Links and Updates

Last weekend I went to see Spamalot at the Isaac Theatre Royal; which was due to open back in 2010 but had to be postponed after the Christchurch earthquake. Having been delayed by five years, it was rather surreal to sit down and finally see it unfold (thank goodness we didn't buy tickets the first time around).

It was a lot of fun, though I had the same problem with it as I did with The Phantom of the Opera – having seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail so many times, I knew most of the gags and routines (the swallow debate, the Trojan Bunny, the Knights that say Ni, the Black Knight and his flesh wound).

But as well as being a musical, it also had more of a unifying narrative than the film, largely thanks to the frequent appearances of the Lady of the Lake (who, in a twist that makes no sense whatsoever, also turns out to be Guinevere).

It was a fun night, and no doubt a relief to the actors and other performers to finally reach their opening night.

On the viewing front, I'm currently working my way through every television incarnation of the X-Men in preparation for X-Men: Apocalypse. I don't think I've talked much about how much I love this franchise (though you may have figured it out if you follow me on Tumblr) but I do, and I plan to post on each version separately – though I haven't even finished the 90s cartoon yet, and there's a lot more material than I realized. Did you know there was a pilot made back in the 80s? Or a more recent anime version?

Plus I'm still plodding away on my Indian Summers review. I feel I have so much to say about it, and yet can't articulate it properly.

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It's September, which means it's almost time for pretty much everything to start airing their latest seasons. Once Upon a Time and Sleepy Hollow are returning, and though I don't plan on watching either of them, I'm still going to keep an eye on the forums so I know what's happening in broad strokes. There's every chance that Sleepy Hollow could lure me back, though I don't expect OUaT to improve (I'm just intrigued about what their take on Arthurian legend will be like).

I'll be tuning into Doctor Who but not commenting on it, a decision which oddly enough makes me look forward to it, knowing that I won't have to cross-examine it to any great extent. For the record I'm not a Moffat hater, but he has a bag of tricks that I'm thoroughly sick of: the increasingly silly word-play, the banter and catchphrases eliminating any meaningful dialogue, the cheapness with which death is treated, and the recycling of a single character type onto every female guest star.

So I'm now officially a casual viewer.

As I have been with Downton Abbey for some years now, but since it's the final season I may as well see it out to the bittersweet end (plus my reviews for this show are more like lists of observations, so commenting on it is not any great encroachment on my time).

And then there's Da Vinci's Demons. I don't think I've ever mentioned this show on my blog before (except to briefly use it as a comparison to Outlander) and I wouldn't exactly call myself a fan (the show has issues – oh boy, does it have issues). But nevertheless I've watched the first two seasons and plan to continue as it heads into its third and final season. Once it's complete, I may write a retrospective of the show in its entirety.

As I've said in the past, if a show only lasts one season it was either rubbish or screwed by the network, if it gets to two, then the creators got lucky but failed to capitalize on their second chance. But three seasons? Three is a respectable number, and time enough to tell a complete story with a satisfying beginning, middle and end.

(Please don't send me examples of the many exceptions out there – I KNOW this is a huge generalization).

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Last but not least, three MUST READ posts.

Some Thoughts On Man Pain – that is, "man pain" as a narrative construct that should be dealt with carefully, not this current tendency of laughing at any male character who looks or feels sad.

It's a troublesome but recognizable trend found throughout a lot of fiction that whenever something bad happens to a female character, it's often portrayed through a male character's point of view. Woman gets raped? Cut to her husband smashing up the furniture. Little girl is hurt in a car accident? Here's her father grieving in the hospital waiting room. Mother is kidnapped or killed? Time for her son to avenge her!

The easiest way in the world to motivate a male character is to do something terrible to his loved ones, and taken in isolation it's a quick, easy and effective way to get the story rolling. But the problem is that the trope doesn't happen in isolation. It's done all the time, and this meta does a fantastic job of explaining the different types of man pain, how they're used across a variety of stories, and how the trope is constantly (and repetitively) defended.

Then there's On Women Characters and Romance, which I like to think I might have partially inspired as it links back to another post that I commented on.

Back in the Merlin days, one of the more tedious excuses fandom had for hating Guinevere was that "she's just a love interest." Tedious for three reasons: firstly that most of the time this was coming from fans of other ships who obviously didn't give a shit about whether or not Guinevere was a love interest, only that she was competition to their preferred love interests, secondly that Guinevere's story-arc was inextricably and unavoidably caught up in her relationship with Arthur (Merlin doesn't need Arthur to become a great sorcerer; Morgana doesn't need Arthur to fall into evil, but Guinevere simply can't become Queen without marrying Arthur), and thirdly, that she frankly wasn't just a love interest – unless you wilfully chose to ignore her friendships with Merlin and Morgana, her familial relationships with Tom and Elyan, her myriad of subplots in which solved mysteries with Merlin, and her gradual development from a shy servant girl to confidant queen – which naturally, a lot of people did.

Though it doesn't use Guinevere as an example, the meta points out this frustrating tactic of using the "just a love interest excuse", one that's all the more difficult to eradicate considering it holds a grain of truth. There are plenty of female characters that are designed as nothing more than love interests to a male character, and they make for easy targets.

But it's the reasons why we use this criticism that's important, and the post has introduced me to a great new term: "troll concern." I can feel my own meta on the subject brewing...

Finally, More on Fandom and Slash. It's probably not a secret that m/m slash doesn't float my boat, and though I'm firmly in the "ship and let ship" camp when it comes to what other people chose to enjoy (not withstanding a little snark here and there, because I'm only human), this sums up some of my deeper problems with the subgenre.

The comments are worth browsing through as well.