively excluding Barney who is still single from the group. And if this sounds like it goes completely against the previous characterisation of Lilly and Marshall, who have been in a relationship from the beginning and never acted like this before, and Robin who has always enjoyed her independence and excitement in her life even when she’s in a relationship, then you’d be right. This was only a plot device to get Barney [now desperate for someone to hang out with] to invite his gay brother James over and start the real plot but I digress.) Why shouldn’t Ted think of Barney dying as sad only because of all the enjoyment he (Ted) might miss out on watching his wild antics? (s06e18: A Change of Heart – an episode in which Ted also compares Barney to an animal, again after talking about the possibility of his dying).
Of course, – we could make the same argument of all the characters. Besides a few general sweet moments, they do treat and speak to each other rather awfully. It could just be how their dynamic has grown up. Thus, to fully make the argument that Ted treats Barney badly enough, for him to cast his close friend as the cad in his stories to make himself look somewhat more heroic – I would like to highlight three separate occurrences were there were no such excuse. This wasn’t just friends ribbing on each other, this wasn’t just the swing of the conversation or a plot contrivance – at least not completely – these were three instances where Ted treats Barney like complete dogshite.
3. The Exile
In the sixteenth episode of season three, Barney and Robin sleep together. That is, it, Ted and Robin have been broken up for about a year by this time, in fact Ted is deep into a relationship with Stella (the woman who would later leave him at the alter); and Barney and Robin are both single at the time. There’s none of Barney’s usual trickery involved, they were just two people who grew close, and ended up in bed together. And yet the following episode (The Goat: S03e17) treats the action like it was some great crime committed against Ted, with both Barney and Robin consumed with guilt, and later individually confessing to Ted what they did.
Ted of course forgives…Robin, Barney however, yeah not so much. Now before anyone says anything, I don’t actually think Ted deciding that he can no longer be friends with Barney is the bad in this situation. Sure, it was hurtful to Barney, and the reason it happened was both incredibly stupid and more than a little sexist; however, cutting off a friend who you find toxic, or just unpleasant, is not a bad thing by any accounts. Sometimes friendships just don’t work and forcing them could do more harm to both parties involved, than a clean break ever could. But that’s just my oppion. No, my actual issue with this plot point is the execution and the fall out – namely the way Ted ends the friendship comes off remarkably cold and almost cruel. He tells Barney that earlier that day he was packing a box away labelled ‘things I no longer need’, and that maybe Barney belongs in that box. It’s dehumanizing and degrading, to be compared to a thing, particularly a thing that only has value so long as it earns its keep.
Sure, things can be said in anger that we don’t really mean – but the point is Ted isn’t a real person that can hide behind that excuse. He’s a fictional character, more importantly he’s a fictional character that his writers expect the audience to like and sympathize with. There were other ways to phrase Ted ending his friendship with Barney: ‘I don’t trust you anymore’; ‘I can’t do this anymore’, ‘we’re done’. All still upsetting to Barney, but all ending with a Ted that is still somewhat sympathetic. I say somewhat because the reason for his anger and hurt, is very nebulous considering what a shift in the group dynamic it’s going to cause. Why is Ted so angry? Is he still in love with Robin, then why is he still leading Stella on? And if he’s not in love with Robin, then is it really Barney? Is it him going a step too far in Ted’s eyes? It’s never made entirely clear, which I find very irritating especially considering this nebulous anger has just banished Barney from the group.
Because, in reality that’s what I particularly hate about this storyline – because when Ted drops Barney seemingly everyone else does too. Ted is not, nor should he ever be the thing that holds the five friends together. And yet Marshall makes note of how he’s losing the high-five calluses in his hands, and misses Barney – implying that without Ted’s approval Barney is no longer allowed to be friends with Marshall, Lily or even newcomer Robin. With the only time (Robin) being seen hanging out with Barney during his separation with Ted is when he explicitly blackmails her to do so.
If ‘How I met your Mother’ were a straight narrative to audience experience like Friends or the Big Bang Theory, then the only thing we could chalk this up to is bad writing. After all, all three of the other members of the group have had plenty of opportunities to grow closer with Barney independent of their shared connection with Ted. Marshall with his work, Robin with her similar interests to the playboy; and while I can’t think of a particularly instance Barney and Lily grew closer before the split, in season 4 she is the first one he confessed his love for Robin to. So, it’s not a leap to presume that their connection was already pretty strong. Therefore, it doesn’t completely make sense for these three characters to drop Barney, just because Ted has. However, it completely makes sense for Ted to presume they have. Ah narrative voice, you’ve saved yet another chunkily written arch – sort of, it’s still a poorly explored idea, that ends with my favorite character getting run over by a bus. (Oh spoilers, just in case that wasn’t obvious). But at least everyone’s in character now.
2. The Locket
I was slightly reluctant to include this one in my ‘Barney-been-done-wrong List’ because Robin is also hurt by this action – but in the end I decided to go through with it, because considering just how much its implied Barney loves Robin, this would probably hurt him twice as much.
First though a little background on one of the character foibles of Ms. Robin Charles Scherbatsky Jr. (Yes, that is her full name). She subconsciously sabotages her relationships. She and her partner will be going along just fine for a while, then she gets spooked (usually about the increase level of intimacy in the relationship) and she will fixate on something she doesn’t like about said partner, and start pulling away. This is spelled out by the characters explicitly during a relationship in a one-off episode; but we actually see a much subtler version of this phenomenon happening over the course of the series. Most noticeably both times she ends up with Barney.
I won’t go into the first time, as that ends for different reasons that don’t feed into my argument at all. So, for simplicity’s sake we’ll jump straight into the second time Robin has a bit of a wobble in regards to her relationship to Barney. She’s decided that she needs to find her grandmother’s locket, that she buried in central park during a visit to New York when she was fourteen – so that it can be her something old on her wedding day. Long rambling story short, she can’t find it; and so, must continue on with the wedding without the presence of her grandma’s locket. Hoping for some strange reason that this doesn’t mean that the universe is telling her not to get married to Barney. Which if that sounds like an excuse to cut and run without examining the deeper reasons behind that impulse, congratulations, you’ve read my mind.
In the end, after a lot of hoo-ha, Ted ends up with the locket – I’d try to explain how, but honestly it doesn’t really make sense. But the important thing is that Ted ends up with the locket and decides to give it to Robin on her Wedding Day, to one of his best friends. The locket that he knows Robin had decided was some kind of arbitrary sign on whether or not she should marry Barney; that for some reason she’s decided the man who finds that locket should be the one she marries. That same locket whose search was the instigator to Ted and Robin’s weird moment the previous season – when they held hands in the rain. Ted decides to give this locket as a wedding present for Robin, or thinly veiled reason to leave Barney at the alter and run away with Ted, you pick. What I’m saying is that this is Ted trying to break up the wedding.
And that’s not just my own conspiracy, that’s stated in the show itself. Lily tells him time and again, not to give Robin the locket as it will ruin the wedding – going so far as to tackle Ted to the ground. I like Lily, she’s kind of awesome like that. Even Ted’s narrative voice implies that he will ruin the wedding, and possibly everything else, if he gives Robin that locket. And what happens, he gives Robin that locket and she tries it run away from the wedding. And if she hadn’t bumped into ‘the mother’ and received some good solid advice, she might have even gone through with it. Thanks Ted, thanks for all your wonderful help.
1. The GNB Building
Look everything before this you could explain away through Robin and Ted’s feelings for each other – which do seem to be there in one form or other for most of the nine season long run of the show. Maybe Ted was just so in love with Robin – without knowing it – that he was just too angry when she slept with Barney to think rationally; causing him to lash out and say those terrible, terrible things. And maybe he was just so overwhelmed with his unresolved feelings for Robin, that he ended up bringing the physical embodiment of her relationship insecurities to her wedding to his best friend. It doesn’t mean he’s a bad man, just one that’s kind of stupid when it comes to relationships which is…yeah, kind of in character.
But this…no, there is no excuse for this next one.
Okay, backstory time, let’s take a long breath and say this as quickly as possible so that we can get into the ripping Ted Mosby a new one. Everyone with me, deep breath, and here we go:
So, Barney got Ted a job at GNB as the architect for the bank’s new headquarters; but when the building was cancelled Ted got fired by Barney’s hire ups and found a job teaching instead. However, to make his friend’s dream come true, when the project started back up again, Barney put his own job on the line to make sure they would hire Ted as the architect.
After some chicanery, Ted agreed to come on to the project, realising after all that it was his dream to build a building in New York. However, the plot thickens when Ted meets Zoey, an apparently attractive protester – the only snag in the new love story is that the thing Zoey is protesting now is the destruction of the historical Arcadian hotel, which is being blown up to make way for Ted’s new building. Oh dear, oh and she’s married but never fear Wee Readers, this is How I met your Mother – I’m sure the writers will fix that for Ted soon enough. And what’ll you know, that’s exactly what happens – Zoey breaks up with husband, her and Ted get together, but there’s till the tension of the looming GNB building between them.
However, after a night spent at the fairly horrible Arcadian Hotel, where Zoey opens up to why she’s really trying to save it – I won’t ruin the reason here, you’ll just have to watch the show yourself – Ted decides to take her side in the whole matter. Planning to declare that he thinks the hotel should be a historic landmark to a community that is going to decide whether of not it should be.
So, all ends happy right?
Wait, I hear you say…didn’t Barney put his job on the line so Ted could get this position? And to that I say, thank you wee Reader; you’ve made my segway into the next part so much easier now.
It’s made clear both to the audience and the friend group that if the GNB building is not built, Barney will be fired. And considering what we know of the company he works for, ‘being fired’ seems likely to be another way of saying ‘being murdered’. Now, of course, I’m not saying that Ted’s actions – if such an outcome had happened – would have been directly responsible for Barney’s death. Of course, that blame would lie at the feet of his actual murderer. But it is interesting to note his reaction when he hears that Barney might lose his job. Unlike say someone like Marshall – who had also been going after the GNB project due to the cruel way he was treated by the company – Ted shows no guilt whatsoever, or even an acknowledgement of the consequences of his actions. Being more annoyed at Barney, and strangely smug in his relationship with Zoey.
He’s putting his best friend’s carrier, livelihood and future physical well-being on the line, not only seemingly on a whim, but for a girl he clearly doesn’t actually love, or for that matter even like most of the time. And yet he does it all with a smile on his face.
It could be easy to blame Zoey for the friction within the group, and indeed the narrative of Ted’s story goes out of its way to place more of the blame for what happens on her shoulders and away from Ted’s. Positioning Zoey and Barney almost like two opposing forces fighting over, if not Ted’s soul, then the chance to achieve his love and affection completely. For him to choose them over everyone else. But as with Barney, it’s important for the viewer to remember whose side of the story we’re hearing. Ted might seem like a great guy, motivated by a desire for love, friendship and the need to do the right thing but that’s simply not true. Because in the end what motivates Ted to choose Barney’s side is not concern for a person who by now could be considered a very close friend, or any perceived flaw in Zoey as a romantic partner, but rather in a desire to see his own dream – that of designing a building in New York city – come true. That is, when given the chance to choose between the welfare of his friends, or the welfare of a woman he supposedly loves, Ted will always priorities himself above all others.
But of course, that’s nothing new when it comes to sitcom protagonists – thus what I find actually interesting about Ted Mosby is not that he is in fact a terrible person. But rather that on some level he is aware that he is a terrible person. Or at the very least that his actions were not the conduct of the likable guy, bleeding heart romantic, and all around lovable doof that he wants his kids to see him as. But what is he to do then? He can’t have his kids hating him just because of mistakes he made in the past. And he has a purpose with this tale – both intentionally and unintentionally – so he can’t leave too much out either. Thus, Ted does the only thing he can do, given the circumstances, he creates a contrasting jerk. A character in his story that his kids will look at and think, okay so my dad ran away with Victoria on her wedding day, and then dumped her several months later – but at least he’s not Barney Stinson. It’s not about Robin consciously, not really, it was just that someone had to fill the role of the jerk in the group, and it might as well be Barney Stinson. And who cares if he’s probably ruined his kid’s relationship with their surrogate uncle, the important thing here is Ted comes out looking good. Because in the end Ted’s feelings come before all.
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What ho wee readers, my family binged watch Modern Family during Scotland’s Lockdown. And for those of you who don’t know what that is, I’ll wait a few seconds for you to go and look it up…you good? Good, on with show…or, err post.
When the show first began Haley Dunphy was not well liked as a character – with many labelling her as selfish, spoiled and narcissistic. Now I’m not going to sit here and defend early Haley by trying to claim she wasn’t that, because she was, she was absolutely all those things. Although I do find it interesting that Haley was absolutely hated for her teenage narcissism, while characters like say Claire Dunphy – which I would argue displayed a much more developed and harmful form of narcissism, were loved. None of the characters of Modern Family are perfect, or even consistently nice people, because let’s face it that would be very boring to watch. We may applaud a consistently moral character’s good point, but more often than not seeing a messier character, overcoming their flawed nature just makes for the better tv.
Which we might say brings us to post-college Haley; after being kicked out of college due to getting busted for underage drinking, Haley Dunphy took tumble from her lofty perch. She was suddenly living back home with a family that weren’t shy about telling her how disappointed they were; and was also stuck doing community service for accidently assaulting a police office. Basically, she was considered the loser of the family. While these new circumstances are awful, they did serve to make her more sympathetic to the viewer, couple that with a new slightly (and I do say slightly) humbler and more hard-working attitude and a new relationship with break out character Andy Bailey and people were starting to warm up to her. She was a character that maybe even someone could look up to.
And then she took a backslide.
I think most fans can agree on that at least, she did regress – what we may disagree on is the when and why she took a backslide. For instance, I can tell you that Haley Dunphy’s character development was stalled very briefly, after the writers made her loose the jo, she’d worked so hard for during her relationship with Andy. And I say ‘the writers made her loose the job’ rather than just ‘she lost the job’ because it was very clear narratively why she lost that job. So that the writers could make jokes about her immaturity; note how unhealthy her phone use was despite the fact that every big job she’s ever had has needed her to be social media savvy. Oh, and most importantly, so Luke could give her a big speech about how the job she had now, working with him at their Grandfather’s club was a real job with a future. None of these plot elements were put there for Haley’s benefit, and thus for a very brief time she regressed to the joke the rest of the Dunphy’s saw her as. Whiney, lazy, and completely incompetent in every aspect of her life. I mean I don’t want to be cruel to someone else’s humour, but some of these jokes didn’t even make sense for pre-college dropout Haley. Like when she gets stuck outside because she forgot/lost her keys, and we hear her whining and crying from the front garden to be let in; which she is not, because the Dunphy Parents have decided to just leave her out there all night. An act that seems heartlessly cruel from whatever angle you approach it; but which fits the joke, that Haley needs to be treated like a baby learning to self sooth, perfectly.
My problem isn’t that this makes Claire and Phil look like terrible people, because that fits with what we’ve seen of their characters. No, my problem is that for no other reason, than to fulfil that punchline would Haley behave like this. She would not have stayed outside all night, she would have snuck in the house, climbed up a drain pipe, through a window and she would have done it all without waking her parents. A character was derailed for a single punchline.
However, I would argue she did bounce back from this characterisation slump – and was able to move on and peruse career opportunities that made sense for her as a person, become attached to new romantic entanglements that fulfilled her on a personal level, and overall, become the rounded, funny character that we all knew she could be. Finally ending her eleven-season character growth in a fulfilling job, a loving relationship and as mother to twins.
However, and I was slightly shocked to find this out – quite a few people disagreed with this particular interpretation. No, you see clearly Haley backslid when she got back together with Dylan for the second time, married him and had his babies. I’d try to explain it further than that but I don’t think I quite follow it. I assume it comes from the idea that a relationship with Andy was a instigation for Haley’s positive character growth; a notion I find slightly absurd because while he did support her (like any good friend/boyfriend should) it was Haley who made the choice to peruse that job, or decide to cut down on the partying, or be a nicer person. All of these were choices Haley made, Andy didn’t change her, she changed herself.
Of course, if you, as a Wee Reader, belive that Dylan was detrimental for Haley’s likeability and growth – and suddenly hate him for that – please tell me why in the comments below, I’d loved to understand this point of view. Given the major, academic sounding rant I’m about to go on, I likely won’t agree with you but it’s good to here and understand other points of view regardless.
Okay on with the rant.
First let’s put aside the fact that implying Haley lost all her character development when she got back together with Dylan is ridiculous – considering just how mean she was in the early seasons. And focus instead on the source of the conflict: Haley’s relationships.
Haley had about four major relationships during the course of Modern Family
Dylan
Andy Bailey
Captain Mal (I’ve forgot his character’s name)
Alex’s professor (I’ve also forgotten his name)
Five of them if you count her formative relationship with her parents. I’m not going to go over the last two in any detail, mostly because they seemed to be forgotten in the great Dylan vs Andy debate. And since I’m already a thousand words in and just getting to the premise now, we might as well start.
Formative Relationship: Phil and Claire Dunphy
Phil and Claire Dunphy seem to be well liked in the Modern Family fandom – particularly Phil – and I have never entirely understood this. They’re both just awful people, which yes, everyone is on Modern Family, that’s kind of the joke, but we seem as fandom community somewhat more deliberately blind to the faults of these two. Particularly Phil. Something that I’ve always found stranger, because both of the other main couples are more heartfelt in their loving moments, and funnier in their arguments. Phil and Claire are just mean and dumb, but I understand that’s a personal oppion and not completely relevant to my argument.
Rather let’s take a step back and look at the Dunphy’s not as their own characters, but rather how they work as a collective parental unit. For starters, they enforce the belief that their daughter is stupid, having referred to her as their stupidest child – a fact that even in her earlier appearances is shown not to be true. Neither Haley nor her brother Luke are actually as stupid as their father, they just don’t use their intelligence for anything academic.
This attitude becomes particularly interesting in the episode ‘En Garde’ where out of pride for Manny’s fencing, Jay says ‘It’s really great to have a kid that’s the best at something’. And this makes the Dunphy parents self-concise because none of their kids are the best at something.
At home they comfort themselves that Alex is so smart, she’ll find her specialty soon enough, and Haley…award silence…well, Haley’s so beautiful she can marry someone who’s the best at something. And there we have it – Haley’s worth as a person in her parents’ eyes has been innately entangled with what kind of man she ends up.
First Relationship: Dylan, First and Second Time
There’s really not that much to say about Haley and Dylan’s first and second bouts of relationships with each other. They were fine, in fact I’d even say they were better than fine. Dylan was a sweet, kind, incredibly good-looking boy who genuinely loved and treasured Haley. And Haley, didn’t really treat him well…but this was mostly before her character development and she didn’t really treat anyone well.
They broke up and got back to together a lot, but that’s nothing unusual.
What’s more interesting however, is Claire’s reaction to Haley and Dylan’s relationship. At every opportunity, she starts pushing her daughter away from her sweet, musician boyfriend. For instance, when Haley starts cheating on Dylan with her tutor, Claire tells her to break up with Dylan; making it clear that the other boy is superior to Dylan because he is so much smarter. If Haley is too dumb (read not academically inclined) enough to earn her mother’s love than at the very least she can marry a man who is. Sometimes it even feels like she’d prefer Haley to be miserable rather than date Dylan.
Second Relationship: Andy Bailey
I don’t like Andy; we need to get that out of the way. I find him annoying, self-righteous, and (though it’s a personal preference) not that attractive. I also find it more than a little creepy, just how like Phil he actually is. I mean the show implied that Dylan was a bit similar to Phil Dunphy as well, but only in his intelligence and the antagonistic feelings one of his girlfriend’s parents felt towards him. Andy on the other hand, may as well have been a clone of the Dunphy patriarch – as far as personality, moral beliefs, speech and career was concerned.
Also, I do find it a little bizarre that this relationship that everyone touts as the thing that redeemed Haley began as an affair. Not an emotional affair, an actually real, sleeping with someone else affair. Of course, the writers had been sure to show us that Beth was a psycho and therefore, the audience could comfortably ship Haley and Andy without all that pesky guilt for the unwilling member of their threesome. But think about this, yes, the audience and Haley know that Beth is a ‘psycho’, but Andy doesn’t. As far as his character motivation is concerned, he is cheating on his sweet, loving, very faithful fiancé. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, that is the reality he starts sleeping with Hailey in.
That being said, even I can see that for the most part the relationship isn’t awful. They encourage each other, they enjoy each other’s company and had the actor not left to pursue a career in film, ending up as Mrs. Haley Bailey, wouldn’t have been the worst fate.
However, what I find most interesting about the relationship is once again, Claire’s reaction to it. While the idea of Haley and Andy being an item is still a possibility, she seems ambivalent to it, downright disapproving, even before she learns of Beth’s existence. But as soon as Dylan is back in the picture, she starts pushing Haley towards Andy. Never mind that he is engaged now, and even Haley herself had believed that meant nothing could happen between them.
Honestly, I’m going to skip Captain Mal, as not only do I not remember his real character’s name, but other than some brief conflict with Phil there’s nothing much his relationship with Haley adds to my argument.
Fourth Relationship: Alex’s Professor
This relationship is certainly not a bad, or even a mildly unpleasant one – Haley interrupts his class while she’s trying to talk to Alex, and after she talks back to him when he admonishers the sisters, he decides that one day he and Haley are going to marry. They get off to a bit of a rocky start, mostly due to Haley’s own insecurity about her intelligence – bang up job there Phil and Claire. But for the most part their relationship is fine. I’d even go so far to say that it’s fairly loving.
The really interesting bit about this relationship, is once again the reaction of Hailey’s parents – namely they fall over themselves trying to impress him. Trying to say smart and insightful things. Highlight interestingly enough their own insecurities with their intelligence. Because although they’ve spent the majority of the show putting Haley down for her lack of ‘traditional’ intelligence, deep down they know they are the stupid ones.
Perhaps that’s why Claire works so hard to keep Haley with the professor, instead of who she actually belongs with.
Final Relationship: Dylan, for the long time.
“If you’re so busy thinking how lucky you are, then you’re not thinking how happy you are,’ – Dylan
I’ll be honest with you here; Dylan is my favorite character in Modern Family. He’s the kindest out of not only the line-up of Haley’s boyfriends, but the whole cast. And unlike almost every other character in the later seasons, he didn’t turn utterly horrible for shits and giggles. However, my conclusion that he is the best one for Haley, doesn’t come from that – it comes from the fact that number one, he clearly loves her unconditionally, and number two, unlike other supposedly ‘nice’ guys in her life, he’ll never treat her badly, and cover it up with a goofy laugh.
What do I mean?
Well, Modern Family has always been very explicit that Haley’s two major relationships have been with men that resemble her father in some way. Dylan has the same low I.Q. as Phil – though considering he’s very affectively learning to be a nurse; it can’t be quite as low as the show implies. While Andy has his goofiness and old-fashioned sensibilities. However, what Andy also has is Phil’s ability to put his partner down – we don’t see it a lot, but it’s there, and under the pressure of a long-term relationship, raising at least two children and Claire Dunphy as a mother-in-law, I promise you that nasty little side of his would have come out more and more.
Don’t belive me? Remember that little jab in the episode when the family finds out that Haley and Andy were having an affair? You know after Haley expresses her fear about being found out and Andy explains he doesn’t want to be found out either because….
‘I still have their respect.’
Why do people like this guy so much?
Ultimately the fact that Haley ends up not only falling back in love with Dylan at the end of the show, but actively chooses to go back to him over a guy Claire would have preferred – the professor – is evidence that she’s finally grown beyond the narcissistic example that her parents set for her. This notion that academic achievement, or “high” intelligence is the only thing that can make a person worthy, either for love or in other ways, is a childish fantasy we must all grow beyond.
But that’s just what I think, if you see the Dylan and Haley relationship a different way let me know down below in the comments, it’s why I have them in the first place.
If you’ve enjoyed this wee, extensively long rant of mine, don’t forget to follow the wee blog if you haven’t already. And don’t forget to check me out on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Goodreads and Tumblr, for all the good stuff. Also sign up for the Wee Mailing List by the 31st of May to find out my top five favorite Modern Family characters. Until next time Wee Readers, stay free and have a very bonny day.
Let’s talk about the Mandalorian. Yes, Wee Readers, even I the most noble of wee lassies in the land of Scotland, have fallen victim to the charms of that most adorable of terrors to the Star Wars Galaxy…Baby Yoda.
Though all joking aside, The Mandalorian is a fantastic show – and is in fact the only reason I even bought a subscription to Disney + in the first place. Tellingly I canceled it as soon as it was made known to me that I’d have to wait an entire year for the third season. Sorry WandaVision, you’re just not to my taste.
Okay, a brief rundown for those probably very few of you not in the know already. The Mandalorian tells the story of Mandalorian bounty hunter, Din Djarin. Who, with the promise of the return of a huge collection of the sacred metal Baskar, accepts a job to go hunt down a particularly hard to find assest? In fact, it’s so hard to find that the only description the client can give him is the thing’s age: 50. Which is only made all the more shocking when Djarin shows up to the thing’s last known location and finds…a baby. More specifically a baby Yoda.
After some bonding, and many misadventures – one of which involving the bounty hunter going back to save the adorable tot from the client he delivered him to – the two form what is referred to in-show as a ‘clan of two’. Basically short hand for family. You see the Mandalorians are not a people, they are a creed: anyone can become a Mandalorian, whether by swearing the creed in adulthood or being taken in as a ‘Foundling’ during childhood. And this is a very interesting stance for the first show that is specially about the Mandalorians to take, considering they’ve never been shown like that on screen before.
What the heck do I mean?
Well, to answer that we’re going to have to take a look at the previous Star Wars things Dave Filoni, has been involved in, namely The Clone Wars – a show detailing well…the majority of the clone wars conflict and Rebels, a show that looks fine but that I will never have the patience to watch all the way through. Now the Mandalorians have a presence in both these shows, with one of the main characters in Rebels even being one. I’m going to focus more on the Clone Wars Mandalorians, since I’ve just seen more of that show and I think it better shows some of the…unfortunate implications.
Okay, so at the time of the Clone Wars Mandalore is ruled by the Duchess Satine, who is a pacifist. And if that seems contradictory to what a Mandalorian is or has ever been before – congratulations, that’s how everybody else sees it too. I’m joking of course, but there is noticeable friction between Satine’s strictly pacifist government and the fringe groups who think that Mandalore should go back to its more warlike ways. Sounds like a pretty straightforward conflict doesn’t it? After all Star Wars has always taken the stance that war, and those who go looking for it are bad. Sure, somethings need to be fought for or at least against, but as a general rule if there’s some other way to resolve the conflict you should probably take that route. This isn’t helped any by the war loving factions going by the ridiculous name of Death-watch – which was a stupid name when it came out and is an even dumber name now.
That being said I would not be writing this blog post if that were the end of the story. When we first see Mandalore in The Clone Wars, Satine’s group ‘The New Mandalorians’ has been ruling for what we can assume are at least a good few years, her government is firmly established and over all, the population we’re shown doesn’t seem to have much of an issue with converting to a peaceful existence. Except something feels a little off when you look at the population, particularly in crowd scenes – they all look a little too similar. All human, all white, all with the exact same shade of blond hair and every single one of them with blue eyes. This is peculiar in the Star Wars universe, as even back in the very first film where the cast on screen were all monotone white – because 70s – hair and eye colour varied greatly. There are blog posts that go far deeper into this than I’m going to and I suggest, if nothing else than for curiosity’s sake to go check them out :
The only character that really breaks this monotony is the Prime minister who has purple eyes for some reason – and also turns out to be secretly corrupt – and Satine’s sister. Still, they’re both white, so I suppose it’s less of a difference than it really feels. Some have implied that this was not a goof and was a deliberate attempt to create a paroral to a country like Germany. Somewhere that had a militaristic / violent past but was trying to move away from that. That seems very likely when the rouge groups have dumb names like Death-Watch – very Nazi like. To try and segment this story they even go out of their way to cast doubt on Jango Fett’s claim to the title of Mandalorian. With the prime minister referring to him as ‘just some random bounty hunter’.
And while that might have worked fine when it was released, it starts to have more sinister undertones in universe, when you take in to account the Mandalorian show. Unlike the other on-screen appearances of the Mandalorians – or at least the Clone Wars, I’m really not sure about Rebels – the Mandalorian approaches its main character’s identity, as something a person can become, not as something they are automatically born into. Anyone can be a Mandalorian – the joke Bill Burr makes in his first episode, about Mando being a Gungan under his mask is funny partly because it could be true. Yes, this Mandalorian is a human, but there’s nothing in his Mandalorian creed that would prevent a Gungan from donning that helmet too.
Anyone can be a Mandalorian.
And this isn’t just a facet of Din’s ultra-traditional sect either; in a later episode of season 2, when we meet Boba Fett properly again, he reveals a copy of his linage. Revealing that Jango Fett (who was not a member of the Children of the Watch) was a foundling – just like baby Yoda – and as a son of foundling, Boba was entitled to his armor in Mandalorian custom. So, we can see from this that adoption seems to be an important aspect of the wider Mandalorian culture as well. Thus, it would make sense that by the time of the Mandalorian Civil War in which the new Mandalorians ceased control of the planet, that the Mandalorians as a people would be very diverse. Not just in the regular human way, but with individuals from different alien species considered Mandalorian as well. Maybe there would even be linages of mixed human and alien origin; since not only have we seen instances of such individuals in Star Wars Canon, but in a society where anyone can be a Mandalorian, such pairings would probably be a lot more common than even in the wider Star Wars Galaxy. And yet, every single Mandalorian we see in the Clone Wars is human, and white, with at least a good chunk of them also being blond.
Now for a very brief second, I did consider that this could just be clashing creators, after all Clone Wars – or at least most of it – was, to the best of my knowledge made before Disney bought Lucasfilm and did a hard reboot for every cannon piece that wasn’t this show or the films. After all, Disney Lucasfilm clearly has a different direction they wanted to take the franchise, and maybe not every aspect of a long running show like The Clone Wars is going to slot easily into that new image. Except…the Mandalorian, The Clone Wars, and I think Rebels too, are all at least in part run by the same person: Dave Filoni. A man who is remarkably comfortable throwing around references to his other work, and just expecting the audience to know what he’s talking about . For instance, it’s really exciting when Asoka says to the villain of the week “Where’s Thrawn?”. Indicating that we’re gonna get a live action General Thrawn, in all his blue space-Nazi, badass glory. But if you don’t know who that is, she might as well have asked where the toilet was?
Joking aside, my point is that Filoni clearly hasn’t forgotten either of the Star Wars Shows he’s previously been involved in, so it’s unlikely he’s forgotten this one element. Especially considering how little there was about the Mandalorians in the Clone Wars. So, what is going on ? Why do they all look the same here, when they really shouldn’t given the creed like nature of their ancestors existence.
Well, honestly, I think it’s an oversight. Like maybe the creators were so married to this idea of former Nazis in Space that they didn’t really think how such a people, or indeed such a society would exist in the Star Wars Universe. Because, Nazi like racism doesn’t really exist in the Star Wars Galaxy, or at least not in the same way it does on earth. I know, I know the Empire has always sort of taken inspiration from Nazi imagery; but that hate and bigotry towards other kinds of humanity, that resulted with the Nazis obsession with blond hair and blue eyes doesn’t really exist in a world where you have aliens to scapegoat instead. Or at least it’s never done so in what is now considered Star Wars cannon. Granted to the best of my knowledge, I haven’t seen every book or comic, or game that’s come out under that umbrella – so if you know something that can prove me wrong, by all means put it down in the comments. It’s why I have them at all.
The point is, a mistake is really the only logical conclusion you can reach, in which you don’t start to hate the creators of these shows just a little. Because, now with the Mandalorian in cannon, it’s kind of revealed that that war like past we were told was so terrible, and just dragging Mandalore down – at least in The Clone Wars – was not a parallel to the Nazis at all. Which really only leads to one conclusion, on why those people were so monolithic in their appearance – Satine’s government had done a purge.
An ethnic cleansing if you will, I don’t mean to be insensitive to anyone but that’s what it looks like.
Think about it – it’s established early on in the first Mandalorian Clone Wars story arch that all Mandalore’s warriors have been banished to one of the moons, where it’s believed they died out years ago. (They didn’t but that’s not really important for our argument here). When we look at this with knowledge of the Mandalorian Creed – a sacred vow that is about being a Warrior – that statement suddenly becomes about a lot more people than it was probably originally meant for. If you became a Mandalorian through that creed, in a sense, you can’t obey the new regime’s orders and still be Mandalorian. How then do you define who can be a Mandalorian? Well…blood. Which can get very sinister very quickly, especially if you take in the lack of any mention – at least in The Clone Wars – of ‘Foundlings’ as an important aspect of Mandalorian culture. In fact, if you want to take it a step further, the prime minister’s dismissal of Jango Fett as a real Mandalorian could be an indicator of Satine’s governments views on ‘foundlings’ as Mandalorians.
But ultimately all this amounts to is a thought experiment, I do not actually think this was deliberate at all. Mainly because the show itself makes it pretty clear that we’re supposed to agree with, if not outright like Duchess Satine. I mean I never did, she’s terrible – but that doesn’t take away Deathwatch’s cartoonish villainy, or the tone of the narrative. Sure, Satine’s government might be corrupt, but she’s not. And isn’t that in the end, what really matters? I’m being facetious of course, but you get my point. Ultimately the uniformed look of the people of Satine’s Mandalore was a passing thought by a creator who may have later realised the unfortunate implications of what he was showing on screen. We might guess this by the later appearance of the Mandalorians as a people, namely Rebels character Sabin Wren and her family. All of whom are defiantly not white, and this is never treated as a strange thing by any of the other Mandalorians.
That being said, seeing how unhealthy attached to his former works Filoni seems to be – it will be interesting to see if he ever addresses this discrepancy, or if we’re going to have to swallow another sickenly sweet spoonful of ‘wasn’t Satine just the best’.
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