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.