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beccaelizabethHave watched two episodes of Arrow.
Trying to sort out what I like about it, I keep bumping into my irritation that Birds of Prey was not as awesome as it should have been, and that we don't have a Wonder Woman right now, or Buffy. So basically before I can enjoy watching Yet Another White Guy, I have to set aside all the accumulated irritation and the thing where I'm really bored of white guys, and this is not easy.
And then there's me as a DC comics reader. Not the DCnU, where they rebooted everything until the whole multiverse was made of twentysomething and teenage white guys. I've read about that, and found it uninteresting at best. I read several decades before that of Green Arrow. In those decades, Ollie was a (mostly actually terrible) father, and a (pretty much terrible again) mentor, and also a grandfather. When I was pulling out the important bits of DC to make my good bits version, what I got from GA was family. So watching him be new again again again? It lost all my investment in the other guy. And then it starts playing with the names but not the important bits of other characters.
Honestly, as I find when comparing my reaction to Marvel or other comics derived texts, I find it easier to connect with shows not based on things I already know and love. My idea of the good bits never seems to match, and then they're all just getting it wronger.
So my problem with trying to sort my reaction to Arrow is it's really difficult to just be watching Arrow. It could be awesome, and I'd still be several kinds of annoyed in advance. Which is kind of a problem.
But, okay, my actual reactions to this show:
It's all about the white guy angst. I'm really tired of that. I was trying to find the emotional core that's supposed to resonate with the audiences, and it seems to be 'after the war'. Like, here's this veteran coming back to set things to rights. Only not, because veterans were in armies ie they had friends. Here's this lone dude who thinks lone is a good thing.
He better get over that real fast or I'm going to be booooooooored.
Lone! Grim! Gritty! Dark!
... all the reasons I quit reading comics.
So they've made it a lot about fathers. Ollie has the father who dumped everything on him, including horrible trauma, and now he's left to be a man both in the stereotypical masculinity sense and the here have an adulthood to deal with sense. Laurel has the father who won't back off enough for her to breathe, much less be awesome. Two poles of terrible parenting.
And then there's Ollie's mother, who might just maybe be evil. That would be a problem. There's a whole lot of stories about the illegitimacy of female power and how it sucks when women get the reins. That's a theme that would make me quit early.
... I'm missing the two generations of Black Canary already. Wanting to grow up to be as awesome as your mother is not a story we see often enough.
There's two black men, and neither died yet. Yaay.
... this needs saying.
I'm liking the bodyguard guy. I'm not liking how Ollie treats him.
I hope we're not meant to be liking Oliver? I mean, he's being a dick. He calls himself a jerk but doesn't stop doing it.
Speedy is odd. I mean, girl Speedy is second Speedy, addict Speedy is first Speedy, blood relatives is nobody.
Again, they've changed him from being the elder to being all new and burdened by the olders, is weird.
Apparently her reason for drugs is because the guys died? I realise it sucks when family dies, but when they make a story of it, then it's the story of a girl who can't cope without men. I dislike this story greatly.
There better start being lots of kick arse people soon. Many would be good. Lone is ungood.
So there's angsty white guy trying to honor his father, and that's a theme, and there's the after horrible trauma back from the wars thing, but there's also rich guy angst? Like, oh boo hoo I have all this huge amount of money and maybe a ton of people got stepped on to get it. Robin Hood as a noble. So that could be cool. Needs self examination.
I was reading about the attractive fantasy of vigilante stories, and part of it is the fantasy of perfect knowledge. Like, you know these are the bad guys, so you know your cause is just. Except there's no such thing. Even eye witnesses can be wrong. If all you've got is a list and your own convictions then you are really far short of perfect knowledge. Plus, whereas Batman hangs around the exactly right alleys to see criminals and catch them in the act, which, if it worked, is something cops would do, this Arrow just has a list of people he's going to mess up. He's not much for catching them in the act yet.
He's killed people just to protect his identity. That would be a bad guy thing to do. He's shooting guys who are exactly like Dig, hired to protect some rich dude. Again, kind of a moral problem there. And the really rich guys? Those he robs. So there's a ton of dead bodies of the workers, and then some rich guy who wanders off to be free to hire more and do it all again.
That 'record a confession' bit is not actually a fix for that. I mean, in any reasonable justice system it wouldn't be. Shoot a guy until he confesses? Not actually the same as confessing in court. Not actually the same as things being true. Due to that whole thing where torture doesn't work to get truth, just compliance.
Soooo... I'm watching this and discovering I have increasing problems with the vigilante fantasy, because actually kind of evil.
Possibly I should have noticed that before I started watching? Possibly just not the series for me?
But I have it now, and there's some interesting bits, and I'm going to keep watching some more episodes.
Trying to sort out what I like about it, I keep bumping into my irritation that Birds of Prey was not as awesome as it should have been, and that we don't have a Wonder Woman right now, or Buffy. So basically before I can enjoy watching Yet Another White Guy, I have to set aside all the accumulated irritation and the thing where I'm really bored of white guys, and this is not easy.
And then there's me as a DC comics reader. Not the DCnU, where they rebooted everything until the whole multiverse was made of twentysomething and teenage white guys. I've read about that, and found it uninteresting at best. I read several decades before that of Green Arrow. In those decades, Ollie was a (mostly actually terrible) father, and a (pretty much terrible again) mentor, and also a grandfather. When I was pulling out the important bits of DC to make my good bits version, what I got from GA was family. So watching him be new again again again? It lost all my investment in the other guy. And then it starts playing with the names but not the important bits of other characters.
Honestly, as I find when comparing my reaction to Marvel or other comics derived texts, I find it easier to connect with shows not based on things I already know and love. My idea of the good bits never seems to match, and then they're all just getting it wronger.
So my problem with trying to sort my reaction to Arrow is it's really difficult to just be watching Arrow. It could be awesome, and I'd still be several kinds of annoyed in advance. Which is kind of a problem.
But, okay, my actual reactions to this show:
It's all about the white guy angst. I'm really tired of that. I was trying to find the emotional core that's supposed to resonate with the audiences, and it seems to be 'after the war'. Like, here's this veteran coming back to set things to rights. Only not, because veterans were in armies ie they had friends. Here's this lone dude who thinks lone is a good thing.
He better get over that real fast or I'm going to be booooooooored.
Lone! Grim! Gritty! Dark!
... all the reasons I quit reading comics.
So they've made it a lot about fathers. Ollie has the father who dumped everything on him, including horrible trauma, and now he's left to be a man both in the stereotypical masculinity sense and the here have an adulthood to deal with sense. Laurel has the father who won't back off enough for her to breathe, much less be awesome. Two poles of terrible parenting.
And then there's Ollie's mother, who might just maybe be evil. That would be a problem. There's a whole lot of stories about the illegitimacy of female power and how it sucks when women get the reins. That's a theme that would make me quit early.
... I'm missing the two generations of Black Canary already. Wanting to grow up to be as awesome as your mother is not a story we see often enough.
There's two black men, and neither died yet. Yaay.
... this needs saying.
I'm liking the bodyguard guy. I'm not liking how Ollie treats him.
I hope we're not meant to be liking Oliver? I mean, he's being a dick. He calls himself a jerk but doesn't stop doing it.
Speedy is odd. I mean, girl Speedy is second Speedy, addict Speedy is first Speedy, blood relatives is nobody.
Again, they've changed him from being the elder to being all new and burdened by the olders, is weird.
Apparently her reason for drugs is because the guys died? I realise it sucks when family dies, but when they make a story of it, then it's the story of a girl who can't cope without men. I dislike this story greatly.
There better start being lots of kick arse people soon. Many would be good. Lone is ungood.
So there's angsty white guy trying to honor his father, and that's a theme, and there's the after horrible trauma back from the wars thing, but there's also rich guy angst? Like, oh boo hoo I have all this huge amount of money and maybe a ton of people got stepped on to get it. Robin Hood as a noble. So that could be cool. Needs self examination.
I was reading about the attractive fantasy of vigilante stories, and part of it is the fantasy of perfect knowledge. Like, you know these are the bad guys, so you know your cause is just. Except there's no such thing. Even eye witnesses can be wrong. If all you've got is a list and your own convictions then you are really far short of perfect knowledge. Plus, whereas Batman hangs around the exactly right alleys to see criminals and catch them in the act, which, if it worked, is something cops would do, this Arrow just has a list of people he's going to mess up. He's not much for catching them in the act yet.
He's killed people just to protect his identity. That would be a bad guy thing to do. He's shooting guys who are exactly like Dig, hired to protect some rich dude. Again, kind of a moral problem there. And the really rich guys? Those he robs. So there's a ton of dead bodies of the workers, and then some rich guy who wanders off to be free to hire more and do it all again.
That 'record a confession' bit is not actually a fix for that. I mean, in any reasonable justice system it wouldn't be. Shoot a guy until he confesses? Not actually the same as confessing in court. Not actually the same as things being true. Due to that whole thing where torture doesn't work to get truth, just compliance.
Soooo... I'm watching this and discovering I have increasing problems with the vigilante fantasy, because actually kind of evil.
Possibly I should have noticed that before I started watching? Possibly just not the series for me?
But I have it now, and there's some interesting bits, and I'm going to keep watching some more episodes.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-26 12:09 am (UTC)But I'd forgive anybody for losing interest before getting that far, espescially with the issues you've mentioned.
And I'm a Marvel girl, so I'm much more forgiving when DC reboots characters (and much less when Marvel does the same. :p).
no subject
Date: 2013-09-26 04:47 pm (UTC)