Costuming In "The Young Victoria (2009)"

So I think I made claims that I would do a post on this movie many, many months ago when I did the post on The Duchess and I only just now got around to watching it. It has been on the backburner for a long time but was interrupted by my crazy pre-Oscars movie marathoning and then watching a lot of television and then reading a lot of books. What made me finally loop back around to this? Well, I'm going back to England (and for the first time, Ireland) in June and one of my first stops on the list of "Things I Didn't Get To Do The Last Time I Was In London" is Kensington Palace. Being the nerd I am, this means that I had to watch this movie and that I had to do so with Wikipedia open to verify everything that I am seeing. Overall, in case you were wondering, this movie is pretty good in the historically accurate department. Certainly a lot better than say The Tudors or the fairly recent Marie Antoinette. Its a really interesting film and Emily Blunt is delightful.

So what about the costumes? Well, they're pretty, of course, and as far as I can tell they're pretty well aligned with history and Victoria herself. There's a lot of puffed sleeves and half sleeves, wide collars, sashes, and what I'm going to call "mini-shawls." The movie essentially covers the 1820s to the 1840s so this is post Pride and Prejudice Regency-era wear but before the hoops and crinolines and other torture underwear. Also, the movie ends before Prince Albert's death so thankfully I was not subjected to having to write, "And Victoria is still in black because Albert is still dead" over and over again.

I'm not really sure how much of a story Victoria's clothes tell before I really start studying these shots intensely so this might just be a post of pretty things. Nothing wrong with that, right?

As always, click the pictures to make them bigger so you can actually see the detail.

Maybe I'm just an idiot but little girl's dresses from the Georgian era to about the 1910s all look the same to me. The only thing about this image that says post-Regency to me in the corkscrew curl hairstyle.

Luckily, Victoria grows up quickly and I don't need to spend a lot of time with bland childwear.

So throughout the movie Victoria seems to wear purple and bright blue when the scene is correlated with her royalty and this is the first scene that directly confronts her status (when she is able to actually discuss and isn't confined to a bed). Of course, this isn't the vibrant blue that she ends up wearing later when she's queen. This is a light blue, queen-lite. She's a princess and still a child, made even more obvious by the little clips in her hair retaining the same style she had as a child. The silhouette of the dress is only a slightly more mature version of the dress in the earlier picture when she actually is a small child. The gathering on the front and the sash is about the same but it is more of a woman's dress with the more open neckline and shorter, puffed sleeves.

Nightgowns of the 1830s. This is only interesting in comparison to other scenes so I will move on for now.

Victoria meets Albert and he tries to interest her by saying he likes the same things as her. When she calls him on his bull, he admits to liking Shubert which she doesn't care for and this endears her to him a bit.

Victoria wears this dress on two occasions and in both of them it is when she is seeking out companionship and connections outside of her mother's and Sir John's influence. Green shades have a tendency to appear in her clothes whenever she is acting on a personal, rather than political, motive. She hasn't actually gotten into any of the politics of her position yet so what she is looking for at this point is just people who she feels she can trust.

Although I didn't get a shot of it, this is the same dress Victoria wears to the opera in the scene that is intercut with Albert learning about her tastes. In this scene, Victoria confides in Albert about the pressures of her position and he tells her that she should be trying to find a husband who can play the game cleverly with her and not for her. He also tells her about some of the tough things in his own life. Romance buds as they agree to write.

This seems to be her one really fancy evening dress in her pre-queen days and, like most of her things at this point in time, it's a light blue. However, notice her purple headpiece. Purple, being the color of royalty, is often worn by Victoria whenever she is acting on her own political whims over anyone else's and this is the first scene where the idea of acting for yourself is introduced to her by Albert. She's still a puppet but her head is living in a land where she is fully in control herself as she pretty much states in the continuation of this scene below:

The obligatory shot of period underwear. It's pretty much the same as the Regency era: boned corset, petticoats, and a chemise. As I said in the intro, this was before they started wearing hoops and cage crinolines and awful stuff like that but this was also post-panniers. This level of undergarment comfort will not be reached again until the Edwardian era introduces a more comfortable corset and does away with the bustle (which is better than a cage crinoline of the mid-1800s but still).
Symbolically, she takes off her dress to admit her true feelings: she will do whatever pleases her and not everyone who is trying to control her.

In the two large ballroom party scenes in the movie Victoria is in yellow. These are the only times she ever wears yellow as she mostly sticks to greens, blues, purples, pinks, reds, and black so clearly the two scenes are just supposed to be tied to each other. She is warmly received and compared to her other yellow dress, she is still very juvenile looking.

Victoria is threatened and thrown around by Sir John, standing up to him and telling her mother that she will never forget how she did nothing to assist her.

Pink and red are the colors of conflict. Pink specifically has to do with Victoria's relationship with her mother and it all kind of stems from this scene. Clearly she doesn't have the best relationship with her mother but having her sit and watch while her adviser physically harasses her daughter was pretty much the last straw for Victoria.

Victoria confines in Melbourne about how Sir John treated her and asks him for assistance in keeping him and her mother away from her affairs when she becomes queen. Melbourne offers to be her private secretary and requests that she appoint some ladies-in-waiting who are friends of his.

This is the same dress from the scene where she first meets Albert which makes sense since Albert and Melbourne become her two most important connections both politically and personally. This meeting is very different from the other however since the meeting with Albert was mostly personal and this one is mostly political but both aspects are definitely present.

This is the same nightgown as before but damn does it look different. When she's talking to her mother in their room about her meeting the Coburg brothers and John Conroy's control over their lives, the scene is dark, her hair is tied back, and she is mostly shot from the back. Here when she finds out she's queen now, her nightgown is framed in light, her hair is free, and she is shown standing proudly from the front. She now has the power and one of the first things she does? Request that her bed be moved from her mother's room connecting the two scenes.

Victoria ends up wearing this dress for quite a while because her uncle has died. There's no real significance to that but I really dig her bonnet and it's funny how much fussier her sleeves have gotten on this dress over the previous ones. It's not a particularly more high end dress than her previous ones but it's moving slightly in that direction.

When Victoria is in her home, she doesn't wear black. Here she is writing to Albert about how wonderful Melbourne has been to her and symbolically knocking over chess pieces. This dress is only seen for a second and I don't imagine it means much. In fact, it's probably the dumpiest thing she wears in the whole movie which is probably why it is so sparingly used.

In her first outing as queen since she was able to shed the proper mourning attire, she goes for purple. While in Westminster Abbey she talks about her desire to assist the poor, an idea wholly her own.

This outfit is the start of a big trend. Purple being the color of royalty, Victoria adopts it a lot but pretty much always in situations when her job is front and center in a scene. Here they are inspecting the grounds of her coronation site and she talks about her own personal political motives, something that we don't really see until this point since she has mostly had other people's political ideas floating around her.

Note the blue jewels in her crown. It's not hard to since there's not much else in this scene in the way of getting to see the costumes.

This scene really serves one purpose: to remind as that Victoria is still just a girl. After all the serious political discussion, it's easy to forget that fact. Therefore, she's dressed it something kind of frilly and reminiscent of the first child dress she's in in this movie and is sort of giggling and gleeful about her coronation ball like a little kid would be.

Yellow is Vicky's ball color and this is much more mature than her other one that also have flowers on it but sad frilly ones and was a pale, child-like yellow to this shiny, vibrant one. Although I said that there wasn't much to note in the coronation scene aside from the blue gems, this dress is actually almost exactly the same color as the robe she's wearing in that scene. Coronation robe = coronation dress.

Victoria says goodbye to Albert before he goes back to Germany. He tells her he would like to be useful to her and she says, "Not yet." Implied marriage proposal I think. This scene immediately proceeds the most blatant statement of, "We're trying to get Albert to bone the queen."

While there isn't much direct conflict in this scene, her denial of his proposal causes a huge uproar for her Uncle and the people surrounding Albert. Red means she has an enemy (other than her mom) and here it's those who try to control her through her marriage and feelings. Of course, you could also make the argument about red being the color of passion and this is where romantic feelings between Victoria and Albert are made explicitly clear.

Victoria attends a dinner where she discovers that Melbourne is about to lose the vote.

The most interesting thing about this outfit is obviously the sash which matches the jewels in her coronation crown but actually is representative of the Order of the Garter. Throughout the movie Victoria spends a rather surprising amount of time not in formal settings or even out in public at all. This movie is very much focused on her private life so when she is shown at an event such as this one, the full official regalia is out and making callbacks to other official regalia.

Victoria cries over Melbourne's fall from power, feeling like she has lost a powerful ally and even saying to her lady, "You won't desert me, will you?"

Although this isn't quite as light as the blues she wore in her youth, this blue calls back to her childhood far more than the current bright blue of her queenhood and she reacts to this political situation like a child: crying and feeling abandoned. Aside from the collar, the lace detail and the gathering, virtually absent in her regular clothes now, also recall some of her earliest clothes.

Sir Robert Peel, the new PM, tells Victoria that her house is full of people who politically lie with Melbourne and that she should appoint some people who agree with his side. She has none of it.

This dress says it all: the reds of conflict mixed with purple just to remind him of her status. Essentially it says, "I don't like you but I'm in charge so deal." Also, Victoria really doesn't wear full sleeves indoors very often but here she's all covered up and serious. Something about the structure of this dress is so stiff and authoritative. It actually reminds me a lot of dress she wore when she had that confrontation with Sir John that changed her attitude towards her mother.

Victoria attends an opera where someone calls her "Mrs. Melbourne" mockingly.

Out in public, she's full on queen mode. This dress and sash are exactly the same as the ones she wore when she found out Melbourne was about the lose the vote. This is her Melbourne outfit for now but her attitude towards him will change soon and you won't see this again.

Victoria's adviser tells her that she is being stubborn in her opposition of Peel's wishes and on the way they pass a man blaming her bad judgement on her mother.

Purple and pink. It makes sense that she would be wearing dark pink again when her mother is brought up.

During a recital, the palace is attacked.

It's a social event and she was wearing cream during her last social event at the opera but this one is less official so there's no crown or sash.

Victoria talks to her lady about how the people think she is causing trouble.

Back to childhood robe. Whenever Victoria confides in Letzen, she pretty much reverts back to a child because she was one of her only allies throughout her childhood.

Victoria writes to Albert about the conflicts and he tells her to think for herself. Then she gets a letter from her mother that is completely apolitical and tells her just that she loves her and feels sorry for her current pain.

Purple is all about Victoria taking control and that's what Albert advises here. Since the situation mentioned with her mother is wholly positive, there's no need for pink in her clothes.

Victoria talks to Melbourne about her own concerns for the poor and tells him that she has invited Albert for a visit. Melbourne can do nothing but agree to her ideas.

This is the most conflicted bow ever. Make of that what you will. I like to think that this bow shows the end of her smooth relationship with Melbourne. She has worn blue in relation to him before and red means an enemy. Here both are true.
Also, Victoria's travelling outfits all seem to be dark colors, usually muted blues or teals. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's to capitalize on the fact that when most people think of Victoria they think of her in dark colors because she spent so much of her life wearing black in mourning of Albert. Of course, she's not mourning so this is the closest they could get.

"I should have worn the red"
Victoria greets Albert when he arrives at Buckingham Palace.

So if red is a color of conflict, why does she think she should have worn it? Albert first brought up marriage while she was wearing a red dress. Instead she's greeting him as her powerful queen self in purple. Much better choice.

Victoria and Albert finally get engaged.

Same dress she wore to that dinner and to the opera. Perhaps it's a favorite because it certainly isn't lucky based on the other two times she wore it.

Wedding dress porn. How close do you think?

I don't actually have any clothing commentary. I just screenshoted these because they're cute.

Victoria and Albert: Newlyweds.

Dark travelling clothes. Unusually dark really. Possible awful foreshadowing?

Victoria does her job while Albert talks about the dirty windows, not sure what to do with himself and being called a guest by Victoria's ladies.

Doing her job in purple. She's definitely taking Albert's letter to heart; unfortunately he isn't needed when she is relying only on herself like he told her.

Victoria talks about how Albert thinks Melbourne and Letzen control her but doesn't believe that he does. Her friend tells her that Albert has it hard and to let him change some things around if he wishes.

Victoria usually has green on when there's a personal conflict and this most definitely qualifies. Also, she's got on some dark travelling clothes. It's interesting when shawls appear. They aren't a thing she wears all the time when she's walking around but they are often related to a personal moment with someone: first Albert, then this girl, and later Melbourne.

Victoria and Albert talk to her mother for the first time in a while as Albert tries to smooth over their relationship. Albert then tells Melbourne that he has no use for his advice.

Conflict pink with her mother. When don't even get to see the front of this dress, this scene is so short but this is all you need to know. Also, note how the pinks are getting progressively darker from the original like pink.

Victoria encounters Sir John in an empty room and ignores him, making sure to expel him from the castle later.

Green is often what she's wearing when something personal is being discussed. Here nothing is being discussed but she is acting purely on personal response. Sir John hasn't done anything to her in years and isn't doing anything to her here but his presence just leaves such a bad taste in her mouth that she just wants him gone. As a side benefit, her mother is not happy by it.

During an event Victoria learns that Albert has been making deals with Robert Peel to get some of Victoria's ladies out of the palace so some people who agree with him can take their place. Later, she and Albert argue about who is really in power and she essentially says, "Fuck off, Albert. I make my own damn mistakes because I am the one with the power."

Usually rocking cream at social gatherings, Victoria breaks out the purple pretty much for that fight with Albert. It's like, "Who's wearing the royal color?! Me! Also, who told me in the first place to trust in my own power and opinions? You!" This is also the first social event since her coronation ball that she has spend with Albert. Maybe that's why she's breaking out the excessive flower details again.

After Albert leaves against her wishes, this makes for a very tense morning drive together. On the drive, an assassination attempt is made and Albert gets hurt in the process.

Green means personal issues! Also, this outfits really calls back to what she was wearing when she first starting talking back to Melbourne (when she had the crazy bow). Victoria's life is just full of tense carriage rides with people she used to trust.

Funny how risking your life for someone can make all other problems seem kind of petty.

Premature mourning clothes. Period.

Victoria tells Melbourne about the attempt. Melbourne tells Victoria as a friend that even though he and Albert don't get along, he really feels like she made the right choice in marrying him.

Green again because although she's talking with Melbourne, it's about personal things and not politics. This is the dress she expelled Sir John from the castle in but I don't think there's any real importance there.
Side note, I dig those lace gloves. Even though the amount of lace she wears decreases over time, there are still minor touches of it in so many of her dresses.

When Victoria finally decides to put in a lot of effort to make Albert feel like he is a part of her job as well as her personal life, she is wearing purple. She has trusted her own instincts as queen and that lead her to essentially promoting him in her work life instead of just her personal life.

Victoria establishes a possibly begrudging sort of peace with her mother in the darkest pink yet. Perhaps the darkening of the pinks is not a sign of things getting worse so much as it's a sign of her maturing on the situation.

And we have our happy ending (sort of)!

This isn't a personal color or a political color. It's the color of the jewels in her crown. This is when she has finally become worthy of wearing her own crown.

Why Lana Del Rey?: A Music Analysis

This is a question I have asked myself every day for the past week as I got into my car to go to work and I realize that her CD is playing in my car. It's not like someone put it there for me; I very knowingly have her CD in my CD player. I got her music and burned a CD of it for the sole purpose of playing it in my car. The thing that I am still blurry on is why I decided that I needed her music in my life and how I should feel about this decision.

Ever since hearing "Video Games" for the first time I have been unable to shake the fact that I like her music in some unexplained way but that I really feel like I shouldn't. To be clear, I looked for the song on YouTube after hearing a Hunger Games parody of it so I didn't have any knowledge about the song or the singer behind it and I still know very little. In truth, I am pretty detached from pop culture as a whole. I keep up with movies fairly well by using Flixster but the only television shows I keep up with are Community and Mad Men and I will often go days without ever turning on a TV, the only books printed in the last 30 years that I've read have been recommended to me by friends, and I know nothing of pop music outside of Todd in the Shadows (I don't even listen to the alternative station on the radio anymore). And don't even get me started on celebrities. I know nothing.

I have no judgment of Lana Del Rey, the human. I know nothing about her aside from a vague idea of what she looks like. Everything I could possibly gleam about her personality comes from her music and that alone makes me think that I would actually really not like her as a person. This fact makes listening to her feel like a guilty pleasure to me. She, or at least her persona, seems to have multiple personalities and I don't like almost all of them.

For that reason perhaps, maybe I should take this on a song by song basis of judgment. I will do this with a clear mind and without looking somewhere like songmeanings.net or her Wiki page. I certainly don't like all her songs but on the whole I like her and want to hear more from her so she must be doing something right:

Born To Die - The Paradise Edition (2012)

1. "Born To Die"

I'm pretty sure this is one of my favorite tracks on the whole album. It blends her two music styles (heavy, sad retro-ish beats with hip-hop) in a way that I really like. The lyrics aren't exactly her most memorable or her most focused but their simplicity is fine with me because it's really a mood that this song is going for more than anything. That mood is a bitterly realistic carpe diem and I totally buy it.

2. "Off To The Races"

Every fiber of my being tells me that I should hate this song. I should but I really, really don't. This is one of the least ambiguous songs on the album. It's about a party girl mess who is with this rich older guy who is her financial enabler. She messes up and he saves her and this is the essence of their love. A symbiosis of calamity. The narrator is unsympathetic and insincere about her feelings, sounding like she is the perfect manipulator and he sounds like he just wants a hot chick who depends on him. The end conclusion seems to be that this fuckery means true love because ultimately they can't be without each other.
So if the premise kind of makes me sick, why do I like this song? The wordplay. I am a sucker for good use of language and the choruses of this song are genuinely clever in their rhyme and pattern in a way that is also annoyingly catchy. It's not the prettiest song in terms of music but I just love the flow and although the premise of the song means I should hate it, I really respect how it is a complete idea and executed in a way that gives you the right atmosphere for what is being conveyed.

3. "Blue Jeans"
Having this song come after "Off To The Races" is endlessly confusing to me. This was the point I realized Lana Del Rey, at least in her music, is many people. Specifically, she's many emotionally tortured people in love. The last guy was a rich, old, cigar-smoking, gold-chain-wearing dude and this guy is a sorta-punk-rock James Dean figure in jeans and a white shirt. Essentially she went from something like this:

to this:
















Although when I hear this song, it conjures a lot of variations of the same idea:

What do you mean I have a fetish for this look? Why would you say that?
Aside from the description of the guy this song isn't particularly memorable to me. She'll love him forever but he randomly got up and left because that's what rebels without causes do. The music sounds like any of her other songs that fall on the melancholic side of the scale over the vague hip hop side.

4. "Video Games"
I have heard this song 20 times and I still have trouble figuring out what the heck it's supposed to be about. It's not the most confusing song here and it seems to be really trying to say something but I kind of struggle with what that is so here's my interpretation: This song is about distraction and attention. She loves this guy and will do anything to get his attention but he is often dismissive of her because he is so wrapped up in the joys of the modern world. She is only able to finally get him to notice her by joining in his activities and becoming just as absorbed in the superficial and distracting. Basically, she's in love with a frat boy. Or an very social nerd. I'll go read an interpretation after this and realize I'm way off but that's my idea and I'm sticking with it.
As for the tune, it's really the music itself that seems to have drawn me to Lana Del Rey in the first place and this song would be the one most responsible. A lot of the music I listen to is of the genre-blending variety and is usually about tragic love so it almost seems like this song was what I usually listen to run through a heavy pop filter.

5. "Diet Mountain Dew"

I think this song is about nothing. It's just about road tripping to New York or something. I acknowledge that this could actually be a personal inside joke or something but otherwise, the lyrics are utterly inconsequential.
Musically, there's not much of note here. It's more on the hip-hop happy side of things and there's nothing about this song that is inherently offensive but there's nothing really worth noting. If this is anyone's favorite song, I will be floored.

6. "National Anthem"
I still have no real idea what is meant by "I'm your national anthem" but in spite of this, the song still does make sense to me even if it seemed a bit jumbled the first three times I heard it. I think she's describing a one night stand interspersed with other examples of indulgence like money, drugs, and fancy things. I honestly think the chorus is really nice at the "red, white, blue" bit but I'm not a huge fan of the rap-like nature of the choruses. I can respect well-written rap and this just isn't all that impressive to me.
It's at this point in the album when I start to get exhausted by all the repeated themes and lines and wonder if there's anything else she can do since I haven't been particularly interested since the very beginning. . .

7. "Dark Paradise"
. . . And then I say thank you! This is definitely one of my favorite songs of hers. It's a little underwhelming in the beginning and the bit about the "singing your song" comes off more lazy than evocative to me but the bit before the chorus and the chorus itself are really pretty. It's the heavy sadness in her songs that drew me to her in the first place so obviously her most depressing song would be a favorite. The lyrics are obviously about a dead lover and while they are simple and not particularly unique, I just love the way she sings them and the rhythm which almost makes me think of a flowing river.

8. "Radio"
I kind of hate this one. The lyrics are silly to me and the overly sweet nature of the song is so strange when she's essentially telling this guy who she likes to like her back because she's famous now. Annoying premise, annoying style, and strange analogies that don't fully work. Cinnamon isn't really sweet. Sugar venom isn't a thing. Who licks vitamins?

9. "Carmen"
This song pretty much sucks me in from the beginning because I am a sucker for strings, especially dirge-sounding strings, and my interest in the music continues throughout the whole song even when they go away. As for the lyrics, it's nice to hear her tell someone else's fame story other than her own, especially one that is so bitterly realistic and there's actually some really good writing here. My big problem with this song is the flow of the lyrics in the choruses. Actually, maybe it's not the flow. Maybe it's her singing. Or maybe I'm not a fan of the looped voices. Something about it sounds incorrect to me. It doesn't deter me from liking the song but I cringe a bit during the "laughs like God" line.

10. "Million Dollar Man"
This was kind of the song I was waiting for from finding Lana Del Rey: a straight up throwback song. I think this is some of her best singing (or at least most controlled) and everything about this song kind of makes me happy that it exists. My one problem with this song is her pronunciation of "flower" in the first line. Pains me every time.

11. "Summertime Sadness"
I don't really know if this song makes sense but I think it's supposed to be more of a feeling song like "Diet Mountain Dew". Point is: it achieves it's goal perfectly and I love listening to it. Who cares about the flaws (okay, the stutter trend in music makes me angry but still)?

12. "This Is What Makes Us Girls"
I really love the story telling in this song and it's really strong lyrically. It's not a very unique song musically, especially at this point in the album, but I think it's a really great end to the album if you don't have any of the extended stuff. While I kind of disagree with the thesis of the song, it is kind of the perfect thesis for the album as a whole which is why it fits so well at the end. Almost every song is about a tortured romance of some sort but this one is about friendship and how it can get ruined or pushed to the side in pursuit of love. I see what you did there, Lana.

13. "Without You"
This song thematically is kind of a response to "Radio" that feels far more honest. It's pretty much about, screw the fame because it means nothing without you. It's not sugar-coated in any way and it's actually very desperate. I'll take this one over "Radio" any day.

14. "Lolita"
This song for me is a case of, "I see what you were trying to achieve with this song but I still hate it." This beat is utterly migraine-inducing and the childish rhymes and singing come off more creepy than clever. The message is conflicted and not like the singer is conflicted but like the lyrics don't know what they are trying to achieve. I always skip this one and think of "Gothic Lolita" by Emilie Autumn, a song with a similar idea but a million times better executed.

15. "Lucky Ones"
Hang on, everybody! This love story isn't tortured almost at all! It's happy! This song actually reminds me of a song from a musical. Hell, this song could be the last song of a musical that was a love story where the couple just couldn't get together until the very end. This is your happy ending. See, I can like happy. I just like realistic happy over something that will rot my teeth.

16. "Ride"
This is the first song on Paradise and I really think it's one of the strongest. It's got this nice folksy sound that fits well with the road tripping idea. Lana Del Rey likes to evoke feelings of "Americanness" in her songs and I feel like this one achieves that the best. It's not about fame or excess or tortured love but just about being disaffected and trying to get away with endless road ahead of you. If this song doesn't end up during the climactic scene of a movie, I will be utterly shocked.

17. "American"
This is the first of three songs that sounds to me like there was very little effort put into them. The subtext of Americana has rapidly become in-your-face text and the rest of the lyrics aside from that amusing conversation in the beginning feel like they were just tossed together. Also the beat puts me to sleep. It's not even minimal, just boring.

18. "Cola"
This is the same song, right? Just with even weirder lyrics that fit together even worse and a much better beat?

19. "Body Electric"
More random statements about herself mixed with a repetitive chorus. Is this song about anything (other than dancing maybe)? It was at this point I really wondered why there was not more effort put into this. It was churned out not long after Born to Die. I hope this isn't a prediction for the future of her music because if so this might be the last CD of hers I will have.

20. "Blue Velvet"
When I saw this song on here I laughed in joy and relief. This choice of cover is almost too spot-on. I love the original and she sings it just fine. It's not one of those covers that really changes the way you look at the original but it does it justice.

21. "Gods & Monsters"
I kind of knew I would like this song from the title. Never judge a song by its title but really, I couldn't resist. It's a typical theme of overindulgence like "National Anthem" but with far more interesting lyrics. I really love the metaphors in this song. Lana Del Rey seems to really like analogies and uses them to varying success.

22. "Yayo"

Another throwback song! I like the sound of this song but if I was standing in the recording booth I would be shouting, "Diction, please!" The lyrics are so fifties I could cry in joy. One question though: what the heck does yayo mean?

23. "Bel Air"
This is a really different sound in a lot of ways, particularly the chorus. I think the instruments are pretty but overall, I don't really know how I feel about this song aside from thinking that this isn't a great choice for the last song on an album. I'm pretty sure it's just about the singer wanting forgiveness for cheating and there's not much to say about the lyrics because it's the sound of this song that is most unique. I just don't know.


So Lana Del Rey has some songs that I really like and some that I really hate but I think ultimately, she comes out on top in my book. If nothing else, she has a very unique sound that appeals to me in a lot of ways. I like the sadness, the pain, and the bitter realism. Her lyrics are uneven and sometimes she repeats herself a lot but someone can be broken of that. I really like when she does throwback songs but I think I actually like her own personal sound more as long as she has control on how the feel of the song is supposed to blend with the lyrics. I prefer her dark beats to her hip-hop ones but there are a lot of times where they are well-suited ("Off The Races") and times where the two styles are put together ("Born To Die", "Summertime Sadness") in a way that I really like.

All in all, I have to say that I feel better about liking her now that I know why.


[**UPDATE (4/21/13): "Young And Beautiful" is perfect.]

Running Away

The first time I ran away from home I was 13 years old. I remember all of it far more distinctly than anything else that happened to me when I was 13 because the age lacked all the depression and anger of being 12 but didn't have the fun and respect associated with being 14.

I was on vacation in Cape Cod with my mother, brother, and our neighbors who had a son my age who was my best friend when we were about five. I had been swimming in the nearby lake when I decided to go back to the house. I think it was because I was either being made fun of by my brother, neighbor, and his father or because they were ignoring me and I would rather be alone if I'm going to be ignored. Back at the house my mother and neighbor's mother were sitting on the deck chatting. I had come in and told my mom why I left which instigated a fight. I don't specifically remember what the fight was about but I know that it had something to do with my mom making a statement about my personality that I believed to be false and her ignoring me when I tried to refute it. This is something I still get into fights with my mom about and I'm 23 years old.

Eventually I got so sick of her refusing to listen to me that I shouted out, "I'm leaving and I'm not going to the pond!" I waited a moment to see if this would cause a reaction and when it didn't, I made good on my promise and walked out. I followed the street past the pond, running past it quickly to avoid being seen by anyone, and then just kept on walking. I passed recently built mansion-like houses that made our family house built by my grandfather and his sons look like a hovel. I passed a surly teenager going home and a couple with a dog that I stopped to pet. I walked until the street wasn't paved anymore and I was on a dirt path. And I should note that at the time I was in my bathing suit, no shoes, and didn't have my contacts in so the world was blurry and I looked like a mess.

I walked until the path ended, the endpoint being another lake that I waded into out of curiosity and by this point I decided that I was tired and my anger had mostly dissipated. I figured the long walk back would resolve whatever remained. It was only when I got back that I realized three things:

1.) I had managed to walk into the next town. Cape Cod does have fairly small towns but it was still quite an accomplishment.

2.) I had been gone over four hours.

3.) My mother hadn't heard me correctly and had called the police.

I returned just as the police car was pulling into the driveway and I was treated to a shouting fit by my mother who demanded that I put some clothes on and get in her car. I was confused since in my mind I had told her exactly what I was doing and had given her the chance to stop me. Then I hyperventilated thinking that she was going to drive me all the way home as punishment.

Instead she drove me to a cafe, got me a frozen hot chocolate, and cried at the table about how she thought I had been killed while telling me about the murder of a lifeguard not much older than me in Truro a few years back. Then she took me to an art show.

Unrelated but my mother has weird ways of coping when I do something she thinks in wrong. One time when my best friend and I had kept her up all night by talking in the living room until dawn, she found us together in the morning, freaked out thinking we were having sex and I was apparently going to get pregnant and drop out of school (silly things both because I have had a sufficient sex education, I had just graduated from school so dropping out wasn't really an option, and he and I weren't having sex anyway), and reacted to all of this by shouting at me and then taking us to breakfast. A few months later, she decided that she liked him so much, I should marry him even though, as I said, we were not together.

The point is, this running away from home was the first time I got a taste of wanderlust and ever since then I feel like I have been trying to escape further and further. When I was younger I did similar things but they were not as drastic: exploring the woods, walking to a friend's house without telling my mom, etc. But this was the first time I got really far and felt like I had succeeded at traveling.

By definition, I was kind of a good kid. I didn't do drugs or drink before college or get very drunk even now. I kept any aspects of a love life secret and didn't let it control my life. I always did my homework without being asked ever since I started school. I made friends who were sometimes not the best people but who were always polite to my mother in a genuine way. But here's the thing: I was so fiercely independent a lot of the time that I didn't let any boundaries hold me down. I always did whatever I felt like doing. I always felt safe doing things on my own when my mother thought I needed to be protected. And this has been a constant frustration for her as recently as last summer.

After my running away stint, I started walking every time I was upset. I would leave the house, usually not telling anyone, and would just walk until I felt better. I would try to find new things every time I walked.

As I've gotten older and my freedoms expanded, I have been searching for more and more places to run away to. First my friends started driving and we would start traveling around the state. Then I went to college almost two hours away and learned how to use public transportation to get me where ever I could afford to go. If I wanted to run away to New York, I could and I did. If I wanted to run away to Syracuse, I would. As long as I had the money to go and a couch to sleep on, I would run every chance I got.

Now I'm out of college and have a steady job that enables me to run even more often. I find very little value in material purchases anymore, choosing to pay for experiences. As long as I have a car to take me to work and travel, a computer to entertain, and money to pay for gas, food, car insurance, and government loan payments, I have all I need. I hardly ever buy new clothes and I rarely buy movies, music or books since I just borrow from friends and abuse my library card. I need that extra money normal people use to buy new TVs on running away.

Last summer, I broke another boundary by running away to London. The previous Christmas the only thing on my wishlist was a passport and receiving that little book was like being gifted with the world.

This year I have run away to Boston and New York on numerous occasions (they are frequent places for me as I know people in both cities and I used to live in Boston myself) and will be running again to England, road tripping from London to Bath, Bristol, and Exeter (and possibly more) and then running off to Dublin. I'm in the process of planning another run to Washington DC and still need to fit a run to Montreal into my schedule at some point since I have wanted to do it for years.

Other people have expressed a lot of jealousy at my running, wishing they could run away as much as I do and to the places I do but the more I think about it, the more afraid I get that one day I will have nowhere to run to. I have a lot of places I can visit and couches I can sleep on but eventually I will not have enough money to get away as much as I need to. Eventually the places I want will be unfeasible and the thought of being stuck in suburbia with too many things boxing me in scares me.

You may think, if that kind of life scares you, why don't you avoid it? The fact is, while I may manage to escape a lot I have college loans to pay, I work at a job where I don't make much and there is very little room for promotion, and I still live at home. Every day I get up and go to my suburban job and think, what if I never find a way out and I am only able to remain sane because of my running? That's all that supporting me now. What about in five years when my paycheck can't support the distance I need to travel to feel okay again?

And what if I do get out? What if I manage to move to Boston or some other city that feels more free than here and then I lose a place to run because it has become my new prison?

Will I ever be happy in one place again?

2013 Potentially Oscar Nominated Movies

This year I feel like a lot of my feelings on movies were heavily influenced by how I felt about the direction, more so than with other years. Also, I think I am getting increasingly critical (cynical) of what I watch. As of right now I have seen 1423 movies in my life and most of them are ranked above three stars so they are mostly not things like Michael Bay films. I have seen a lot of the so called greatest movies ever made and the more I see, the more difficult I am becoming to impress. I don’t know how Roger Ebert can do it.

As usual I will be including movies nominated for Oscars (especially Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, Animated Film, and Foreign Film), Golden Globes, and other movies that got a lot of hype or that I feel are of note. If I don’t include that last category I usually end up not able to talk about other movies I have seen this year that deserve to be noted (like Drive, Shame, and Melancholia last year).

Also like previous years because of my hatred for having so many nominees for Best Picture, I will be marking my five picks with an asterisk and any movie mentioned that was not nominated for an Oscar with a plus sign.

Previous Years:    2011     2012

Movies I Really Liked:

Django Unchained*: This is the feel good movie of the year . . . or at least it was for me. I saw it on Christmas with my BFF Adam and his dad and grandma and we all left the theater smiling. Nothing like a Tarantino movie to bring people together for the holidays. I don’t know what to say about how much I loved this. The cast is ridiculous, the movie made me laugh hysterically, clutch my armrest in fear that the heroes wouldn’t succeed, and even avert my eyes from two scenes that were actually a bit to brutal for my usually iron clad stomach. Things are not sugar-coated in this movie until the happy ending is earned and you can leave feeling like it was all worth it. I could make a joke about DiCaprio’s Oscar snub but I won’t. I just want to point out that obviously he was working for that Oscar; his two costars both have already won them!

Argo*: This is a movie I really need to rewatch because when I saw it in the theater I was so wrapped in the plot that I wasn’t paying attention to much else. It’s a great example of a movie where the conclusion is not the important part; it’s how you get there. You know how the movie is going to end but damn is it not good at making you wonder and worry. It helps that it’s also an interesting moment in history and one that is pretty relevant to current conflicts. My only problem with this movie is that I have a hard time distinguishing between a good movie and a good story. I think I’ve settled on “it’s a good story but the movie makes it a well told one.”

Zero Dark Thirty*: This was a movie I kind of expected to hate. I wasn’t a big fan of The Hurt Locker and in particular, Kathryn Bigelow’s nauseating way of shooting scenes so I kind of rolled my eyes at this movie. I was really surprised to find that I kind of loved it. It is more of a mystery and a character study than anything else with a brief side journey into a war movie towards the end. Although I found it hard to get into at first because of my previously mentioned negativity, at a point it hooked me and I could not look away. Jessica Chastin, who I had no previous opinion of in spite of seeing her in a ton of films, was fantastic. Also, I have to note that the end scene of this movie is utterly perfect and I can be a real sucker for a perfect end scene. If I have any complaints it’s that the movie can be a bit too sporadic during the beginning, jumping around from scene to scene without any real establishing or development of any character other than the main but I think with a movie of this scene, to do so would probably be a bit tedious.

Beasts Of The Southern Wild*: This movie smacked me upside the head and I am still trying to figure out what happened. I know that it was beautiful and probably the most unique movie of the year and that it seemed to be successfully doing exactly what last year’s Tree of Life was trying to do but without any of the nonsensical musings or pretentiousness. This is one I will need to watch again if I want to be more coherent about it but I can just say for now that this was great.

Moonrise Kingdom: I never am quite sure how I feel about Wes Anderson movies but I know what I thought of this one: I thought it was adorable and beautifully made. Usually I have a problem with things that are too sentimental but this movie just felt so sincere and never tried to play with my emotions like other movies of the sort might. I actually got a few laughs out of it and I loved the 60s setting. This movie perfectly captures what it is like to be twelve years old. 

A Royal Affair: I have seen a lot of historical drama movies so a movie with a setting in the 1700s or 1800s about a monarchy has to really do something special for me to sit up and take notice and damn, this movie did. First of all, this movie is not just about a marriage affair like I thought it might be but in fact, a gigantic change in the political face of Denmark. This is a movie of epic proportions and it’s beautiful and constantly intriguing. It’s a long watch but damn is it worth it.

The Sessions: This was a fascinating film that I find I have very little to say about. I don’t know why. It was really good, had a really unique premise and great execution, good acting; I’m just stuck. Maybe it’s because I’m writing this one after having written a bunch of others and I’m tapped out. Yay, for character studies!

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel+: I saw this movie on a total whim while in Cape Cod with my mom where the nearest theater only showed four movies and this was one of them. It was a really fun movie with a lot of interesting characters who each had their own story to tell that showed different aspects of finding a new life in your old age and the idea of finding yourself in a strange land making it relevant to someone of any age. “It will all be alright in the end. If it’s not alright then it’s not the end.”

This Is Not A Film+: I don’t know who has seen this movie but I think it definitely deserves recognition for one reason: it was smuggled out of Iran and into the Cannes Film Festival on a flash drive hidden in a birthday cake. It’s a documentary (kinda) about an Iranian filmmaker under house arrest. Ten minutes in I was wondering why I was watching home movies of a guy answering calls and feeding his pet iguana but thirty minutes in I realized I was watching something kind of brilliant. I kind of hope most of it wasn’t scripted but there are some parts that are so thematically significant that it’s hard to believe they are spontaneous. Certainly not a film for everyone but I really loved it.

Cabin in The Woods+: Joss Whedon had two movies come out this year (almost three; Much Ado About Nothing isn’t coming out officially until June 2013 and I can’t wait) and I actually thought this was the better of the two. It had the right amount of horror and comedy, well written and likeable characters, and it’s a fantastic deconstruction of the horror genre that then takes all the conventions and turns it entirely on its head. Of course, if you know Joss Whedeon’s work with television, the end might not shock you as much as the regular filmgoer. I personally laughed at how typical it is for him but, no spoilers.

Perks of Being A Wallflower+: Having the writer of a book direct the movie of it turned out to be a perfect combination here. I love pretty much everything about this movie: the directing, the adaption of the book, the acting, the accuracy of the time period (one I actually lived though and can remember well). One of the best coming of age movies ever from one of the best coming of age books ever. It’s actually kind of tragic how movies that are directed at a teen audience are so easily overlooked for awards.

Movies I Liked:

Lincoln*: I wanted to like this movie more than I did and sometimes that can be a real killer. Don’t get me wrong; it’s a great movie and everyone else can tell you why. Problem is, in spite of me rating it with an amount of stars that could place it in either this category or the above (4 stars; more than four is automatically above and less is here or lower), I had to only put it in “liked”. I blame Steven Spielberg. I am done with Spielberg. Seriously. His directing style is so sentimental and utterly uncreative at this point that all his recent movies feel old. Like with War Horse (which was quite inferior to this one), there was a scene where I just groaned out loud at a directing decision. This time it was a shot of a flame in Lincoln’s bedroom after he died that Lincoln giving the Gettysburg address is superimposed onto. Way to try to pull emotion from your audience. I do not appreciate manipulative directing. Those feelings should be earned. For my last pick for Best Picture I was torn between this one and Life of Pi and while I think Life of Pi is actually probably a better pick, I caved on this one. I may change it.

Silver Linings Playbook: Ugh. I really, really liked this movie at first and then the last half hour just took it down so much for me. In the beginning this movie was really interesting with all this great acting (Jennifer Lawrence is perfect. In general) and this great theme of everyone seemingly crazy even though only two of the characters are seen as such by the rest and then for some reason it takes this weird turn where suddenly everything is based on a superstition and a dance competition and in the last few minutes we are full on romantic comedy cliché. I’m starting to come to the conclusion that this is the kind of movie David O. Russell makes: a movie that is really strong until you get to the last half hour.

Les Miserables: I can’t say anything about this movie that I haven’t already said. Click here.

Flight: This was a really solid movie that I was ultimately lost interest in as it went on. The first half hour is incredibly strong and then I feel like it kind of limps along to the court hearing at the end. Denzel Washington’s performance is very good but as a movie I only liked it.

The Impossible: This is one of those movies that are mostly based in suspense and emotion. It was certainly solid but for me I think I was having a hard time with it because I kept thinking of the movie Hereafter which also has the topic of the Southeast Asian tsunami as a portion of it. I love a good emotional drama as much as anyone but I didn’t feel like there was much new to be said here that I hadn’t seen in other disaster movies.

Rust And Bone+: There was so nice directing, acting and themes here but I had a problem with the flow of the plot. Aspects of the story-telling seemed to clunk along without reason and it kept bothering me that the characters didn’t seem to be acting like normal human beings. For instance, after Marion Cotillard’s character gets in her accident, she decides to call some bouncer who drove her home from a club one night? Who does that? Also, everything is wrapped up in the end really strangely to me. He runs off but his son nearly dies so he realizes he’s in love? There’s so much missing here.

Cloud Atlas: If I had an “underrated” section, this would probably belong there but alas, I do not. Although, I’m not so sure if it’s that this movie is underrated or that I think the reasons why people are complaining about it don’t seem like valid complaints to me. The people who hate the idea that all the main characters are the same person are missing the point to me. I didn’t even look at it that way. I just looked at them as people whose lives are connected because each has an effect on the other. I think it makes more sense to look at it as each character played by the same actor is the same person. The visuals, camera work and such are all fine. The make-up is occasionally uncanny valley (all the white guys made Asian look like Benedict Cumberbatch) but I saw this as a Brechtian choice and not a realistic one. So why didn’t I like this movie as much as I had hoped? Each individual plot was interesting but only as a very short story. Everything was drawn out WAY too long and so something interesting in a small dose becomes exhausting.

Dark Knight Rises+: Christopher Nolan really knows how to create a masterpiece around a theme and what he has done to the Batman canon, as a Batman fan, gives me so much joy. His modern take is certainly something the world needed. The main fault with this movie that kept me from loving it was that there were a few too many lapses in logic for me. One lapse actually made me burst out laughing. There really needed to be some red pen action with the script because a lot of things were inconsistent or out of nowhere. The ending was great though; just wanted to say that.

The Hunger Games+: As someone who loves the books, I am not going to get hung up on things they left out because that would be utterly useless. This is what I will say: this movie was perfectly cast but the directing was often nausea inducing and the film really needed some small details to help make the plot make sense to someone who hasn’t read the book. Also, the lightning was sometimes egregiously bad. Hopefully a change in director will mean an improvement for the next film.

Pitch Perfect+: I honestly thought this movie could be really stupid but considering how much my friends liked it, I eventually gave in and watched it. It actually brought a smile to my face and gave me a few really good laughs. The music is obviously, awesome and I kind of love how self aware this movie is. Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson were just delightful.

Movies That Were Over-hyped:

Amour: . . . Here’s the thing. I thought this was a really good movie but there were a couple things about it and the way it is being talked about that kind of drive me up a wall. First of all, Michael Hanake is a great film writer but I find that there are a lot of times when his directing really gets on my nerves. There’s a really great shot of an audience watching a piano recital in this film that I thought was really interesting and appropriate but then he’ll do stuff like linger on one thing with no symbolic purpose for a seriously long time and it takes me right out of the film. The good things about this film are its unapologetic realism and I loved how the theme was underlying in every conversation even if you weren’t thinking to look for it. That was in part to the great writing. The acting was also really great. My problem with how this film is being talked about is that everyone is acting like this movie is so unique and innovative and it truthfully isn’t. This has been done before. Also, if you were surprised by what happens an hour and 45 minutes in, you are terrible at context clues.

Life of Pi: Every once in a while I come across a movie that is technically good in every reasonable sense I can think of but that I end up having a problem with. Enter this one. It’s well directed, well acted, makes great use of CGI (something I only really notice if it’s particularly bad but it was good here), and it has a very interesting story that made me want to continue watching. All in all, there is no doubt that this is a good movie. The problem is me. I really could not get behind the main themes of this film. Pi adopts a nickname that is irrational and his life follows suit with his fascination with religion (inherently irrational), the unsolved sinking of the boat, the friendship with an animal that should eat him, the island he visits, everything. And when nothing makes sense, what does? God. Faith. Things that are not rational. Speaking as someone who will believe nothing without proof but does hold a very small notion that things are meant to happen as they happen, I had difficulty accepting what this movie was dishing out. I can acknowledge that it was good but there I am.

The Avengers: So I thought this movie was good and yes, it is very impressive how Joss Whedon managed to bring all these different characters together and give them all screen time and something to do but I guess overall I didn’t walk out of the movie thinking, “OMG, Amazing” so much as I was thinking, “Well, that was quite good.” Sometimes I think my inability to be impressed by computer-created visuals is a detriment to my ability to enjoy big budget movies.

Movies I Disliked:

Magic Mike+: I’m reaching an endpoint with Steven Soderbergh. He hasn’t made a movie I’ve liked in a very long time so I think I’m pretty much done. His directing aside, the plot of this movie was very conventional and unimpressive. Channing Tatum didn’t make me want to gouge my eyes out as much as usual but that’s about all I can say (Matthew McConaughey still made me want to kill).

Animated Films Special Section:

Usually I talk about animated films in the regular sections above but this year I found that my feelings on the animated films nominated didn’t really have enough diversity to accurately categorize them in those sections so I’m instead going to talk about them on a case by case basis and compare them to each other because in this case that’s pretty easy to do.

I saw Brave, Wreck-It Ralph, Frankenweenie, and ParaNorman. 

I actually liked Brave the least out of all of them and I was very surprised. Pixar always puts out good to excellent work and this movie was certainly good but I didn’t find it particularly memorable or well crafted from a plot perspective. Its themes were present but ultimately weak and it almost seemed like someone came up with a setting but didn’t think too hard on the story. Although, I will note that I usually don’t notice animation unless it’s particularly bad and this animation was freaking beautiful.

Frankenweenie was probably my next lowest and you could probably argue me into shifting the positions of this one and Brave. I found out after seeing it that this was originally an animated short film instead of a full one and I honestly could tell that it probably worked better in short form. The idea is cute but about halfway through the movie it’s like they’ve run out of things to do with the idea. Then the theme just runs right off the rails in the final act and I don’t even know what I am supposed to be gathering from it. Love is power and greed is evil?

Both Wreck-It Ralph and ParaNorman I enjoyed immensely. They both had me laughing the entire time with Ralph being more universal jokes and delightful references to gaming culture throughout the ages and Norman being occasionally more advanced humor and references to horror movies (and also as a New Englander I had a certain level of joy from the historical witch premise itself). I was really invested in both movies and would be happy to see either of them take home the award but I’m not going to hold my breath. I’ve kind of convinced myself that Brave will win because it’s Pixar even though I don’t think it was the best by any stretch of the imagination.

Other well-rated movies I want to see from this year but haven’t include:
Anna Karenina (3.5 or 3 stars; beautiful directing/visuals/music; issues with acting/casting/script), 
Chronicle (4 stars; surprisingly good and smart considering the premise),
Compliance (4 stars; disturbing and very effective), 
Cosmopolis (2.5 stars; lots of statements but says little, dry but weirdly memorable),
Farewell My Queen (4 stars; great but don't go in expecting it to be all about Marie), 
Girl Model (4 stars; I've seen better docs but this one conveys its point well), 
The Hobbit (Truthfully, I think I may wait to watch this until the others come out), 
Holy Motors (4.5 stars; brilliant piece of WTF), 
How To Survive A Plague (4.5 stars; really good and powerful doc), 
The Intouchables (4 stars; a bit cliche but not manipulative, funny and sweet), 
Jiro Dreams Of Sushi (5 stars; perfect documentary, just perfect), 
Looper (4 stars; really solid and thought provoking action flick), 
The Master (4 stars; solid movie, crazy good acting),
Salmon Fishing In The Yemen (3 stars; had its moments but melodramatic overall), 
Skyfall (4 stars; and I don't even like James Bond movies but I thought this was pretty great).
Sleepwalk With Me (3.5 stars; interesting and pretty funny), 
Seven Psychopaths (4 stars, maybe 4.5; kind of brilliant, liked it even better than "In Bruges"), 
Take This Waltz (3.5 stars; emotional and quirky but not without flaws), 
Then I can comfortably leave this year behind.

"Sherlock" and Female Characters

Since starting tumblr, I have had a lot of GIF-based exposure to shows that have very active and passionate fandoms and one of the most active fandoms that seems to always come up when talking about tumblr is the Sherlock fandom. Doctor Who is also very popular among the people I follow but I already watch that and Downton Abbey appears quite a bit but that was already on my to-watch list by the time I started seeing it everywhere, so Sherlock was the one that intrigued me from a perspective of knowing nothing about it.

I consulted my friend Sarah on the subject since in the last few years she has become my authority on British television and I figured since it was so popular she had probably seen it. Her response was pretty much, "It's okay. It's really amusing but it doesn't really deserve all the tumblr stuff it's getting. You'll have a problem with how the female characters are written." That last bit set off a warning signal in my head because a lot of the time, writing is the most important thing to me about things I watch and Sarah, like me, cares a lot about how female characters are written since, let's face it, a lot of people don't know how to write female characters.

As you would be able to tell from reading . . . anything else I've written, two of the fandoms that I spend the most time in myself are the Fullmetal Alchemist fandom and the Whedonverse and you know what these both have in common? Well written female characters. Fullmetal Alchemist is a story written for the teen boy demographic that is mature enough to appeal to all ages and genders. It is also written by a woman, a fact that alludes a lot of people because she pulled a J. K. Rowling and adopted a unisex, verging on masculine pen name, Hiromu Arakawa. In spite of the nature of the story requiring there to be notably more male than female characters, there are plenty of women represented and they are all unique, strong, and three-dimensional, even minor characters like Mrs. Bradley and Rebecca Catalina. You understand who they are and what their motivations are and they are neither saints nor devils. Joss Whedon and his squads of writers are also triumphant at writing shows where there is a female main character half the time and the ensemble cast is always made up of nearly equal parts men and women. His women, like Arakawa's, are unique and three-dimensional, and strong in their own ways.

Now, I should be clear that when I say that a female character is "strong", I don't necessarily mean that in a physical sense (or even an emotional sense). She is most definitely not flawless. It's the flaws that make a female character strong and three-dimensional and if she doesn't have any then you have failed character writing 101. The first rule of writing a female character is pretty much to forget that she's female for a moment so that does not becoming a defining trait. There's a fantastic article about the differences in the definition of strong called "Why Strong Female Characters Are Bad For Women" that uses the Transformers movies as an example of how not to write women and talks about how a lot of men seem to misinterpret the phrase "strong female character" into a character that is a flawless expert in some field who is sexualized in a way to appeal to the male audience.

Let me take a moment to get back to Sherlock because I do have good things to say about it. I found it entertaining, extremely well acted, and beautifully directed. These elements alone make the show of a very high caliber above a lot of the tripe you are likely to see on television nowadays. It is definitely a good show. The problem comes in with the writing. While, the show is adapted very well, taking Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories and moving them up to a modern setting, there are some aspects of the writing that irk me. First of all, I was really uncomfortable in the first episode and in many of the subsequent episodes at how many times humor was attempted to be derived from a "gay gag" involving Sherlock and Watson. The first time I laughed a bit but every time after that started to get more and more uncomfortable by how often the joke kept coming up. I started thinking to myself, "Does the show think there is something inherently wrong about two men being roommates? Does it think there is something funny about being gay or being mistaken for gay?" On top of those jokes, the show needed to make it ABUNDANTLY clear that both Sherlock and Watson are straight. Watson is dating girls left and right and Sherlock, in spite of the fact that he seems to be written in a way that would make him make more sense as an asexual (although perhaps not aromantic), is given a love interest as well and his lack of sex becomes a topic for discussion on more than one occasion. There was something a little off about the whole situation to me.

There are other small writing complaints I have about the show that are kind of omnipresent in Steven Moffet's shows like that occasionally things are wrapped up in a way that makes no sense and gives no real explanation for ("A Scandal in Belgravia" was full of these) but when these things happened I tried to just tell myself to ignore it instead of getting angry about it.

Then we enter the thing Sarah warned me about: the female characters.

I think it's probably best for me to break this down one by one to say exactly what is wrong about how the female characters in Sherlock are written.

Dr. Sarah Sawyer

Honestly, I found this picture on a Sherlock wiki and read the whole ten sentence description of her and there wasn't a single element on the page that said a thing about who she is. She is a characterless character. Then she gets captured, like all useless women do in fiction. In fact, she is the first in what will be a string of useless women only around to date John and remind us that he A.) isn't gay and B.) can't hold down a relationship because of the chaotic life he leads. Wouldn't it perhaps be more interesting and emotionally compelling if we actually knew who she was? What if she made some appearances in other episodes and the audience started to like her as a character and then she and John broke up because of the aforementioned chaotic lifestyle and we actually got a real impression of how much John's friendship with Sherlock is affecting his private life? Even if a character does exist for furthering the development of a more important character, this does not mean they should just be a figure no one will remember. I couldn't even remember her name until I looked it up on IMDb.


Sgt. Sally Donovan

And while we are on the topic of useless female characters, we have Sgt. Donovan. I didn't even know she had a first name until just now. Sgt. Donovan is around a bit more than Sally and actually has the barest minimum requirement of character to have appeared in three episodes out of six. Here's what we know about her: she hates Sherlock because he likes crime and she thinks he's going to turn into a crazy murderer and at one point she had sex with one of her coworkers which was clearly played for laughs. That's all I've got. It's all well and good to have a detective character who thinks Sherlock is overstepping their boundaries and could even be dangerous, not everyone on the force is likely to have Lestrade's tolerance for him, but I feel like there's something missing from all this hatred. Shouldn't there be some kind of experience in order for her to draw this assumption? A past case? Something Sherlock himself did? Also, why is she always angry? Seriously, every scene she is in, she is pissy and angry. She's certainly around enough to become a real character so why hasn't she become one yet? Any real trait to show she's a person would be lovely.

Mrs. Hudson

Mrs. Hudson is probably the female character I have the best understanding of. I don't necessarily mean she is the best developed character or that she's the best written female character (although, truthfully, she may be). What I mean is that I understand and accept her purpose and why she is written the way she is far more than I understand and accept the logic behind the other female characters. Mrs. Hudson is a parody of the landlady caricature. It has appeared enough in literature, film, and television: the older widow who is very sweet and protective of her tenants and likes to meddle in their lives. The parody aspects comes in with the fact that no matter what utterly ridiculous thing Sherlock has done, she still maintains that sweet, concerned nature typical of her caricature. Finds a severed head in Sherlock's fridge? Scolds him that he put it in the same place where he keeps his food. We even get to see a bit more of her strength in the scene where she exercises her acting chops for Sherlock's sake. We don't ever really get an explanation for why she is so cool with Sherlock's weirdness and I kind of wish we did because I think it would be really interesting and would kind of fill in a missing piece to her character but I'm not going to hold my breath. The writing of the show in general doesn't care much for filling in missing pieces and I doubt they would waste their time on a character who is just a parody and comic relief but since she is the most easily likeable female character on the show, I wish the writing would acknowledge this more.


Molly Hooper

Poor Molly Hooper. I'll get to her character in a second (although that statement sums up most of it) but I would like to point out something about all these female characters that is easy to overlook: they are all gainfully employed. You have a doctor, a detective, a landlady, a pathologist, and (as we will get to) a high class dominatrix. These women are all implied to be intelligent by virtue of their occupations and/or success in said fields. This is another one of those female character writing problems: equating a good job or job success with strength. In spite of most of these women's careers, many of them are so lacking in character that the job doesn't make them any more of a character.
Now Molly. I want so hard to like Molly but I always just end up pitying her. Like Mrs. Hudson, she appears in the show a lot because her career is important to the lives of Sherlock and Watson but Molly for 95% of the show spends her time pining after Sherlock and getting rejected over and over again. She's the Eponine. In spite of this unfortunate role she was saddled with, Molly has actual personality traits: she's friendly but kind of awkward, she has a high tolerance for the disturbing, and, as I was overjoyed to hear, she is very perspective to people's feelings that they keep hidden. Molly's most significant moment on the show is definitely at the end of season two when she reveals herself to be the only person who is really capable of seeing beyond Sherlock's exterior traits. She explains that her father was the same way, which actually makes sense, and in a way this explains her attraction to Sherlock the entire time. She likes him because of the potential she sees underneath as well as the exterior. After having nearly sat through the entire show without seeing any kind of development in any of the female characters, this was a breath of fresh air and I sincerely hope that Molly will be given more to do in season three. This is an important development in both her character, Sherlock's, and their relationship and I am terrified that this will be abandoned by the writers for something that they deem more important. I would love to see a kind of friendship or even therapist-patient relationship crop up here. I'm rooting for Molly's development!

Irene Adler

The sound my frustration makes is: Auuuuuuhhhh. I don't even know where to start here. The original Irene Adler was an American opera singer who had some high profile affairs. She's clever, sexy, and international and in some materials is a sort of love interest for Sherlock. Now imagine that you have to take that information and put it in a modern context. When I do that, I get Irene Adler as a lead singer of a rock band or a pop singer who has had a lot of high profile affairs who has connections everywhere in the world because of all the touring she does and manages to be famous but lead a sort of double life where what is published in the papers doesn't even graze the surface of what she has really done. Now put that through a "poor male writing" filter and what do you get? You get Sherlock's Irene Adler, a famous dominatrix who has incriminating pictures of a female member of the royal family who is a client of hers and has connections around the world. Now, I can't stress this enough, the problem is not that she is a dominatrix although it is a fairly poor translation of the original material. I'm no prude and I have no damage against sex workers. It's also by no means impossible to write a female character who is a sex worker who can be liked by both sexes (Inara Sera from Firefly anyone?). No, the problem is how her occupation affects every other aspect of her character. As I said before, the female characters of Sherlock are all well employed but their jobs don't really define anything about them. This is not the case with Irene. The dominatrix thing comes into play all the time with her speech and behavior. She is almost always overtly sexual which makes her kind of hard to relate to and makes it hard for any other personality traits to seep in. The virgin-whore complex is in full form here with Molly as the pathetic virgin and Irene as the male fantasy whore. I think she would have been more appealing to a female audience if she was a dominatrix but treated her work like a private thing that doesn't factor into her personal life. Then there's the matter of her cleverness. Like the article I referenced before, one of the defining traits of these poorly written female characters is their expertise in a field where they trump all their male counterparts, made okay to a male audience by their sexuality. Although Sherlock does ultimately defeat Irene at the end, she outsmarts him throughout most of the episode she's in and does so in ways that Sherlock can't even comprehend. Also, this is utterly besides the point but I was also kind of hoping Irene would be American because the representation of Americans on Sherlock (and Steven Moffet shows in general) is absolutely atrocious. They are either violent, bigoted, or stupid or any combination of the three.
I think what makes me most sad about Irene is that while Molly has shown signs of being a retrievable character, I'm not sure if Irene is. It's totally possible that she could come back into the show, humbled by her defeat, and become a character everyone could really love but I guess I'm a bit cynical.


Dear Steven Moffet,
A homework assignment: before season three of Sherlock, please watch any two Joss Whedon shows and read at least 3/4 of Fullmetal Alchemist, paying close attention to the female characters and then attention to how they are written in comparison to the male characters and how they function in relationship to them.
- Kay

The First Episode of "Angel" From Memory.

In the not too distant future I will be doing my annual post on movies nominated for Oscars. Usually I finish it somewhere in early February after I have managed to see everything nominated in the four major categories and a portion of the animated and foreign films as well. I'm starting off strong this year with three Best Pictures, three animated, and one foreign under my belt already (usually I start off with way less).

But for now, let's get silly.

So about two weeks ago I decided I wanted to watch some episodes of Angel, frequently my default activity when I don't want to start a new series, can't find any movies I want to watch, and have left whatever book I'm reading in my desk at work. The problem was that I couldn't think of an Angel episode that I hadn't seen recently. It took me a second to realize that the answer to my question was the first nine episodes of the series. Then I had to contemplate why I not only haven't watched them recently but haven't watched them at all since I first saw them maybe five years ago and never watched them in the correct order because I was using streamed videos on a DSL internet that would load at irregular times.

Did I think the episodes were boring? Well, no. "Monster of the Week", yes but not necessarily boring.
Did I just not like Doyle? No. I really like him. I really wanted him and Cordelia to get together. The only main character on Angel who I don't absolutely love is Connor (I actually kind of hate him).
So was I avoiding the episodes because it would make me sad? Perhaps a bit but there's a bigger reason.

Not too long ago I rewatched all of Angel except those episodes and now I remember why: The essay I wrote about Wesley and Fred. I watched season three of Buffy and then skipped ahead to episode 1.10 of Angel because that's where Wesley comes in. I didn't need those episodes to write the essay so I didn't watch them.

I'm watching them now and actually dreading getting to episode 1.9. Sobbing may happen.

So here's my tribute to those episodes I didn't talk about in the Wesley/Fred essay: a summary of the first episode of Angel pulled completely from my very flawed memory.


1.1 "City Of"

Angel: Los Angeles . . . Well, let's save some people.

(He does.)

(Returns home to the lair of the Caped Cadaver.)

Doyle: Hi!
Angel: How'd you get into my house?
Doyle: Not important. I'm here to exposit your backstory!
Angel: Oh come on. Like anyone needs that.
Doyle: Hey, there could be random stragglers who've never seen an episode of Buffy and have no idea what you're about. Don't get all high and mighty. No one knows who I am either.
Angel: Yeah, who are you? You're like every sketchy Irish character Joss Whedon has written with a dash of Xander Harris.
Doyle: I resent that! I was practically the original sketchy Irish character, minus yourself of course, and I'm way more interesting than Xander bleeding Harris. I've got a ton of backstory and layers. I just hope I'm on the show long enough to reveal them.
Angel: Well, you're not human. I can smell that much.
Doyle: Hey, I happen to be very human . . . on my mother's side.
Angel: So other than telling me my own life story, why are you here?
Doyle: I had a vision that told me to come here. The Powers That Be give me visions of people in need, which are like violent migraines with pictures, because blah, blah, blah redemption. It's a big theme, you know? Problem is, I'm not a fighter as you can probably tell, outside of bars at least, . . . but you are. So why don't you buy me some booze and I'll tell you about the latest helpless human.
Angel: I don't know of any demons that thrive on alcohol.
Doyle: That's my human side.

(They wander the streets of L.A. Doyle drinks and yells at homeless people)

Doyle: See that waitress in the coffee shop? Go save her.
Angel: She looks fine.
Doyle: Well, she isn't. Go chat her up.
Angel: Why would a random woman talk to me?
Doyle: Have you seen you? (First of many Ho Yay moments between Angel and Doyle)

Angel: Hey.
Girl: Come to a swanky party with me?
Angel: Sure?

(At the party.)

Cordelia: OMG, Angel! Still a vampire?
Angel: I can't really get rid of that.
Cordelia: Right. Well, I'm gonna go talk to important people because my life is SO wonderful.
Angel: . . . I'll never see that girl again.

(A vampire named Russell Winters who was at the party kills coffee shop girl.)

Angel: NOOOOO, I failed!! (emos)

(Later. Cordelia's shitty apartment)

Cordelia: My life sucks ass. I can't get work and I can't afford food.
Friend on Phone: Russell Winters wants to meet you!
Cordelia: An investment guy?
Friend: Just do it. Connections and crap.
Cordelia: Okay.

(At Russell's mansion)

Cordelia: (exposits backstory becoming depressed with her own tale)
Russell: I can make the pain go away.
Cordelia: Wait a minute, you're a vampire!
Russell: No, I'm not.
Cordelia: Yes, you are! Don't fuck with me; I went to Sunnydale High. Killing vampires was practically a graduation requirement.
Russell: RAWR!
Cordelia: AHHH!

(Angel saves Cordelia but Russell gets away.)

(At Wolfram & Hart office.)

Angel: Huh. Evil law firm. The joke writes itself.
Lindsey: Get out of here.
Angel: This is Sparta!

(Kicks Russell out the window so he burns up in the sun.)

(At the office)

Cordelia: Hi!
Angel: Jeez, how do you people keep breaking into my secret lair?
Cordelia: I cleaned up and made some terrible coffee and I'm your new secretary now so you have to pay me weekly. 'Kay, bye.
Angel: . . .
Doyle: We should let her stay.
Angel: You think she's hot, huh?
Doyle: (says something to imply that she is boner-inducing. Might have been "stiffener" or "stiffening." And now that I think about it you could take that to refer to one's spine and not one's penis but since it's Doyle he probably means penis.)

(END ON UNNECESSARILY EPIC POSE OF ANGEL STARING DOWN AT LOS ANGELES.)


I'm sure that was very useful.

(Exit Kay)