Fandom sympathizing with male characters while demonizing females is nothing new, but the way viewers treat Norma Bates is REALLY frustrating for me.
Laura. 21. Somewhere in Canada.
Fandom sympathizing with male characters while demonizing females is nothing new, but the way viewers treat Norma Bates is REALLY frustrating for me.
typicrobots replied to your post: i’m gonna complain about things and you’re gonna…
Can you give me a succinct summary of wtf is going on w LBD bc I only watch the Darcy eps bc everything about LBD seems a mess, even the Darcy eps.oh my god, hold on to your butt, ‘cause HERE WE GO (also this isn’t going to be succinct):
- #1 thing you need to know is that one of the writers on staff, rachel kiley, is not someone who should be a writer on staff. she aggressively hates on basically every character not intimately connected with her pet (lydia) and most of the characters who are connected with her, too. except for wickham, noted dreamboat & celebrated great guy (“that makes sense” —jane austen)
- there’s an ancillary lydia vlog that is frankly unnecessary esp the third series of lydia vlogs which are just honest to god like six episodes of lydia trapped in a horrible relationship with wickham who is pretty clearly emotionally manipulating and abusing her.
- we go to rk and the actress who plays lydia: “wickham is so sexy/great/romantic/perfect for lydia!!!” there you have it, folks: bullshit. the official lbd twitter account retweets ~lyckham~ tweets.
- meanwhile wickham is isolating lydia from her friends and family, castigating her while simultaneously presenting himself as the only one who understands/loves her, and clearly using her as a means to prop himself up while also getting ~revenge~ on lizzie & darcy. aka abusing her. BUT MAYBE HE’S SAD, YOU GUYS!!!
- suddenly: WICKHAM SETS UP A WEBSITE TO RELEASE A SEXTAPE OF LYDIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GASP SHOCK HORRORS
- an illuminating digression: this show has a v gross attitude towards female sexuality. lydia is “bad” because she’s sexually active/talks about sex (then: rachel kiley argues that the show isn’t slut-shaming lydia because lydia isn’t even sexually active omg she’s totally not a whore), and jane is “good” because her relationship with bing is thoroughly chaste.
- lydia is shamed by the narrative for “allowing” herself to be abused ( L M A O ) and for having participated in the making of the sex tape, while it also argues that she’s a GOOD GIRL (read: not sexually active! she doesn’t have sex! really! at all! because goodness is intrinsically tied to sexual activity! she’s not a slut omg). she is thus, in the narrative’s execution, both a martyr and a bad girl who got what was coming to her. neither does justice to what could have been lydia’s character, and this presentation is grossly simplistic and, BIZARRELY, even less progressive than the source material from 1813. at least lydia had agency in pride & prejudice; in lbd, she’s a victim without power or voice.
and all of that was a lot of words for sure BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE:
rachel kiley hates criticism. she really, REALLY hates criticism. she hates it so much that she wrote an EIGHT MINUTE EPISODE (today’s) in which lydia basically speaks ON BEHALF OF RACHEL KILEY about how fandom is MEAN and SEXIST and HOW DARE THEY CRITICIZE RACHEL KILEY i mean LYDIA and THIS IS ALL YOOOOUR FAUUUULT, YOOOOU DID THIIIIIIIS
and lydia is also crying about how she’s responsible for the existence of the sex tape because she let it happennnnn, and lizzie has been inexplicably uploading all this extremely private, personal shit to the internet, but now lizzie sees, she sees how wrong she was to ever criticize lydia, for is it not lizzie’s fault too for pushing lydia away, and isn’t it also jane’s fault for not being there, and it’s everyone’s fault BUT ESPECIALLY THE WOMEN’S except… for wickham’s…
meanwhile darcy has completely forgotten he is so rich he can literally make and wear underwear out of $100 bills and then set them on fire at the end of each day, and thus he is uniquely capable of a) hiring private detectives to find wickham and b) hiring lawyers who can shut wickham down, you know, IF darcy bothered to ask lydia what SHE wants, which he hasn’t
lbd: feminism
or, TO REALLY BE SUCCINCT: lbd isn’t a ROMANCE, it’s about SLUT-SHAMING. i mean, sisters. no, wait, yeah, slut-shaming
PERFECT commentary, omg.
this show has jumped the shark so bad, you guys - a terribly annoying, slut-shaming shark who roams the Sea of Bad Decisions & Shitty Worldbuilding - and I’m honestly not sure if I’ve ever been so quickly & thoroughly disengaged with a fictional narrative, and the gross sexual politics are only half of it.
dear LBD: Lizzie-as-videoblogger is the central conceit of this adaptation. the limitations of the form can hardly have surprised you, so why the fuck are SO MANY of your recent writing choices falling apart because your viewers (who, btw, have been able to suspend disbelief & enjoy the form thus far) are completely unable to reconcile your characters’ approach to things like:
- methods of modern communication (see: NO ONE being aware of Lydia’s videos with Wickham, see also: Charlotte’s magical inability to get in touch with Lizzie)
- hushing up something on the Internet (protip: if you don’t want people to find out about your sister’s sextape, DON’T BLOG ABOUT IT TO HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE)
- retaining a competent legal team (see: William Darcy, fabulously wealthy & successful CEO of a new media company in Silicon Valley, who nevertheless has no idea how to engage attorneys specializing in Internet law)
- launching & marketing a new app (protip: don’t use the app demo to have incredibly painful, public breakdowns & reveal all your plans to your nemesis)
like, even aside from the really gross sexual politics, NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE. AT ALL.
I can’t watch anymore. I’ll tune back in when people start making out on screen, but I no longer care about the bits in between, because there is literally no way to retcon this mess into something coherent and logical.
(Source: genebeanbelcher)
“You clearly don’t know who you’re talking to, so let me clue you in: I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger. A guy opens his door and gets shot, and you think that of me? No! I am the one who knocks.” Skyler absorbed the lesson Walt was trying to teach her, but he seems to have forgotten the one she had to impart when she told him: “Someone has to protect this family from the man who protects this family.”
I think Skyler sees Walt as we’re meant to see him: a self-deluding, pathetic man, but a dangerous one. She punctures the fantasy that there’s anything admirable left about Walter White, that we should still root for the man who fought back against illness and emasculation with a pork pie hat and chemistry. But even if Skyler has a moral clarity that those of us who want to identify with Walt as a badass would like to deny, she can’t easily act on it. She has an infant daughter and an ill son to protect, and her husband is a man who boasts of killing legends, who’s used physical force to establish his dominance over her before. It’s hard enough for women who aren’t married to evil geniuses to leave abusive relationships. Skyler is attempting to negotiate a livable existence for herself in highly unusual circumstances. And her steel is hardening every day.
ALWAYS believe the victim, not because the victim is always telling the truth, not because no one has ever lied about being abused, and not because there’s no way the victim might just be trying to get a famous dude’s money.
You ALWAYS believe the victim because every time you don’t, you’re convincing potential victims not to file reports when they’re abused by rich, famous, or powerful people. They see that shit and they think, “No one is going to believe me if I report it.” If there is the slightest chance in the cosmos that the victim is telling the truth, you ALWAYS believe the victim.
lydiamartinis:
[trigger warning for domestic abuse]
Celebs that have been charged/accused of domestic violence:
Chris BrownSean PennGary OldmanMichael FassbenderSean BeanCharlie SheenNick CageSean ConneryMel GibsonAlec BaldwinMickey RourkeMathew Foxthe list goes on
Celebs that are always associated with domestic violence, have the most vocal hatedom out of the group:
Chris Brown
Celebs on this list that are not white:
Chris Brown
