Ah, the lies television tells us.
Apr. 8th, 2010 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apocalypsosAw, Anthony. :(
That said, yay for everybody who's not Mila! As for Mila, that was worth it if only for the bitchface she made when Jay made it in, too. But seriously, Heidi, why even play for the cameras anymore? "Only one of you will show at Fashion Week ..." Honestly, we're just lucky they didn't let EVERY designer show this season.
*
And now it's time for Friday brain! (But not a lot of Friday brain, really. My mind's still a bit ARBL GARBL about the whole thing.)
-- I know I wasn't going to get into the misogyny thing, but the one thing I did want to point out where the borderline is. Separate from the question of whether or not they even needed to go the Whore of Babylon angle, the Whore of Babylon is the character's name. That in and of itself is not sexist, or at least the sexism involved is the church's fault, not the show's fault.
That said:
1. "On a good day you get to kill a whore" is a perfect example of why I probably would have stepped away from the Whore of Babylon as a concept if I were on the writing staff. I want to believe the writing staff isn't stupid enough NOT to know fandom's general annoyance with the misogyny problems with the show, but when you've got a reputation for treating your female characters like shit, make the Whore of Babylon an actual villain in your episode, and throw in a line like that, I can almost hear some dumbass in the writer's room saying, "It's not sexism if that's her name!" Well ... yeah, when it's her name. When you're just throwing it around and you're not talking about Whore Smith or Whore Jones or Whore Kuchanski, then hey, guess what's sexist?
2. Also, your baddy is the Whore of Babylon, your majorly female fandom hates how you treat women, and your title is taken from a song in which the following lyric is "... and a bitch ain't one." It's a bit hard to put out plausible misogyny denials with shit like that, is what I'm saying.
... so, yeah.
-- What bothers me about the Lisa thing isn't that it was in this episode, or that it is a bit of a dick move, but that I don't think it had enough set-up in earlier episodes. I can buy that Dean latched onto Lisa and Ben as a sort of ideal. Dean's taken up Sam's dream of a white picket fence somewhere along the line, and Lisa and Ben come ready-made. They both like him, they'd both take him in. Dean hasn't latched onto a lot of women in his life, but Lisa bears a striking resemblance in looks and temperament to Carmen, Dean's genie-dream woman. And she has Ben, a kid Dean would love to be a father to.
The thing is, Dean's taken what was just a simple offer to stay and a hero relationship with a kid who shares a lot in common with him and his mind has latched into it and turned it into this dream of a normal life. Sam's dream life is one he can build, but Dean has reached a point in the last few years where I think he feels any dream life he wants, he's going to have to slot himself into, and it had better be fully-formed when he gets there. Hence, Lisa and Ben.
My problem with it is that we haven't seen enough references to it between "The Kids Are Alright" and this episode. It hasn't entirely come out of nowhere -- Lisa was in that one dream of his with a picnic blanket and a warm smile to greet him -- but there still needed to be a stronger reason for Dean to suddenly show up all, "I'm happiest when I think about you guys." Which is nice and all, but ... yeah.
-- Drunk!Cas! I'm really grateful for Castiel this episode because ... well, let's face it. Without Castiel, what the hell would there be to smile about this week? And of all the things he said, remember how to say "I'm an angel of the Lord" with some pride and strength behind it? This week, he sounded tired and almost embarrassed about the whole thing, although I imagine that that had a bit to do with the liquor store in his bloodstream and all. I know people have given Castiel a lot of shit in the past for doing the Batman voice and generally being an uptight dip with no sense of humor, but now thanks to God being wretched we get Castiel who's lost faith and got wasted, and Misha's acting chops are out in full force. And really, I can't decide who's worse off: Dean, who's had his entire life to slowly learn that his dad's a really, really flawed guy (he loved those boys but, yeah, John's always been a big pile of very human flaws), or Castiel, who sort of found out in one fell swoop that his father doesn't have his back. (Granted, I believe there's more to the story than God turning his back on the Winchesters. I have a theory it's more about God having faith in the Winchesters handling things than the other way around.)
*
I'm watching a school of fish scrub a hippo clean on the Discovery Channel. It's the most adorable thing I've seen all day.
(OMG, and now there's clownfish in an anemenemenone! NEMO. :D)
That said, yay for everybody who's not Mila! As for Mila, that was worth it if only for the bitchface she made when Jay made it in, too. But seriously, Heidi, why even play for the cameras anymore? "Only one of you will show at Fashion Week ..." Honestly, we're just lucky they didn't let EVERY designer show this season.
*
And now it's time for Friday brain! (But not a lot of Friday brain, really. My mind's still a bit ARBL GARBL about the whole thing.)
-- I know I wasn't going to get into the misogyny thing, but the one thing I did want to point out where the borderline is. Separate from the question of whether or not they even needed to go the Whore of Babylon angle, the Whore of Babylon is the character's name. That in and of itself is not sexist, or at least the sexism involved is the church's fault, not the show's fault.
That said:
1. "On a good day you get to kill a whore" is a perfect example of why I probably would have stepped away from the Whore of Babylon as a concept if I were on the writing staff. I want to believe the writing staff isn't stupid enough NOT to know fandom's general annoyance with the misogyny problems with the show, but when you've got a reputation for treating your female characters like shit, make the Whore of Babylon an actual villain in your episode, and throw in a line like that, I can almost hear some dumbass in the writer's room saying, "It's not sexism if that's her name!" Well ... yeah, when it's her name. When you're just throwing it around and you're not talking about Whore Smith or Whore Jones or Whore Kuchanski, then hey, guess what's sexist?
2. Also, your baddy is the Whore of Babylon, your majorly female fandom hates how you treat women, and your title is taken from a song in which the following lyric is "... and a bitch ain't one." It's a bit hard to put out plausible misogyny denials with shit like that, is what I'm saying.
... so, yeah.
-- What bothers me about the Lisa thing isn't that it was in this episode, or that it is a bit of a dick move, but that I don't think it had enough set-up in earlier episodes. I can buy that Dean latched onto Lisa and Ben as a sort of ideal. Dean's taken up Sam's dream of a white picket fence somewhere along the line, and Lisa and Ben come ready-made. They both like him, they'd both take him in. Dean hasn't latched onto a lot of women in his life, but Lisa bears a striking resemblance in looks and temperament to Carmen, Dean's genie-dream woman. And she has Ben, a kid Dean would love to be a father to.
The thing is, Dean's taken what was just a simple offer to stay and a hero relationship with a kid who shares a lot in common with him and his mind has latched into it and turned it into this dream of a normal life. Sam's dream life is one he can build, but Dean has reached a point in the last few years where I think he feels any dream life he wants, he's going to have to slot himself into, and it had better be fully-formed when he gets there. Hence, Lisa and Ben.
My problem with it is that we haven't seen enough references to it between "The Kids Are Alright" and this episode. It hasn't entirely come out of nowhere -- Lisa was in that one dream of his with a picnic blanket and a warm smile to greet him -- but there still needed to be a stronger reason for Dean to suddenly show up all, "I'm happiest when I think about you guys." Which is nice and all, but ... yeah.
-- Drunk!Cas! I'm really grateful for Castiel this episode because ... well, let's face it. Without Castiel, what the hell would there be to smile about this week? And of all the things he said, remember how to say "I'm an angel of the Lord" with some pride and strength behind it? This week, he sounded tired and almost embarrassed about the whole thing, although I imagine that that had a bit to do with the liquor store in his bloodstream and all. I know people have given Castiel a lot of shit in the past for doing the Batman voice and generally being an uptight dip with no sense of humor, but now thanks to God being wretched we get Castiel who's lost faith and got wasted, and Misha's acting chops are out in full force. And really, I can't decide who's worse off: Dean, who's had his entire life to slowly learn that his dad's a really, really flawed guy (he loved those boys but, yeah, John's always been a big pile of very human flaws), or Castiel, who sort of found out in one fell swoop that his father doesn't have his back. (Granted, I believe there's more to the story than God turning his back on the Winchesters. I have a theory it's more about God having faith in the Winchesters handling things than the other way around.)
*
I'm watching a school of fish scrub a hippo clean on the Discovery Channel. It's the most adorable thing I've seen all day.
(OMG, and now there's clownfish in an anemenemenone! NEMO. :D)
