the handmaiden (2016)

Written 2.8.2021

Note from 9/2023: I’ve seen this movie 4 times at this point and every time my feelings about it change. A lot of what I had written still rings true for me. I guess with each viewing, and with more life experience, I just have more to say about it.  But it’s nice to look back and see how purely excited I was about this movie. Man, it was a really big deal, and it really was! 

 // 3rd viewing //

// ♪ You are my baby miss ♪ //

The first time I watched this movie I was with Bob, L, Nancy, and Jun--a theater viewing at the UA Riverside. Of course we loved it and I remember afterwards crowding around a laptop on the floor of our apartment living room, reading some review or analysis of the movie and exchanging our thoughts and excitement. The second time, it was maybe MS1 or 2 year at Naveen's apartment after hot pot with a bunch of people, including I think all of the people from the first time plus Josh, maybe Daniel + NJ's friend? 

Anyway, this was the first time I was watching it in the comfort of our own apartment, with just Bob. I felt I had more space in my mind to really immerse myself in the movie, without my mind automatically wondering what others were thinking during some of the more sexual scenes (more on that later). But wow, I didn't expect this movie to hit the way that it did, especially on the third viewing, but this movie... is something special to me. 

I was talking to L today when I visited them at work at Omoi Zakka and they talked about how wonderful it is to see lesbian romances depicted genuinely, and how fulfilling (and rare) it is that Hideko and Sooki "get exactly what they want." I was thinking something similarly when we started the movie--I said to Bob that what I liked about this movie is that it has a genuinely happy ending. It's happy in an ecstatically subversive way--two women falling in love and running away from not only the man who was abusing (physically, sexually, emotionally, financially??) Hideko in her own house, but also from the man who comes bearing the promise of a life away from what she's known, but one that would still be rife with abuse by him. I appreciate the complete acknowledgment by the movie that the Count is utter trash, unlike in most media where trash men are just flawed heroes, especially if they're physically attractive.

Let's talk about Hideko because I love her character so much!! First of all, phenomenally acted by Kim Minhee, who I thought really captured her character--depressed, disillusioned, and suicidal after all these years of abuse and confinement, yet still sharp and observant and looking out for herself however she can; as well as the curiosity and heart that she regarded Sooki with as they got to know one another and fall for one another. The earliest scene that made me cry in the movie was when Sooki was giving Hideko a foot massage and insisting that she can tell that Hideko loves the Count, even as Hideko denies it and asks "what if I love someone else?" Sooki's obviously counterfeit insistence is devastating to Hideko, and that point I thought back to that moment while they're having sex and Hideko asks Sooki, "Can you promise that you won't betray me?" Sooki looks her in the eyes almost incredulously and shakes her head, replying "I'll never... never... ever..." and the camera cuts to Hideko who watches Sooki and waits for an answer. Ultimately Sooki does not finish her sentence and say exactly what it is she'll "never" do, whether it's because she can't bring herself to lie to Hideko or because she's caught up in the passion of the moment, or both. 

Anyway, back to the foot massage scene--at this point, Hideko is fully disgusted by the Count who insists on constantly being an asshole and sexually assaulting her, and in this scene with Sooki insisting on playing ignorant, Hideko is hit with the realization that she is truly alone. I really felt for her then, as she pushed Sooki out of her room with tears in her eyes and is moved to kill herself and leave her miserable life behind. Ugh I was devastated! :( And then when Sooki catches her and comes clean about the (perceived) scheme all at once, and Hideko comes clean as well, I felt a sense of triumph. I mean, with a con, the one thing you don't do is give away the fact that you were conning someone, so in that moment they both made the choice to fully team up and that just felt so great!!

Speaking of Hideko's loneliness, there are a number of little details in the movie that accentuate the fact that all she has had is herself and her trauma. She carries around a doll that looks like her child self. The two portraits along the staircase leading up to her quarters are portraits of herself now and as a child. It seems that she lives in the European half of the estate, whereas her uncle is the one who has built the library in the Japanese half of the estate. In this way he has symbolically not only separated her from her cultural roots as a Japanese person, but polluted her culture so that she can only associates it with trauma. Related are the fact that her mother died giving birth to her, and her aunt was tortured and killed by her uncle for trying to escape the house. She really is completely and utterly isolated.

I love that as the twists and turns unravel themselves throughout the movie, you realize that Hideko is the one who is in control of the entire scheme. Part of the reason she is able to be so is because she has so become so much part of this house that she is both the master of and a prisoner within. She has a peephole that she uses to spy on her handmaidens, and deftly listens in on her uncle's conversation with the Count through the vents. She knows the house inside and out because despite everything she's gone through, she has survived within it.

"What is it that men want?" On this watch, I realized that Hideko is definitely pretending to be inexperienced here. She obviously knows what men want--she gives it to them during her readings.

Ok, moving onto some other fun elements of the film. The humor is just amazing and sprinkled delightfully throughout. The music is iconic and I especially love the piece that plays during the bathtub thimble scene, which is just so sweet it made my heart ache (in the way that Sooki so skillfully cares for Hideko and Hideko hangs out in the tub with a lollipop and is allowed to be a baby) as well as incredibly sexy??!

steven universe

Written sometime in 2021

This show was honestly life-changing for me. The whole thing is an expression of creativity and radical love for others and the self. I think if I had seen this show when it first came out in 2013, while I was in college, I might have been able to love myself more. 

The celebration of queerness and identity unconfined by the gender binary in this show is huge, from Steven being the softest boi, to the unquestioned gender non-conforming identity of Stevonnie, the joy of Ruby and Sapphire's relationship as Garnet, the fact that all the gems use "she/her" pronouns and seem to embody a wide range of gender expressions. Rebecca Sugar imagined a world without the gender police, and it's by no means an easy life without it, but one can tangibly feel the weight that is lifted off of the characters in that way. 

puella magi madoka magica (2011)

I am so overwhelmed and impressed by this anime--12 masterfully crafted episodes that took me on a journey that completely blew my mind. The art style (especially depicting the witches) is captivating and creates a great sense of being unsettled and unsure of what kind of reality the story is set in, which gives it an effective base for diving into its grand scale storylines. The story that it told would be nowhere as effective without the incredible art, style, pacing, and voice acting.

In terms of the story... I'm new to the majou shojo genre, and wish I had found it sooner! I'm so compelled by the idea of a magical girl--someone who appears ordinary to others yet has the ability to be a hero in her hidden life. It's an empowering narrative because it feels really true to the world as it really is, which is a place in which girls and femmes are made by default to feel powerless, despite all that they can actually do.

I was immediately drawn to Sayaka, who is mediocre in life and love and magical ability but believes so strongly in carrying out justice in a certain way, ultimately alienating everyone around her and is literally consumed by her own grief. I feel her energy in terms of seeing injustice and wanting to strike it down with her own fists. She's the SJW that SJW-haters love to hate!! Her story also reminds me of my own fear that my anger will alienate people I care about, which hers ultimately does. I found her rivalry with the fiery Kyoko probably the most compelling relationship of the show. Kyoko and Sayaka initially hate each other because they are so similar, equally fierce in their beliefs that their approach to justice is the most correct. Kyoko's cold and detachment approach to justice feels backwards to Sayaka, but really they've both crafted approaches to carrying out their magical duties that are informed by their experiences (e.g. they both used their wish to help someone they loved, only to have it all completely backfire in different ways, and in Kyoko's case a horribly traumatic way).  I love the moment in Ep 5 when Sayaka declares "If there are humans who are worse than witches out there, I'll fight them too. Even if they happen to be magical girls," leaving poor Madoka anguished and perplexed at this infighting among supposed allies!!! It me! Both of them!!!

Interestingly, the whole Homura plot was spoiled for me before I even watched the show, which I think was a blessing in disguise because I could focus on other parts of the story since I knew the major twist that was coming. Homura's story is tragic indeed. Her love for her friend drives her to relive a painful journey over and over until it is all that she knows. Her attempts to drive Madoka away fails again and again, perhaps because her approach is to infantilize Madoka and give her commands while keeping her in the dark. Ultimately Homura is unable to protect Madoka as she intended. Instead, it is simply her love for her and her fight for her that allows Madoka to do what she does. What a metaphor for parenthood amirite???

Which brings us to Madoka, our Lord and savior. Madoka starts off as the Observer of the story, walking through life and watching as the truths of the world reveal themselves to her, forcing her to grapple with the twisted fate that lies ahead for her friends and the women that have come before her since the beginning of time. When told she could have any wish granted in exchange for becoming a magical girl, she truly believes that simply becoming a magical girl would be enough, because she'd finally feel like she had a purpose. SO real. At the end of the series, to see her finally realize what justice looks like and to use her unique powers in such a beautiful way, absolving the grief of all the magical girls that have come before her and wish them only strength and happiness, just felt so radical to me! It feels pointedly feminist, for her to have learned about the invisible labor foisted upon young women by the Kyubey peeps (idk what they're called haha) since the beginning of human existence, and to imagine a different reality, reconfiguring the universe as we know it in order to abolish that suffering... it's revolutionary! It's epic! It's what a benevolent god would do... create a world in which girls can be superheroes without having to pay with their souls. They can just be their wonderful, powerful selves.

And the ending speaks to this idea too. That all along, the true enemy was not the witches (which actually turned out to be fallen magical girls) but the exploitation of young girls' bodies and souls to serve some sort of higher purpose predetermined by the cold logic of the Kyubey peeps that paid no mind to the individual and generational suffering inflicted on this cohort of humans. One the cycle was broken, the ills of the world still remained. The difference was that the magical girls were free to live intentional lives.

My main critique of this show would be a representation issue, most glaringly re: the lack of magical girls with dark skin that Madoka saves in the last episode, when it's suggested that she goes back in time and saves all the magical girls throughout the world before her. This is clearly a flaw related to white supremacy and the way it erases the contributions of women with dark skin through its canonization of the contributions of Women in History (i.e. that Madoka sequence included characters who were clear references to a light-skinned Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Anne Frank). Of course, colorism and racism are pervasive in anime and most media in this world... boo.

Overall, I just loved Madoka Magica. It really spoke to me with its questions of what justice looks like, its mythology of what the ills of the world look like and where they come from, how the labor of young girls and femmes are often invisible, traumatic, and important. The story dared to reimagine a new world created by feminine love and justice. When I finished this show, I couldn't help but wish the world I live in could be rewritten like it was in this story.

Now off to watch Utena~

lady bird (2017)

I feel a lot of pressure writing this review, given that this movie has been touted somehow as the most highly reviewed movie on Rotten Tomatoes to date, but I tried not to read any reviews before writing this so as not to be swayed by the masses. On the whole, if you like quirky, fast-paced dialogue, the aesthetics of teenage rebellion, and moving scenes between a daughter and her mother who are both products of trauma suffered by their own mothers, you're sure to appreciate this film!

One of the most moving scenes for me was when Ladybird's mother finds out that she had applied to a school in New York behind her mother's back, and Ladybird is trying desperately to convince her mother that it'll be financially manageable while begging for her forgiveness, while her mother silently washes the dishes. It’s like one of those nightmares in which you’re desperately screaming at your parents because they won't listen and they don't hear you or react at all. I had one of these dreams the night before I watched this movie, which is why this scene really got to me! Being ignored by a parent who otherwise micromanages you is so traumatizing, and I think the scene captured that feeling so well.

prom dress shopping, literally the worst!!!

I also wanted to think a little more about the name Ladybird, which the main character gives herself and prefers to the name Christine, given to her by her mother. First of all, apparently British people call ladybugs ladybirds! Who knew?? Also, the image above of Ladybird in a flaming red-orange dress, with her feathery hair and faded red highlights, immediately brought to my mind the Firebird from Slavic folklore, whose feathers glow a fiery red and brings both great fortune and doom to its captor. I presume this mythical creature was popularized in Western culture by Stravinsky's Firebird Suite in Disney's Fantasia 2000 (a guess idk), in which a powerful bird spirit is awakened and consumes the surrounding forest and land in flames. This combination of awe-inspiring greatness and destruction fits nicely within a coming of age story, as we all know growing up comes with not only the beauty of new experiences and forming one's identity, but also inevitably fucking up a LOT during that process. For our movie protagonist, "Ladybird" is a self-made identity to wear and grow into, a way to hide from her mother in the only way she can. It's an identity is boldly claimed and that can be, depending on her audience, alienating or inviting in its irreverence. (Shout out to this great line: "If you took up-close shots of my vagina when I'm on my period, it'd look pretty disturbing, but that doesn't make it wrong.")

There were a lot of interesting character stories going on in this movie beyond Ladybird and her mother - her father is depressed but doesn't ever show it, her first boyfriend is gay and afraid to tell anyone, her best friend has anxiety about her weight that Ladybird is oblivious and insensitive to, her brother is clearly adopted given she and her parents are white af and his girlfriend lives with them because she got kicked out of her own family. There is so much to explore in these characters' lives and I was left wanting more of their story through their interactions with Ladybird. I admit, it would have been ambitious to flesh out all of these characters, but it would have been nice. It also might have made up for the fact that only non-white people in the movie serve as caricatures onto which Ladybird deploys her irreverence (e.g. copying answers off of an Asian girl in math class, having her brother and his gf portrayed as social weirdos who will "never get jobs" because of their facial piercings). Yeah, this movie was super white which is disappointing and made it hard to relate to. I definitely think it's about time that there's a well-received live-action coming of age story with a female protagonist (directed by a woman nonetheless), but America u still so white. Who run the 21st century? White feminists!!!

I also wish the movie had a slower pace to it, or perhaps had a little more quietness infused into it. The heavily stylized dialogue was funny but felt superficial at times, and I felt myself wanting more silences. So to sum it up, far from perfect IMO but I enjoyed it and appreciate the film for what it is. Perhaps the fact that it gave me a lot of different feelings is testament enough!

coco (2017)

Coco is a heartwarming story about love for family and following your dreams all wrapped up in one delightful story set in Mexico, featuring an all-Latinx cast. Am I dreaming? No, this is real life and it's amazing!!! It's incredibly uplifting to see major film companies like Pixar and Disney diversifying their movies, and it's no surprise that they tend to be my favorites. It was only starting a few years ago that these major movie companies began telling stories about ~strong female characters~ (I promise this is relevant), and for years I would burst into tears when I saw them on screen because it was just felt so new and unbelievable. I felt my heart aching in a similar way during this movie, as I watched people of color being celebrated so lovingly on the big screen.

QTpie wants to be a musician so precious

Beautiful visuals with an ambitious storyline that was pulled off quite nicely. I cried like a baby and it felt great. Would watch again because I want to see it in 3D!

right now, wrong then (2015)

To watch Right Now, Wrong Then is to dive into and swim around in its quiet realism. Long, still shots in which the camera barely moves render you a voyeur, invisibly and patiently observing the incidental meeting of two strangers. The acting is superb, which is what makes it so fascinating to watch the characters gradually open up right in front of you. I was already Kim Minhee's biggest fan (she was in The Handmaiden my favorite movie!!), but to see such a skilled performance from her made me fall in love with her all over again.

awkward turtles

I can't talk about this film without talking about the trick it employs halfway through - it rewinds to the beginning and the characters make different decisions as they go through the same plot points. Namely, in the second half Director Ham approaches Heejung in a way that is more honest and transparent, which allows her the space to be more of herself in return. Their short relationship is tweaked in subtle ways that build upon each other, culminating in an ending in which nothing has changed -- they still go their separate ways -- except for the way they feel about each other. 

I can think of so many productions that employ this rewind-and-go-again format (Tatami Galaxy, the play Constellations, Groundhog Day...) and it's easy to see what is so compelling. The format allows us to live out the alternative universes in which all but the factor you choose are held constant. It's like conducting a science experiment. What went wrong the first time? What could have been? A fantasy, observed from a safe distance. 

Of course, though the second version of the story gives us the sense of wish fulfillment for both characters, the encounter isn't perfect. It's nice that Director Ham is honest about the fact that he is married, but given that the current story is happening I would surmise his marriage has some serious issues! He also criticizes Heejung's painting and upsets her, and repeatedly tells her she is pretty without even invitation. Despite being overall more likeable in the second half, he is masculine and patronizing in the way he talks to her, unable to shake the arrogance that plagues him as a famous movie director and as a man. To see the "better" half of the story fall far from perfect is perhaps a comfort to those of us who are regretful or hung up on the past, or a warning to those who think that life is anything but messy. (To make matters worse, the director of the actual movie had an affair with Kim Minhee what the fuck!!? Was this whole project just a way for him to live out his own fantasy of taking advantage of a young beautiful actress with whom he would have no chance with without the power differential this project provides him??? Was the whole plot to like psychologically prime her to fall in love with him?? I am as always highly skeptical of powerful men's motivations but idk though I don't want to deny Kim Minhee any agency. Also I just google'd this and apparently they are in love. Omg. Ugh ok let's make a futile attempt to separate the art from the artist starting..... now... ... .. . )

Overall, this movie is a lovely meditation on human interaction and all of the beauty and shared connection and pain and disgust that comes with it. Looking forward to watching the director's new movie coming out this month, On the Beach at Night Alone, ALSO starring Kim Minhee, ALSO about her falling in love with a movie director. *facepalm*

thirst / bakjwi (2009)

If you're looking for a fun, sufficiently creepy movie, this is the one to watch! And it's not just any ol' vampire movie - it's about a priest who turns into a vampire after a blood transfusion gone awry (I hope nothing like this happens on my clinical service ha ha ha!), and the havoc that follows as he tries to stay true to his principles.

~ suggestive stares ~

Of course, he is able to generally control himself until he meets the woman who screws everything up. Women suck amirite??!!! She's lonely and mistreated as essentially a servant in her own household, so when protag shows up she seduces him. She is successful partly due to her high JVP and because as a priest he is horny af and understandably #downforwhatever. Lots of sexual interactions take place, most of which I found pretty cray, and one of which I found pretty hot?? It's interesting to think about the conflation of thirst for blood (aptly called bloodlust) with sexual desire in the vampire genre. It makes sense because I guess bodily fluids, necks, and gloomy men who tend to be vampires are all sexy in the cultural imagination - but I am also reminded of the conflation of violence and sex in ways that hurt people in catastrophic ways every day.

It's a Park Chan Wook movie, so of course it's filled with cool shots and startling moments and great acting. Of course, the female protag is a - do I even have to say it - literal piece of cute cardboard whose decisions don't make sense but like what's new?? Oh, and fun fact: The Korean title for this movie is bakjwi, literally "bat." I guess it was decided that that wasn't appealing enough for us sex-crazed Americans. Anyway, this film is overall a fun watch if you have a thing for vampires and mild gore like I do!

oldboy (2003)

// second viewing //

I remember being nineteen years old and watching this movie for the first time and being captivated by the unraveling mystery, the protag's pain and all-consuming drive for vengeance, and the extravagant presence of violence and profanity throughout. Now, five years later, I found my second viewing sorely disappointing. Without the shock factor of the plot, the dullness of the characters became more apparent - the female love interest is reduced to an object of sex and violence and also conveniently a plot point, and the antagonist is reduced to just an inexplicably shitty person, though he had a backstory that could have made him much more compelling if only his psychological had been explored a little more deeply.

On the whole I find the general scheme of vengeance stories to be a giant yawn. Character A shits on character B, who gets mad and spends the whole movie plotting to shit back on character A. It's like 2 Girls 1 Cup but the shit is all figurative. Character B has questionably consensual sex with a woman thirty years younger than he is. (I wonder if the movie was trying to make a point about this?) Sprinkle on some violent obstacles, finish the plot off with a twist, and you get a movie that film bros can really jerk off to enjoy.

meet-cute at the sushi bar

Is that all I have to say? I think that's all I have to say without spoiling anything since spoiling this movie would defeat the purpose of anyone watching it IMO. The acting was good! The camerawork and composition were good. The pacing of the first part of the movie where he's imprisoned in a room was great. And the octopus scene!!! I've been craving live octopus since I watched this movie five years ago and that desire has not changed one bit!

I hope I didn't hurt your feelings, Park Chan Wook. :( I still think The Handmaiden is a masterpiece and it's still one of my favorite movies, but that's probably because you had a female co-writer and her lesbian friend as a consult who probably did the heavy lifting in humanizing your characters. I hope you learned something and I look forward to your next movie! Hwaiting!!!

battle royale (2000)

A class of teenagers are brought to a remote island under the guise of a class trip and forced to kill each other off until one remains. It's a brutal setup that's been a part of our cultural imagination, taking on many forms from Robinson Crusoe which I never read, to The Hunger Games trilogy which I ashamedly took part in. There was something about this film in particular that felt more succinct and distilled, a specific meditation on what it is like to be confronted by the idea of the death of others as an antidote to your own death. The characters were all interesting and engaging to watch, with their own unique motives and ways of coping, which was great, and the fact that they were kids made their acts of passion more believable. Of course, the female love interest was mostly a shell of a human being and served only to give emotional support to other men, but hey, just like prostitution is the world's oldest profession, so are cardboard female love interests the movie industry's oldest unhealing leg ulcer!!!

The pacing was fast, which I liked - we're told in stark text that the country is falling apart, that adolescents are boycotting school and youth crime is on the rise. In reaction, the "adults" pass the BR Act (Battle Royale) that allows for the premise of the movie. We're not told why or who in the world thought this was a good idea, which is perhaps comforting because it allows us to momentarily laugh at how preposterous and fictitious the premise is - that is, until we remember that the world we live in is no different in how it pits individuals and groups of people against each other in order to maintain a certain power hierarchy.

#distressed

Stylistically, I loved the white text on a black screen that would immediately appear after each death, showing the name and assigned number of the character that had died as if they were inevitable, each just one more number on a scoreboard displayed for the audience's benefit. Occasionally, during the deaths of more prominent characters, the camera would linger on their lifeless body and the text would appear right on top of that image, without the black background, forcing the audience to confront the gruesome fact of slaughter.

Overall this movie that does a great job rendering this kill or be killed narrative that we are so familiar with. It's immersive, and sweet and horrifying at once, though fairly easy to digest because the horror isn't anything new or backhanded. It's not unsettling to watch because they are children and perhaps we don't infuse within them any kind of lasciviousness or twisted deceit. They are simply trying, as we always are, when confronted with danger imposed by the existing world. 

wolf children / ookami kodomo no ame to yuki (2013)

// second viewing //

Truly a masterpiece! This family saga tells the story of Hana, a woman who falls in love with a wolf-man and has two wolf-children, Yuki and Ame, whom she must raise to self-actualization as a single mother within the confines of a society that does not deal too kindly with the duality of their nature. Her struggle is set alongside the challenges Yuki and Ame face of growing up and longing for acceptance and a place of belonging, and the ways in which the three characters' stories interlace and come apart is heartbreaking, delivered as a slow, devastating unraveling throughout the film. I am left with the image of a tapestry, coming undone with the end of the thread being painstakingly woven back in between the fibers that remain, resulting in an imperfect kind of beauty.

#idyllicAFcountrylife #jkit'sactuallyalotofwork

I love stories about sibling relationships, and this story's older sister/younger brother sibling relationship hit me extremely close to home, and perhaps led me to look closer into their dynamic than the film really intended for. I see a lot of parallels between Yuki and Ame and my own sibling relationship - headstrong Yuki and bashful Ame as children, Yuki's desire to participate in the outside world and having to sacrifice not only her wolf identity, but also begrudgingly take on a female gender identity, in order to survive and fit in. Ame slowly turning inward and discovering that he prefers the forest, and easily finds himself master of that domain, a role that opens up to him without much resistance. Ame becoming stronger and overpowering his sister as they fight violently, unable to come to terms with the fact that they want different things. Yuki finding relief for the complexity of her wolf/human duality only in a boy, while Ame finds freedom by simply deciding to embrace his wolf side. Bold, adventurous Yuki growing into a young woman who is essentially saved by a boy, while quiet Ame retreats during a rainstorm into his own realm, leaving his mother chasing after him in tears. I see this trajectory of these characters' lives and am filled with sadness - by the burdens we place on our daughters and mothers, by the way parents hurt their children by loving them so hard, by the pain that children cause their parents simply because they need to find themselves. This hurt is so universal, and is conveyed by the film so sincerely.

While I doubt this admittedly somber interpretation is the exact one that the writers meant for me to come away with, I think it is a testament to the attention to detail that they placed on character building that makes the characters come to life and elicit a personalized understanding of their story from the viewer. For example, I read another review in which the author talks about being reminded of her experience growing up as an Asian American immigrant, constantly negotiating her place between two worlds, with her parents acting as a sort of balancing force that reminded her that perhaps it was possible to exist in two states at once. I wish the film had explored a bit more the pain that Yuki felt in having to conform to gender norms - my only disappointment. In any case, I imagine there are so many stories of people's lives that this film will resonate with in unexpected ways, and I find that incredibly uplifting.

"omiyage mitsu, tako mitsu!" *bawls like a baby*

I finished this film feeling like I've known these characters for a decade of their lives, which really only ever happens otherwise when I read a book. It was mesmerizing the ways in which time passing was depicted - by the changing flowers in the vase beside the father's picture, by delightful montages of Hana working so hard to build a new life and her kids growing up alongside her toil, and the stylish panning through the school hallways as Yuki and Ame move up one grade level at a time. And oh gosh, the beautiful soundtrack that carries this story along. This film cuts straight to the heart.

a silent voice / koe no katachi (2016)

PLOT: Schoolboy Ishida has a great life until Nishimiya shows up as a new student who is deaf. The ways in which he and different characters react to her deafness causes a social crisis among them, and as a result Ishida becomes a social outcast and Nishimiya transfers schools. Years later, Ishida learns sign language and finds Nishimiya and asks her to be friends, in order to make amends before planning to commit suicide. He finds, however, that the prospect of friendship gives him something to live for. Stuff happens that spans I think seven manga volumes and is all stuffed into a two hour film in a way that is super confusing and tbh kind of boring.

This is a film that had perhaps great intentions but fell exasperatingly short of them. The story with the topics of disability (deafness) and mental health (social ostracization and suicide), but ultimately, because the film tries to do so many things at once and ultimately fails in fleshing out its large character cast, these topics feel more like dramatizing plot points and are not given the attention to detail they deserve.

First, the positive: The romantic undertones in this movie were dealt with a very light touch, which I appreciated. The viewer got the sense that part of the reason Ueno participated in Nishimiya's bullying was that she had feelings for Ishida, and it was clear that this unrequited longing continued to factor into her character's actions five years later. This tension was conveyed without the writers having to spell it out explicitly. The female characters in general were portrayed in a surprisingly and relatively non-gendered way, which is a testament perhaps to the fact that Kyoto Animation was founded by a woman? Idk I just read that somewhere lol.

The negatives, and only the negatives that I have the energy to write about (there were a lot):

Nishimiya is portrayed very statically as a shy, deaf girl who always has a smile on her face, is very quick to say sorry, who just wants to be friends, who wants to be friends with our male protagonist Ishida despite him literally throwing a ball of dirt into her face and called her disgusting when they first met because he ~didn't know how to act upon his confused feelings about her deafness, he realizes years later, so he had decided to react in a most toxically masculine way~. Though we do see her exasperated side when she reciprocates Ishida's violence during their fight at school, she immediately accepts his request for friendship when they reunite five years later, for no reason other than I guess this is what a girl has to do in order to not piss off a guy and possibly give him a reason to blame her for his decision to commit suicide - but of course she has a character showed no sign of this kind of decision-making. Her niceness and ability to forgive Ishida is hailed as the reason he does not go through with his suicide, but her character is in turn given no depth whatsoever. Her deafness is simply a device that lays a path for Ishida to make terrible decisions and then feel bad about them and try to make up for them, while all along she is blindly supportive and uncritical of him. She is, both literally and figuratively, a voiceless victim through which our protag is able to find self-actualization without having to be critical of his process. It's like they didn't even try!

I hope you get better portrayals in future films about deafness my cute honeypie *squishes cheeks bc you're cute but also bc this film convinces me you're just an object :( *

Ishida is quite frankly an idiot who has no social skills, which I guess makes sense because apparently he doesn't even need them because the other characters like him for no apparent reason. He is a flawed character who I imagine garners more sympathy in the manga, in which there is probably room for his character's internal life to be explored more fully. I found him unfathomably thoughtless and lame. There is probably no character trope I loathe more than the male protagonist who is supposed to be heroic simply because he realizes his mistakes and tries to fix them but nonetheless continues to make similar mistakes without consequence. Are our standards for men so low that this is enough? Whatever, I'M OVER IT, I shout into the void. Ishida's suicide was treated too nonchalantly by other characters and by the film, which seems to gloss over the serious mental health burden that accompanies the decision to commit suicide and treats suicide as a singular event. The depiction could have been much worse, but was still disappointing.

Don't really recommend this film, but wanted it ~on record~ that, as much as it pains me to say, this film is worse than Kimi no Na Wa, though I would consider both exceptionally bad. Is the anime film dead as a genre? Was Miyazaki the only good thing to have ever happened to us? I really hope not!!!

beauty and the beast (2017)

Note: I watched this movie while on my flight back to Philly from Paris, and studies somewhere show that we are more likely to cry during movies on airplanes because we're in an in between state, at once leaving and going. I literally teared up almost every time Emma Watson started singing not because she is good at singing at all (her voice was autotuned to heck) but because she is literally the UK's sweetheart and goddess! Ugh!!!!!

stop being cute emma just stop

This movie did a great job of retelling the classic story while making the effort to make Belle, the bookworm protagonist, pretty awesome. I got super emotional during the entire "little town" music sequence - how can you not, when the song is about feeling like you are trapped within a certain order and dreaming of something more, you're not sure what it is exactly but you trust that it is out there, aka "there must be more than this provincial liiiiiiiiife!" I enjoyed the verses they added during which Belle derides the idea of being Gaston's "little wife" and runs to the hilltops - very Sound of Music. The storyline about Belle's mother was also a surprise tearjerker!

Of course, a big chunk of my emotional reaction came from the fact that I find so much joy in musicals and in the way music can illustrate and heighten certain emotions in the listener so much better than words can on their own. As a musical, the movie also allows me to suspend a little bit of disbelief as to the overall plot as I indulge in the romance of the music, without which I would have found it much harder to buy into the narrative. Sure, it's satisfying to see Belle escape from the little town that she feels stifled and threatened in, but she trades it in for a wealthy, handsome prince who only had to woo a lonely bookworm with his giant you know what. And by you know what I mean library full of books. It really wasn't that much of a struggle?? Yeah, this plot was never very good. My brother mentioned that he read that the story suggests that the act of loving itself can be positively transformative, that we become beautiful as a result of being loved and not the other way around. I like that, but somehow it didn't feel like the movie did enough to convince me of that particular narrative.

Overall this movie worked for what it was - Beauty and the Beast, slightly more feminist with several black people in the cast. Cute!

under the skin (2013)

The general feeling that this movie left me with was one of confusion and loneliness. I suppose that was what the story was about - of becoming someone in a world that is foreign, of realizing that power is perhaps a state of mind and, especially for someone who presents as a woman, can be lost in an instant. I thought Scarlett Johanssohn did an amazing job of portraying an alien figure in human skin, who gradually grows into the skin she (?) inhabits. My reading of the ending - in which she is assaulted and burned to death by the man in the woods - was that the alien, in interacting with all these humans in her time, had slowly begun to feel human herself, and gendered as well after she falls for that one nice man, but as soon as she began to embody this human woman fully and lies down to rest, she is molested by a man who had appeared to be nice to her, then molests her in her sleep, tries to rape her, and burns her to death after he is disgusted at her alienness underneath. This seemed to echo the violence committed in our own world against not only women but transgender people especially, by men in hateful reaction to feeling "tricked" and that their masculinity is threatened by their desire.

she know about wearin a fur fox skin

It is interesting to think about the progression of the main character's sexual interactions and the power she loses in parallel. In the beginning of the movie, she seduces unsuspecting men and, in a really cool and eerie sequence, traps them in suspension. They move toward her as she backs away, mirroring her undress, and do not even notice as they descend straight down into the abyss. So chilling! The music during these sequences was terrifying and I loved it. In this section, she has full control over her prey but in a way, exacts her violence in a most non-violent way. She never touches the men - they willingly walk down into the depths, and are broken down seemingly painlessly. After she runs away from her duties and is helped by the nice man, she seems to experience her first instance of human affection and desire. She jumps up right before (?) they have sex and curiously examines her genitals, as if in disbelief that they are there and to realize what they are for. The man never pressures her to do anything, so in this instance she seems to have yielded some of her sexual power over man by sharing desire with someone else, but nevertheless maintains the rightful autonomy any person should have. Everything changes in the third section, however, when the man in the woods tries to rape her. Here, she lost complete control over her body and sexuality, and only manages to escape from underneath him because he is shocked when he tears a piece of her skin, revealing an amorphous substance underneath. The fact that he kills her suggests an unfortunate truth of the world - that a woman who does not submit to the will of man faces great danger. Her death can be read in different ways - Is it justice for the men she killed? A twisted way for her to escape the suffering she experiences as a human woman? Her inevitable fate in taking on the skin of a woman? Tl;dr, alien goes from being sexually powerful to powerless and then goes out in flames. This shit is bonkers.

Interesting facts: Many of the scenes in which she talks to men on the street were filmed with hidden cameras! The disfigured man in the movie is played by Adam Pearson who has neurofibromatosis, and he actually advised them on how she should interact with him. In an op-ed he wrote on Daily Mail, he talked about the importance of positive representations of people with "disfigurements" - scars, burns, things people associate with villains - in popular culture, and to perhaps have real people with these conditions play them instead of having the disfigurement be a costume. He likens this to blackface - not sure how I feel about this so I would love to hear any thoughts. I would have to think some more about how I feel about the relationship between the protag and this character because there seems to be a lot going on. 

Overall the film did a great job of producing an unsettling tone with a classic high-pitched violin set against a low beating bass, mysterious shots with little dialogue and a lot of quiet, and Scarlet's fantastic performance. I can see why this film didn't do so well at the box office - it is very much a film better appreciated at home by someone who is ready to patiently consume something bizarre and beautiful. 

thelma & louise (1991)

The charm of this film came from simply watching how much fun the two title characters were having, both as a result of leaving behind the things and people that burden them and of defying the law and exacting a kind of violent justice on the men they encounter and are hurt by. Wiki says that this violence has been criticized as senseless and sensationalizing; however, to me their choice of men to exact revenge on made sense - the rapist for obvious reasons, the police officer who represents a criminal justice system that consistently fails victims of sexual assault, and the lewd truck driver who harasses them and is representative of a more seemingly benign (they initially thought he was being nice) but still very violent manifestation of rape culture. Watching them blow up his truck and expertly driving circles around him was especially satisfying. Also Thelma is so derpy and hilarious!

but first let them take a selfie

I thought the ending was really well done! The two friends deciding to commit suicide together could have easily been seen as a cheesy cop-out (no pun intended), but their decision made sense not because they had nothing to live for (they did - at least Louise loved someone), but perhaps because now that they have experienced the satisfaction of freedom and power, they sure aren't going to give it up. Their decision to end their lives together in the face of a squadron of police armed with machine guns is a big middle finger to the the institutions - of both of men and law enforcement - that have harmed them. Interestingly, the one cop who is sympathetic to the women and wants to help them is ignored by the rest of the police, as if the film is saying we know #notallmen but like #mostofthem?? Oppressive institutions exist beyond and despite the individual Good Guy, and even the most sincere promises are not enough to overcome a lifetime of hurt and mistrust.

A detail that I liked: Thelma or Louise looking up and meeting the gaze of someone (usually a man) who has been staring at her. This happened three times I think, where the camera cuts from her looking up and lingers for several seconds on the stranger's unchanging gaze, then cuts back to her reaction. I saw these sequences as an inversion of the male gaze, because you can feel her frustration or defiance, the complexity of her awareness that she is being watched. She is seen but she sees them right back.

whisper of the heart / mimi o sumaseba (1995)

This movie is a treasure! The premise: A middle school girl named Shizuku who likes to read and write lives a regular life with friends and a semi-chaotic family life, when one day she takes a liking to a fluffy grey cat who joins her on the train on her way to the library. She follows the cat to a small shop full of antique objects, including a romantically designed grandfather clock and a figurine of a cat dressed in a baron's clothing. There, she befriends the owner, an elderly man who tells her stories and encourages her to write her own, and Seiji, a boy in her grade who wants to be a professional violin maker. From there, she becomes more inspired to pursue her own dreams of becoming a better writer.

finding a bit of confidence in her own voice with the help of a friend

Glad to see an anime with characters that build believable friendships and romances, especially after being disillusioned by Kimi no na wa. At the beginning of the story Shizuku finds herself being constantly berated by her older sister for not helping out around the house, as her mother is busy working on her master's degree and her father is, well, a man. She has friends at school who admire her writing, aka her translation of the song Country Road that they plan to perform, but she feels stuck, perhaps weighed down by her responsibilities at home and the pressure of having to get ready to take high school entrance exams. She ultimately finds inspiration in seeing Seji work so hard to achieve his dreams, and reassurance from the elderly man that perfection takes time and effort, that every gemstone starts out rough and unpolished and embedded in plain rock.

skipping dinner to work on her story

I thought the fact that she and Seiji agreed to marry each other in the future was so adorable and worked really well, as it is understood that they are children who may not understand the weight of their promise to each other, yet feel above all a kinship for one another and a desire to see each other succeed. Their love for one another is entirely unselfish, communicated to one another by the small ways in which they look out for each other (Shizuku hopping off the bike and helping push Seiji up the hill even though he had wanted to take her up the entire way, him catching an earlier plane back from his apprenticeship to see her, their feeling of being able to anticipate the other's presence suggesting they share the same desires to see each other). Shizuku does not devolve into a Female Love Interest in front of Seiji, and Seiji is not patronizing nor macho in front of her. Such a joy to see this kind of portrayal of a female character and romance in a film made in 1995, for although Shizuku does live in a man's world (the inspiring figures in the movie are all men), she remains an individual with curiosities and dreams.

In terms of how this film relates to its sequel, The Cat Returns, I wonder if it acts as a sort of big sister. It sets up a world in which characters dare to dream bigger, who encounter bits of the magic that is further unveiled in The Cat Returns, where The Baron takes a younger girl on an adventure and similarly shows her what she might be missing out on and inspires her to think bigger.

terrace house: boys x girls in the city (2015)

TERRACE HOUSE!!!!! This show is highly addictive most likely because it is so satisfying for me to watch Asian people in media. Most Americans are familiar with reality TV as a place where idiots gather to get famous by having their worst moments captured and provide the audience with a stronger sense of self-satisfaction. Terrace House, however, is a different story. Not only is the show set in Japan, but it does not seem to have the agenda of fanning the flames of drama. Instead, the show portrays the everyday lives of young people who are polite, kind, and funny, who have goals and careers they get to showcase on the show, who solve dilemmas by having mature conversations. Moreover, cast members are free to leave the show if they choose, making the format seem less coercive than most other reality shows (though we don't know the extent to which producers are involved in that decision).

my OG girlz

An additional layer of the show involves six commentators who convene to watch the show every week and discuss it. Their banter is generally amusing when you try to ignore the very obvious fact that the discussion is dominated by the two men, with the women left mostly agreeing with or adding to the men's comments while occasionally putting a short thought or two out there themselves. This dynamic we see in American culture as well and is obviously nothing new, but the degree of gender (especially feminine) performance is very visible. In general, however, their commentary is funny and a nice format to channel any joys or frustrations you have as a viewer into, as I found they generally said things that I was thinking about already.

the above-mentioned commentators

The biggest disappointment of the show is that it does focus heavily on romance in a very heteronormative and sexist way - there are always 3 girls and 3 guys living in the house at once, and it can feel extremely lame to watch the men (esp the three in the beginining) talking about the girls' boobs, to have people criticized for not being "manly" or "feminine" enough to date or be respectable, to have multiple shots of girls in bikinis with their heads cropped out whenever the cast goes to the beach. To see a nineteen year old girl crying after doing a photoshoot in a bikini was heartbreaking, and have the moment be pretty much glossed over by the commentators was highly disappointing. We do see interesting manifestations of gender roles in less inflammatory settings - the women are generally the ones who do the cooking, for example, which really had me thanking the gods that I am not in their position!

can we not

i feel ya gurl

It is refreshing, however, to watch generally attractive Japanese people interact with one another in mundane ways. They're just like us! And perhaps a bit better at communicating than some of us! There is something really pleasant about witnessing these mundane conversations that seem truly unscripted (unlike the dialogue in American reality shows), to watch the complexity of human interaction unfold in an unchaotic setting as the cast continue about their daily work lives. Perhaps the show says something about how one's life can change solely based on the people one gets to know, about how meaningful friendships blossom from stranger-hood, how one can become so attached to people and places simply by spending time with them and being in their presence. Terrace House accomplishes what the Bachelor/ette fails to do - capture convincing romances and even more convincing friendships.

FAVORITE CHARACTERS LIST: Minori, Mizuki, Arisa, Arman, Hikaru, and Martha. Arman x Martha are the dream ship and the ship has sailed and they are still together based on their instagrams and all is right in the world.

Not sure if I will watch the other versions of the show: the original and Aloha State. At the very least it is nice to know that they are there for me when I need them. :) 

the beguiled (2017)

This film captures a very visceral and melancholic sense of place. In the opening scene we see a young girl walking along a dirt path surrounded by a spread of giant trees, branches curving in to create a canopy of dulled green over the path. After she rescues Colin Farrel, we get to see the magnificent house that these women live in, with its entrance lined with yellowed ionic columns, situated within a dense surrounding of overgrown trees with weeping branches of green on the brink of greying. These trees and their weeping branches are present in all shots of the house so that we never get a sense of the true shape or size of the house as it is always shrouded by nature gone wild, In this setting we get a creeping sense of the outside infiltrating the inside which we see again and again with Colin not only bringing the presence of maleness into the household, but also the presence of war, of division, of the threat of destabilizing the hierarchy and order of Miss Martha's school.

welcome to nicole kidman's crib

The fluctuation and transfer of power throughout the story was really interesting to follow. The moment the Corporal enters the house, Miss Martha sense that her power may be threatened, as most of the women and girls take a liking to (or at very least a fascination with) him. Despite him flirting with Edwina and Alicia, he is still weak due to his injured leg and Miss Martha finds comfort for herself in taking care of him, finding him attractive, and confessing that it can be exhausting to be a constant source of strength for her girls. Despite allowing herself to be vulnerable around him, she can at least rest assured while he is hurt that she and her girls are safe. After he recovers and begins to help around the garden, he begins to build power for himself by tending to the garden and flirting with the women in the house. Perhaps Miss Martha sense that and fears it, so she says he will be well enough to leave by the end of the week. Perhaps in response to this, the Corporal tells Edwina that he loves her, perhaps taking advantage of her loneliness and desire to leave this place, and that she should come away with him to Richmond. He then proceeds to make a ~power move~ by sleeping with Alicia instead of Edwina, and Edwina, in a fit of betrayal, pushes him down the stairs and breaks his leg. Miss Martha removes his leg, thus returning him to his crippled state and restoring her own power as the most influential of the house and locks him in his room to keep him away from the girls. At this point, with his leg cut off, symbolic of being castrated, the Corporal is consumed by understandable rage and uses physical violence to assert his dominance in the household. At this point, there is nothing the women can do but to kill him. The story seems to suggest that a man's death may be the only way keep women safe - a strong message of the strength of female community and the costs of maintaining it.

all eyes

At times I did feel like Colin Farrell was too assertive in his flirtations in his weakened state and I didn't find it believable, I guess meaning I didn't find myself attracted to him like the other women did, but like I guess people are unique and have their unique preferences and who am I to judge their poor taste idk?? Perhaps he was channeling a sort of practiced charm as a means of self protection, as if he knew exactly what words to use to win the women over.

Overall a beautiful and succinct portrayal of the destabilization of a community by an outsider, and a sort of ominous yet uplifting portrayal of women keeping each other safe despite, or in the context of, their own desires. I enjoyed that each of the women and girls was unique in their own standing and relationship with one another, like you could draw a web out of all the unique connection. Sofia Coppola does a great job of creating an atmosphere of quiet drama and sexual tension like she did in Lost in Translation, with the eye following the female gaze when filming Colin Farrell, meaning it had to be more subtle and repressive in its appreciation of him than it would a female body in order to capture the female characters' gaze and fascination. This provided a form of silent storytelling and character development that worked quiet well.

#bathtime

It's important to acknowledge that the film has been white-washed with the removal of a black slave character and a character of mixed ethnicity. As much as the aesthetic of beautiful blonde repressed white women appeals to me and white America, it's a real shame to see stories erase the presence of people of color, especially in an otherwise fantastic movie. I read that Coppola had her reasons (she said she didn't want young audiences to see a black character being portrayed in the way that she is in the book), which makes sense but is also an excuse not to do better. Being scared you're going to be racist is no excuse to sidestep someone's existence - it should be motivator to do more research and educate yourself. 

the red turtle (2016)

PLOT: A man is stranded on an island, and each time he attempts to escape, a large red turtle wrecks his raft and he must return to the island. One day the red the turtle crawls onto the beach, and out of anger the man beats it and turns it on its back, leaving it to die. He quickly feels remorseful, and one day the turtle turns into a naked woman in a shell - the American dream! Sorry, I'll stop editorializing. They make a child together and have a happy life. The child grows into a man and leaves them to be with his turtle friends. Eventually, the father passes away peacefully, and the woman turns back into a turtle and returns to the sea.

This movie was pretty much just what I expected, except maybe even less interesting that I expected. But let me focus on the positives first: The visuals were definitely beautiful - subtle gradients of watercolor brushed across the sands of the beach and the thick grass the characters would walk through as they passed in and out of the bamboo forest. Turtles are just beautiful animals in general, and it was a pleasure seeing them depicted on screen as gentle giants that held affection for humanity. The scene in which the red turtle makes its way up the shore only to be greeted by violence from the man is saddening, and his gradually surfacing remorse at what he had done was poignantly depicted. Definitely my favorite scene. The soundtrack was also full of rolling swells of orchestral strings, which lended the film an atmosphere of wonder and immersion. The pacing also did a great job of depicting time passing as the characters all grew older.

las tortugas!

Now for the negatives. In general, the characters were all incredibly lacking in depth and personality. I understand that the film makes it obvious that it is striving for simplicity in not only storyline but in all aspects of the story, ending with many things left unexplained for the sake of acting as some kind of allegory of the universal experiences of humanity - but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Therein lies the more major problem: In depicting a very plain set of characters, it succeeds in alienating viewers who do not identify with with the everyman journey that we are taught to aspire to. What baffled me right away was that the woman, who is clearly not of this world since she appeared out of nowhere inside a turtle shell, had incredibly gendered manners of interacting with the man. In their first interaction she displays the ever-praised value of modesty, as she refuses to come out of the water until he leaves a shirt on the shore and retreats to the forest to give her privacy. Though she is a magical being, she takes on the traditionally female roles of gathering mussels from the sandbar, providing emotional support for their child, always displaying more emotion than the man does, clinging to his arm as they walk down the beach together. Even after their kid leaves the island and the couple are free to shed their clothing and modesty, I don't think her chest ever saw the light of day as there was always, of course, a chunk of hair covering her breasts up. Not sure that's how hair physics works. In general, it is almost painful to watch how uncreatively she is depicted. Even if she is meant to embody a true human being, it is still downright annoying and boring to see such a gendered depiction of a couple. Yawn.

CYOOT c:

Of course, I found the infant child delightful as I do all infant children. They should have tried for another kid when the first one left!! Would love to see The Red Turtle 2, where the red turtle woman spirit seduces yet another man, this time an Asian??, and has adorable Asian octuplets. Ya girl can dream, right?

orange is the new black S5 (2017)

The latest season of OITNB took place over the course of a 3 day riot at Litchfield Prison. The central plotline consisted of Taystee and her friends mourning Poussey's death, and trying to harness their anger into creating a set of demands for improving prison conditions in exchange for the CO they held hostage.

As the inmates enjoy their couple days of freedom, we see a comedic yet revealing role reversal - the COs, now hostages, are coerced and beaten and humiliated just as the inmates had been. We get the satisfaction of seeing the inmates act so sadistically, which was both fun and a little scary to see trauma being perpetuated by the traumatized. The "talent show" that was held was fun comedic relief, but I thought the methheads had wayyyy too much screen time. Even though I have a soft spot for Angie, the two of them didn't really add an intellectual depth to the story, and their comedy was enjoyable only sometimes - mostly just mildly disturbing. Especially when they peed in Pennsatucky's yellow juice. :(

Taystee's story was very well done! Her initial outrage at Poussey's death being put at odds with Soso, whose sadness prompted her to build an open air library in the hallways of the prison - a beautiful tribute to Poussey and her love of books. As Taystee's friends convince her to open up the list of demands to a vote from all the inmates, we see her indignity and feelings of betrayal as she realizes that most other inmates do not prioritize prosecuting CO Bailey, Poussey's killer. As she steps up as a leader and representative of the inmates, she lets her pride get in the way of accepting a deal that would have changed the lives of hundreds of inmates for the better. Her character arc was made even more compelling by the fact that the riot ended with none of their demands met, and instead, women being beaten by cruel SWAT team members and friendships being torn apart as the inmates board separate buses that are supposedly taking them to new prisons.

On that note, it was touching to see Flaca and Maritza tell each other that they found best friends in each other at prison. To see them being separated while boarding buses was heartbreaking, and it was the one time my eyes welled up with tears. The idea of families and friendships and communities being torn apart again and again seems to be a recurring theme in the history (and present) of how America treats people of color, who incidentally are given longer prison sentences for more benign crimes, and I can't help but think of how that parallels the way black families were torn apart through the slave economy the second this country was established. This is what happens when one is seen as less than human.

Overall, I enjoyed the tight storyline of this season and a couple of moving character developments. Interested in seeing what becomes of our beloved characters!

jane the virgin S3 (2017)

This show is the kind of show that I once thought only materializes in dreams, and I still find myself pleasantly surprised that it exists. It is at once smartly written, heartwarmingly endearing, and laugh-out-loud funny. It is set up as a satire of the melodramatic telenovela but also a champion of the experience of women of color, touching down expertly on topics like racism and immigration, the stigma of single motherhood, abortion and alternate methods of conception, religion, and family. Plus it's a cast of 99% people of color who are probably some of the most charismatic people in the world. This is what progress looks like.

my loves

Season three had us feeling closer than ever to Jane, who spent the season working toward her writing goals, nurturing a family life with a husband and a child AND a baby-daddy, while her parents struggle with their differences and her grandmother trying to woo an old gentleman (which is a delightful and groundbreaking story itself). She became a widow rather early on and yet the story did not melt into a soppy, messy season of mourning but instead pushed the heroine forward while allowing her the occasional opportunity for sadness. The grief she feels for Michael is channeled into the success of her new novel, a present to herself in a boldly Jane-centered way. We feel little pity for her but rather admire her for bravely and realistically letting go of the love that she lost in Michael and seeking happiness and normalcy looking forward. This is done quite mechanistically as well, as the show skips forward three years right after Michael dies. Applauding the writers so hard for how they handled this transition and resisting the temptation to milk the dead spouse narrative.

I just realized it would take eons for me to write a paragraph about every single time this show blew my mind, so I think I'll just make a shortlist! So here it is - my list of times Jane the Virgin blew my mind in season 3:

• Alba has a boyfriend. When since the birth of this nation has any kind of media portrayed a new romance between elderly adults in a way that is serious and not ageist??? I've certainly never seen it before. Amazing.
• Xo proposes to Rogelio! A woman proposes to a man! Don't think I've seen this either. She straight up put a ring on his finger. He was straight up ecastatic and the event was normalized AF.
• Jane is grappling with the hurtful effects of growing up with unhealthy ideas about sex as a result of her grandmother encouraging her to save herself for marriage lest she forever be branded as a crumpled, ruined flower. Yikes. She doesn't regret waiting to have sex until marriage, but now that she is ready to have a fling, she has to face the guilt that she associates with it. She copes by being honest with her grandmother and talking it out with her family. Granted, there is no way this would have been solved this quickly IRL but the show has always done an excellent job of portraying loving, health relationships between a family made up of women who know how to communicate, and this story arc was no exception.
• On that note, I like that basically every problem in the show is solved with honest, open communication and somehow that is still interesting to watch! I guess the show balances its realistic tendencies with the whole murder mystery side story though. Sneaky, sneaky. 
• Jane worked hard and got a book published! It wasn't a big event and she is not super famous, but it's a start and it's rewarding to see our heroine find a slice of personal success.
• Petra finds it hard to bond with her kids. It's not uncommon of that mothers don't bond with their children immediately even though they spent 9 months feeding on her blood and putting 35 pounds on her, so maybe they don't deserve immediate love anyway. Kind of kidding, but yes, motherhood is not a monolith!!!
• Parenting as a separated mother and father doesn't have to be a contentious, dramatic thing. Jane and Rafael can love each other as friends even after being in love and everyone is happy! The heteronormative family unit is a construct so fuck it!
• Sex scenes and sexy scenes in this show are written as a big "fuck you" to the the male gaze. Me gusta.
• Michael died meaning Petra is basically the only white person left on the show. And she is super Czech too. Yay, it's a POC wonderland!
• While writing the list I realized that there are 2 more episodes left of the season and I haven't actually finished the entire thing LOL. Be back in a couple weeks.