![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI got the Grimm season one DVD set. I'm irritated because it turns out it has subtitles, but not English subtitles. Really, translating it into Swedish is more important than making it accessible?
But I'm not very annoyed so far because so far I'm not interested enough to mind missing bits. I fast forwarded through some stuff. And it's only episode two.
I have decided that shows that start, as in the first minute, with a woman screaming and dying, are just not right. I mean, they're advertising why you should want to watch the next hour, right? They could set up a mystery, they could introduce characters we'll care about, they could do something spectacular or funny. But no, this one thinks the really appealing thing to do is kill a woman. Messily. Noisily. Just to get our attention.
Screw that.
So far, this is a boy story. Bechdel fail. Women scream, get kidnapped, die, get attacked, have people try and murder them again, and randomly turn out to be evil. Or their friend or daughter is the one kidnapped or dead and they talk to cops about it, being sad and scared, not actually helpful. Oh, and there's a helpful doctor lady, briefly. I say helpful, she's mostly there to say he can't talk to the ill person. Plus there's the love interest lady. Women exist in relation to the main character, like his aunt and girlfriend. The princess does not even try to save herself, she's there to cry or scream.
And okay, it's only one episode, but it's the episode that's meant to tell us why we should want to watch.
So far it's a story about two male cops, one of whom is the sidekick to the Super Special Hero. One is black and one is white. Guess which way around they are?
Super Special Hero is pissing me off because he's of the 'I Am Right, What Do You Mean Evidence, Don't You Trust Me' school. Also, from a mental health perspective, I just kind of hate stories where people start to see things nobody else can see and they see how other people are secretly disturbing monsters and they attack them and oh hey, turn out to be right, because it's fiction and instead of getting sectioned they get their own series. That's like actively dangerous. Really, you start seeing things, you double check absolutely every perception with other people because that stuff is a problem. Also I hate the whole inherited powers some families are born better thing, I much much much prefer people that just study up and learn stuff. So I'm cranky about the setup here.
But mostly it's a boy story about boys doing aggressive hero stuff with other boys. It's about violence and victimisation and solving it with violence. So I've started watching episode two but I've realised basically everything about this setup has to change or I'm just going to be totally bored of it.
Does it get better? Do women start being actual people soon?
I think I'm going to buy Once Upon a Time for balance. Lots of women, yaays. Stories that are not all about violence or killing or resolved by same. Relationships, not just sexual, friends and family and all sorts. Whole seasons of it. And women being strong and saving themselves and each other - wow there are not enough stories about women saving each other. It's not exactly short on monsters to slay or big fight scenes or heroics, it just has all this other good stuff too.
I've been deleting it as soon as I watch an episode. Now I'm watching this other stuff I find myself wanting to go back to it to rinse my brain out.
But I'm not very annoyed so far because so far I'm not interested enough to mind missing bits. I fast forwarded through some stuff. And it's only episode two.
I have decided that shows that start, as in the first minute, with a woman screaming and dying, are just not right. I mean, they're advertising why you should want to watch the next hour, right? They could set up a mystery, they could introduce characters we'll care about, they could do something spectacular or funny. But no, this one thinks the really appealing thing to do is kill a woman. Messily. Noisily. Just to get our attention.
Screw that.
So far, this is a boy story. Bechdel fail. Women scream, get kidnapped, die, get attacked, have people try and murder them again, and randomly turn out to be evil. Or their friend or daughter is the one kidnapped or dead and they talk to cops about it, being sad and scared, not actually helpful. Oh, and there's a helpful doctor lady, briefly. I say helpful, she's mostly there to say he can't talk to the ill person. Plus there's the love interest lady. Women exist in relation to the main character, like his aunt and girlfriend. The princess does not even try to save herself, she's there to cry or scream.
And okay, it's only one episode, but it's the episode that's meant to tell us why we should want to watch.
So far it's a story about two male cops, one of whom is the sidekick to the Super Special Hero. One is black and one is white. Guess which way around they are?
Super Special Hero is pissing me off because he's of the 'I Am Right, What Do You Mean Evidence, Don't You Trust Me' school. Also, from a mental health perspective, I just kind of hate stories where people start to see things nobody else can see and they see how other people are secretly disturbing monsters and they attack them and oh hey, turn out to be right, because it's fiction and instead of getting sectioned they get their own series. That's like actively dangerous. Really, you start seeing things, you double check absolutely every perception with other people because that stuff is a problem. Also I hate the whole inherited powers some families are born better thing, I much much much prefer people that just study up and learn stuff. So I'm cranky about the setup here.
But mostly it's a boy story about boys doing aggressive hero stuff with other boys. It's about violence and victimisation and solving it with violence. So I've started watching episode two but I've realised basically everything about this setup has to change or I'm just going to be totally bored of it.
Does it get better? Do women start being actual people soon?
I think I'm going to buy Once Upon a Time for balance. Lots of women, yaays. Stories that are not all about violence or killing or resolved by same. Relationships, not just sexual, friends and family and all sorts. Whole seasons of it. And women being strong and saving themselves and each other - wow there are not enough stories about women saving each other. It's not exactly short on monsters to slay or big fight scenes or heroics, it just has all this other good stuff too.
I've been deleting it as soon as I watch an episode. Now I'm watching this other stuff I find myself wanting to go back to it to rinse my brain out.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-08 09:23 pm (UTC)No, wait, spoke too soon
another dead woman
... wait, still talking after falling on all the spikes? still creepy amounts of violence.
and the third interesting recurring character, the Blutbad guy I don't know the name of, it's another guy. surprise.
Monroe, I looked it up.
He's the most interesting because he's trying not to be a dick. The cop thinks its his right to be a dick. Kind of a big problem.
Slowly dying Aunt Marie gets to save herself... oh, no, just die in his arms, dammit. Apparently women don't get to be strong, they die of trying.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-08 10:12 pm (UTC)damn it I rather wish I hadn't bought this.
dead women are not a selling point!
Harper the ME is a large woman
the asian guy police officer who keeps turning up makes a 'wearing something sexy' joke about her
honestly this keeps being misogynist crap
I'm rapidly ceasing to care what genre it is
Portland police. Now I'm understanding more of the Avengers xovers.
three weeks three different sets of lawyers
why so many lawyers
hang on, why so many evil dead monster lawyers
all the police are men! what police place is this! Our police has many women!
Do their police rooms not have recorder tapes?
oh hey, Juliet's a doctor and she helps with the bee stings. that's proper helpful.
I can't hear what they're saying though. NO SUBTITLES mumbles. her voice is harder than the guys.
Monroe is acting like a Sentinel :)
ooooh, pretty stained glass. There was some last week too. I like pretty shiny windows, I went all over Rightmove saving the windows pictures, it's a thing.
Monroe is by far the funniest as well as the most interesting. Are we sure it's not his series?
I read one article about a house that was MADE OF BEE. like, the bees moved into the walls and boom, beehive, everywhere, all the wall spaces, leaking honey through the walls.
Sergeant Woo is the Asian guy then.
oh hey, everything's connected, it's the lawyer hexenbeast murderer lady from the first episode. that's tidy. Adeline Shade. Adeline? I keep hearing that but it sounds weird.
everything is black and yellow this week. that would work better if it was only on the bee people, then it's a clue, this is just colors.
wait, beekeeper guy is evil too? That's... too tidy. I mean, they're only showing us people that are involved, it's weird.
so, two dead lawyer women, and one sort of evil queen bee
and it's all about him?
god damn it, can't they have independent lives at all?
"he's coming for you"
oh look, more men!
bored now.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-08 11:15 pm (UTC)AGAIN
This time sexual violence, a serial rapist who keeps women until they're pregnant
police are being bloody idiots
if you know the guy uses gas why the HELL go in there?
still there are zero women saving themselves, zero hero women
medical examiner woman again, so that's something, but still
creepy
no subject
Date: 2013-05-08 11:19 pm (UTC)detectives are wondering how the serial rapist ever got anyone to go home with him
Nick: 'I'm betting it was the toads'
so he reckons the bad guy was drugging women
his partner says
'if only it were that easy. maybe I'll get me some toads.'
so he just heard how the rapist works and he wants in?
I feel slimed.
eeew.
no subject
Date: 2013-05-09 04:21 pm (UTC)I encountered these eps on my telly, the bee one and the frog guy. Was too icked to watch much of those eps and there was zero appeal for future eps.
And yes, American investigation rooms don't have tape recorders, and when there is recording, it's clandestine, at least on telly. I don't know about the reality, US or UK.