Proclone

Internalized homophobia is a pretty common phenomenon. Sexuality is complicated and feelings outside the "norm" are scary and confusing. Repressing your sexuality and even outwardly being homophobic before coming out is hardly uncommon especially amongst queer people of a certain generation. Just because Miranda kissed one woman thirty years ago and wasn't into it, doesn't mean that she's straight. Nor does her being shitty to Samantha or Carrie. I think the show would be better if they acknowledged how this behavior could have been part of Miranda's own internalized homophobia and repression, but the behavior isn’t unheard-of. Also Che isn't a woman. Just because Miranda wasn't into another woman 30 years ago, in no way means she can't be into a nonbinary person today. Miranda was pretty clearly queer coded in the original show (at least IMO) and the mistaken lesbian plot was the writers lampshading it. I don't think Miranda's coming out has been handled well, but I also don’t think it came from nowhere.

I think this is a problem a lot of shows have with female main characters. They don't understand there's a difference between likable and compelling. A character doesn't have to likable to be compelling (it's funny that they almost never seem to forget this with men). Nice doesn't automatically mean they aren't compelling, but a character should be compelling first and foremost. This isn't real life. I'll watch a show about a really unlikable person if they're compelling even though I would never associate with them IRL. A smart, capable, arrogant, surgeon, who gets over her head with supernatural because she thinks she's smarter than everyone else, could be a really compelling story. But I don't think they wanted to tell a story about a woman who had power and was comfortable with it. In an attempt to make Rowan more likable or at least more palatable to a general audience they turned into a meek, whinny woman with no agency. Which to me is neither likable nor compelling.

The way they paint Rowan's liaisons with men also kind of annoy me in this. They sort of paint it an extension of her mommy issues or at least her issues with being adopted. And it seems almost compulsive behavior in the show. Just let her be a woman who likes picking up men from bars and screwing them! It's still this Madonna/whore dichotomy. If a woman is promiscuous it must be because of deep seated trauma. It can't possible be just because she likes sex. I think it's okay to show that Rowan has sex with anonymous guys as a byproduct of her disconnection from people in general. But I think it's important that the distinction is made her hesitancy to form real connections is the problem, not necessarily her sex drive (she and Michael go at like bunnies IIRC). And I don't think they needed to make it seem as pathologic as the show depicts it. If it was a male character I think they might hint that having random hookups wasn't the healthiest choice but I doubt they would have depicted it the way they showed it with Rowan. Show her confidently picking up men. Not basically begging her friend with benefits to sleep with her and then moving on to another random guy when he turns her down. She comes across as needy and desperate in that scene.

I think my biggest issue with this adaptation is how they've changed the character of Rowan. They absolutely have removed almost all her agency. In the books she made decisions, some of them were poor decisions, and some were implied to be supernaturally influenced decisions, but she made them. In this, things just seem to happen to Rowan and she reacts to them. The one decision she seems to have actually made in the show is to go to New Orleans, but shown as almost a spur of the moment thing with no reflection. Also the show Rowan seems to not want to take responsibility for anything. In the book Rowan also suspected she had the power to harm people, but kind of didn't feel bad about it. Of course there were only three people in the book she kills, a child who attacked her (when Rowan was also a child), someone who tried to rape her, and her adopted father (who was not only trying to leave her sick mom, but steal mom's money), instead of everyone who annoys at least getting a minor brain hemorrhage. Is that kind of dark and screwed up that she doesn't feel guilty, maybe, but I also think it's a way more interesting choice than having the main character run around looking like she's on the verge of a panic attack constantly. Making Rowan slightly morally grey makes her both more interesting and more compelling to watch, plus it's closer to the books in tone. It's funny, I think were supposed to hate her boss at the hospital, but his assessment of Rowan is pretty spot on in the first episode. She does think she's the smartest person in the world, but demonstrates in a very passive aggressive way. She comes off as whiny, super passive aggressive, and kind of intitled, in her interactions with pretty much everyone. I mean did she have to be snippy to the concierge at the hotel because he didn't call her doctor? Her boss is also right that getting a job at a pharmaceutical company to get your mother into a drug trial is wildly unethical. But the way the show frames the interaction, I think it wants us to just see her boss as an asshole, when he's completely right...And really doesn't deserve to nearly die for telling Rowan the truth. Also are we to believe that Rowan made it to being a top neurosurgeon without dealing with asshole doctors, who are rude to her? Did she just accidently kill them all? Does she just leave dead bodies in her wake? I guess the show is implying that her powers have gotten stronger since Lasher was freed, but since they mention the incident when she was a child it muddies the water. Having her reflect to anyone about how she's always felt these sort of things but they feel stronger, would have made that clearer. By in large I'm not going to blame Alexandra Daddario for how Rowan is being portrayed because it's mostly the writing and I'm sure she's being directed in certain ways as well...But I hate the baby voice she has for the character of Rowan (I haven't seen her in enough stuff to know if it's totally her own voice or it's a little bit of an affectation). She's constantly breathy and sounds like a child. I find it especially annoying since Rowan was described as having deep voice for a woman in the books. I don't expect character to necessarily look or sound like their described in the book...But it's just another thing that sort of infantilizes Rowan and makes her seem like she has less agency, on top of being a big departure from the book. I get that The Witching Hour is super hard to adapt. Mostly because it's two separate books that are essentially interweaved together. There's Rowan and Michael's story, where they mostly pick out paint chips and fall in love and then there's The Mayfair Witches and Lasher's story. The latter is probably more interesting. I think this show would have benefited from taking a page out the first season of The Witcher in terms of how they adapted it. I don't necessarily mean being cagey about events in different storylines not being concurrent with other events as far as timeline. But I do mean willingness to tell several different stories at once and treat them equally and then show how they ultimately connect. Yes, they've been having flashbacks to Diedre and Suzanne, but they feel very much like standard flashbacks that most shows use to hint and tease. They don't feel like fully fleshed out separate stories. And I think that's they only way to adapt the book(s). Hell, the called the show The Mayfair Witches, tell the story of the Mayfair Witches.

I agree on both points. After 3 episodes I still don't think I like the merging of Michael and Aaron. Nor do I love Rowan nearly killing everyone that even mildly annoys her, which isn't remotely what happened in the books. In the books it's made pretty evident that Rowan can use her powers to heal or hurt people. I don't think the show is doing a particularly good job at showing the healing part. Yes, she's a good surgeon but I really don't think anyone who isn't familiar with the source material would pick up that she's using her powers as a surgeon too. And I do think the show is rushed. I really do think a slower burn would have been better. I think it would have been much better to stay closer to the books and have Rowan (who knew she was a Mayfair in the book IIRC) find out she's inherited the Mayfair fortune and feels and feels drawn to New Orleans without really understanding why. If you want to start the show with something exciting keep Michael and Aaron as two characters and show Rowan's rescue of Michael. Which sets her up as kind of being a badass and can also establish her healing abilities (just have a paramedic comment that this guy never should have lived). Time skip a few months and have her adopted mom die and you can even have the incident with pharmaceutical guy (or leave the soapier version where she kills her adopted dad because he's leaving her sick mother). You can still cut back and forth to Diedre and then end the first episode with either Michael showing up wanting to talk to the woman that saved him or with her getting the news about the inheritance or both.

I think Nancy liked the money. I think she overlooked what he was doing because she was making a lot of it. You notice she still pissed at Sarah for refunding people's money. Which as a side note, I don't remember them mentioning that before and it makes me like Sarah way more. I don't think for one second Nancy actually thinks she was truly helping people. She knew she was involved in a pyramid scheme. I also don't think she was unaware of Keith's sexual proclivities. I think it's possible she wasn't aware of DOS, in that it was organized thing, but I don't for one second believe that she didn't know that Keith was manipulating vulnerable women into sleeping with him. I imagine she turned a blind eye to it, or just chalked it up to price for making obscene amounts of money. The fact is that she's upset that Keith's "thing" DOS effected her company (or more accurately her money) and doesn't seem at all horrified that she was even tangentially connected to something that involved the systematic abuse and branding of women, speaks volumes. She wonders why the 17,000 people she's "helped" aren't standing up for her...It's because normal people don't stand up for organizations that are connected to sex crimes. Even if someone did gain something from one of the classes they took, it doesn't outweigh the harm Keith has done. And normal people realize that. She's just as bad as Keith. If not in some ways worse. I think she's a little bit right in saying Keith is the way he is. Keith is obviously a psychopath and a predator. I also think he believes most crap he says. Nancy I'm not so sure has actually drank the Kool-Aid. I think she's smart enough and to realize it's bullshit, she just likes the money. The fact that's she doesn't seem horrified her daughter was in a sex cult that left her branded with Keith's initials says a lot to me. I'll also fully admit that I have a pretty visceral reaction to Nancy because I'm a nurse and the idea that she took actual therapeutic techniques she learned as a nurse and was using them to manipulate people into spending thousands of dollars on BS seriously rubs me the wrong way.

That seems like an odd choice, to me. It seemed sort of integral to his story that Michael was an average guy with no connection to the supernatural before the accident that gave him psychometry. Making him a member of the Talamasca seems to negate that, even him they have him become a member after the near drowning. I'm probably biased because I remember really liking Michael's character in the books (and for that matter, Aaron's). And I'm not sure I want to see it completely changed. But I remarkably happy not to see Mona Mayfair's name listed either. I don't think I've ever disliked a book character more. Like I said, I'm kind of torn about this. On the one hand I love The Witching Hour, on the other the sequels are hot garbage and the nature of story makes it hard to keep the plot of The Witching Hour in place while getting rid of said garbage (Rice somehow wrote and excellent book that did an excellent job setting the plots of two horrible books in motion). So on the one hand, I would love to see and pretty faithful adaptation of the first book, but on the other I realize if they're going to fix the rest of the story they are going to have to make some serious changes. I've like what AMC has done with Interview with the Vampire so far, so I'm willing to give this a chance, even if I'm a little hesitant.

I respectfully disagree. Despite changing the time period, and making Louis black, I actually think this is much closer to the spirit of the book than the movie was. The show so far has been much more faithful to Louis backstory. The movie cut his brother and Paul's mental health issues. And I think both Louis and Lestat are in keeping with their characters from the book. If anything so far I like Louis better...In the show he doesn't have the whiny quality that he did in the book. I think both the actors for Louis and Lestat are doing a good job so far. I also can't fault them for making Claudia older. The film did this too, as Claudia was five in the book and eleven in the movie. You just can't realistically use a child that young in a production for a bunch of different issues. Mostly you won't get the performance you want. You can't get a young child to act like an adult woman. Dunst did as good a job as you could possible expect, but I don't mind the show casting someone older who looks young if it means a good performance (and not scarring any children). Don't get wrong, I actually really like the movie, but I think the series is ultimately going to do a better job telling the story closer to Rice's original tale. We've already gotten hints that they'll explore Lestat's relationships with his mother and Nikki. It's embracing how queer the books were, while the movie could only make it subtext. The show has more time to explore the really rich world Rice created.

The Witching Hour was my favorite book as a teen. But I hated Lasher and especially Taltos (and I stopped reading Rice before later books with the Mayfairs so I can't say how I feel about them) so I'm okay with the series diverging from the books...That being said, this seems like it's going to be pretty far from the books and I'm not sure how I feel about it. It looks like there is no Michael character (at least no one is listed as playing him), which seems like an odd choice. In many ways Michael was as much or even more so the main character than Rowan was. And a fairly normal guy driven crazy by his psychic abilities until he turns towards alcoholism seems like something TV writers would love to write. So the decision not to include him, seems odd. It also seems odd there is no Julien Mayfair, since he was the only male Mayfair with powers and Rowan is his descendent...along with other important characters (I'll keep it vague to avoid possible spoilers). This seems like it's just keeping the basic premise of a family of witches haunted by an entity rather than really being the story from the books. Which once again considering how awful and off putting Lasher and Taltos were, might actually be a good thing. But I still think I'm going to miss the characters I really loved, like Michael from The Witching Hour.

Exactly. Heard isn't a perfect victim. She's probably a deeply unpleasant toxic person, that doesn't hide particularly well...and none of that precludes her from being abused. If you subscribe to the idea that it is possible for couples to be mutually abusive then at the least you could say that's what occurred. If you don't believe mutual abuse is possible (which is the position many specialists in DV take) and that only one partner is the victim and anything they do to the other partner is simply reactive...then I would say it's likely Depp was the abuser in the relationship. Abuse not only involves violence but a power differential. It seems unlikely that give the disparity in age, wealth and fame, that Heard was ever the one with the upper hand in the relationship. Couple that with Depp's history of being at least emotionally abusive with his exs...it's not exactly hard to believe his behavior escalated with Heard. Also the very fact he keeps bringing lawsuits that force her into court (even if the UK didn't name her as a plaintiff, it forced her to appear) seems like a way to further control her. He can never have struck a previous partner and still have abused Heard. He can be a charismatic, generous man with friends and fans and still have abused her. She can be a deeply unpleasant person and still be abused. She can have mental health issues and still have been abused. Just because she might not be as likable doesn't mean she's not a victim or that she should be vilified the way she's being.

I agree with all of this. And I'm not surprised to hear Raimi didn't watch WandaVision. This movie felt like those in charge had only read a summary of the series and not actually seen it. I don't want to make the MCU something way deeper than it actually is. It's not Shakespeare, but then again in his day Shakespeare wasn't Shakespeare either. He was entertainment for the masses too. Being entertainment for the masses doesn't mean it's not saying something (which is why often resent snooty people in the film industry automatically dismissing the MCU or other superhero movies, not all of them are good, but they aren't mutually exclusive with good or meaningful). In any case, as someone who's experienced probably more than their fair share of grief, I found WandaVision to be a fairly moving treatise on the nature of grief. How it often effects and even hurts those around us. How it makes us retreat from the world. How it often causes us to over romanticize the ones we've lost..."What is grief, if not love preserving?" Is a pretty epic line. The show is about how it's okay to grieve, you just have to try and find healthy ways of doing. I thought WandaVision was the perfect example of why I like, scifi, fantasy and superhero movies. It took and experience that most people have, grief, and used the tropes of genre to explore that experience in a heightened way. And strangely enough that heightened reality allows people to see their own experiences with something like grief in Wanda's experience...even though I hope no one out there is enslaving any towns. At this point there's a lot of material in the MCU. I'm not saying every filmmaker that's involved going forward should have to watch every single thing the MCU puts out. But I think when you plan to make a certain character your villain and they already have a series about them, you should be required to watch that. Then maybe you'd realize the motivations you're giving them have been explored over that series and that you're just going to do a crappy abridged version of the arc they already had...which might leave those that have seen the show frustrated that they had to watch the character learn the same lesson twice...Then maybe you can tweak the storyline to make it much more stratifying for viewers...

I'm not a comic reader, so I can't really speak to that. But from a thematic and character point of view in the MCU it's poor storytelling. It's not great storytelling to have a character learn certain lessons and then conveniently unlearn everything just because of a McGuffin. We spent an entire series watching Wanda learn to deal with her grief. To learn she can't just create (or steal) a family...But in this, that's exactly what she's trying to do. Have the Darkhold corrupt her in some other way, if you need her to be the villain of this. Don't just say to the audience that time you spent watching Wanda grieve and learn to move on was a ultimately pointless.

I just got back from seeing this and I kind of disappointed. In a vacuum, I'd probably like it. I know other people weren't really a fan, but I didn't mind Dr. Strange as a horror movie. I actually like that several Marvel movies are other genres as well as being superhero movies. And overall I felt like the performances were strong. What I really didn't like about it, was what they did to Wanda. It seems like the film ignores pretty much all her character growth...Especially in light of the events of WandaVision. In the series, she learned how much she was letting her grief hurt those around her and she seemed to make some level of peace in letting Vision, Billy and Tommy go. This movie just ignores all that (despite referencing the events of the show), and makes her willing to murder to get to the boys back. I also thought it was strange (no pun intended) that Vision wasn't really mentioned in all this. There has to be a universe with Billy, Tommy and Vision all together, right? I mean the obvious answer is they couldn't get or didn't want to use Paul Bettany for some reason, but his absence on screen and more importantly as a lack of motive for Wanda seemed to make little sense, since she enslaved a town over her grief for him. The character of Wanda that we've been presented to over all these movies, does not strike me as someone who's willing to murder in cold blood, especially not murder a teenage girl who has powers she can't control and who Wanda might see herself in, for purely selfish reasons. It was even a plot point in WandaVision that she wasn't really aware of all the pain she was causing. And she did let the townspeople go when she realized it. Hell, Strange himself, points this out in the movie. It's kind of character assignation to make her the straight up villain, even if they did keep her sympathetic. And frankly it's just poor writing. Character arcs should arc, having characters constantly revert or backslide and forget all the lessons they've learned, isn't particularly satisfying. And the funny thing is, they could have kept Wanda as the villain without it. The easiest way was to continue from the after credits of WandaVision. They show Wanda hear the boys cry for help. I can't see Wanda murdering a girl simply to make herself feel better, but to protect her children, yeah I can see Wanda doing what she did in the film. Just make it explicit that she trying to find the Billy and Tommy that were crying out for her, that she thinks are serious danger. That makes her way more sympathetic. She's not a villain who willing to sacrifice people for her own gain, she's a misguided mother out to protect her kids. They also simply could have made this a Wanda from another universe. One that experienced Billy and Tommy but didn't learn the lessons of Westview. Perhaps this one didn't even have a Vision or something else happened to him (perhaps he's hiding the children from her) and that's why she's not gung-ho about being with him too. Simply have America accidently bring this other Wanda into our universe. I don't follow entertainment news enough to know if this was the end of Olsen's contract with Marvel. If it was, I'm very disappointed with how they chose to end the character. Even if it's not her last appearance as Wanda or the Scarlett Witch, I'm disappointed in what they chose to do with the character and how they chose to ignore her emotional growth.

My biggest issue with the show is that they didn't explore anything. About the only storyline that wasn't given short shrift was Carrie's...and while the show has always centered around her, don't bring up other storylines if you're not planning on doing them justice. They never explored what it meant for Miranda to explore her sexuality. I take umbrage at the comments (not here but in other places) about how since Miranda kissed one woman thirty years ago and wasn't into it; she can't possibly be attracted to anyone who isn't a man...That's absurd and quite frankly damaging. For some people, sexuality is fluid. It can't be changed by external forces (no praying the gay away), but it can evolve. Also, it's possible to be that deep in the closet that you don't understand your sexuality. I'm not saying every story about queer people coming to terms with their sexuality has to be this angsty torturous thing...but a little introspection about it would have been lovely. Miranda doesn't even think about her attraction to Che and what it means about her; she acts on it. This might work for some characters, but not Miranda Hobbs, who thought about everything. Also, making Miranda the least bit reflective would allow them to explore how poorly queer characters were treated in the original show. Maybe have Miranda acknowledge how nasty and judgmental she was when Samantha dated a woman. Perhaps explore how that could have been related to Miranda's own internalized homophobia. That's certainly something I struggled with and caused me to do and say some unsavory things before I accepted my sexuality (which I still struggle with). I know others that have worked with similar issues. I also don't love how Rock's storyline was handled. It seems in character for Charlotte to make Rock's coming out as well Rock (they seemed to indicate that they don't identify as nonbinary in the last episode) as all about her. And like I said, the show is always going to center on the original characters. But we did get a pretty extensive exploration of Nya's infertility...and some of that time could have been used to explore Rock and what they thought and felt about everything. This also would have allowed for a more nuanced refusal of the ''They-Mitzvah''. Perhaps have them try to talk to their parents about their hesitancy but be shut down, leading to the outright rejection. As it was written, it made them seem lazy and unprepared and then a brat for refusing. But they could have gone deeper and explored what it means to become an adult in a religious tradition that's steeped in gender roles when you don't identify with a gender...They also could have used Rabbi Jen to talk about this with Rock and maybe share her own experiences. I wouldn't be surprised if she were forced to have a Bar Mitzvah and how that shaped her view of religion. I also would have loved it if anyone at any point acknowledged how lucky Rock was. The parents at their school immediately use their preferred names and pronouns. The school supports them as well. They don't seem to be bullied or harassed. Sure we should strive for this to happen for every kid...but some acknowledgment that it often doesn't would be nice. Not necessarily by Rock; they are 13 and don't know another world. But by Charlotte, having her come to realize her kid is lucky would be nice. This could have been accomplished by having Charlotte talk to Che. It would bring Che more into the plot instead of being only connected to Miranda and slightly to Carrie. It also allowed us to get more backstory and make them more a three-dimensional character. The only times I liked Che was when they were talking about their history. Talking about their father (I believe), thinking the doctor called them a dyke. Joking about coming out to their family, and none of them caring. Including more of their story could have both opened the eyes of the other character to what it means to be nonbinary, bisexual, and poly and made the character more likable. I might be the only one, but I did think that Che's Netflix special was funny, like the real experience of preparing to come out...only to have no one have a strong reaction. I also liked them talking about tokenism and the one trans or queer character in the background by themselves...It was also a little on the nose. And this whole show seems to be an attempt by the writers to jump up and down and wave, ''We're not doing that, we're not doing that.'' And I will give them some credit for including more POC and queer characters than were ever in the original. But they're not, for the most part writing them well. And I might be a minority, but if you're not going to do justice to these characters' storylines, then I prefer you do not do it at all. I also think that writers have a responsibility to think about the kind of representation they are putting out there. I'm not saying that every queer or trans character has to be perfect or have no flaws. But they wrote Che as polarizing. They had to know that some people would react badly to the character. And since there aren't a lot of nonbinary characters on TV and I think it's essential to think out how they are portrayed. Because for many people, media is the only way they encounter people very different from themselves. And when these people only see nonbinary people as brash pot-smoking, not particularly funny comedians, who are okay finger banging an acquaintance in their coworker's kitchen...I'm just saying it doesn't put nonbinary people in the best light. They for the record could have made Nya NB if they wanted to have Miranda with someone who didn't identify as a woman. I know a NB college professor around her age. Showing a realistic portrayal of an intelligent successful NB person, would have been good representation. Instead we leaned into every stereotype of older people's thinking of what younger queer people are like (ignoring that Sara isn't actually that young). I think the show was trying, but it seems evident that they didn't have anyone who had lived these experiences writing them....or at least they weren't listening to them...To paraphrase Charlotte, You're not progressive enough for this, Show.

Do you use thou instead of you? Technically you is plural. And singular they/them has been in use for about the same time you has been used as singular. Most people use they/them for people of unknown gender all the time...it's not a big leap to use it for people who don't identify as one of the binary genders. For the record I'm not trying to be snarky, but it's a common misconception that singular they/them is grammatically incorrect when it isn't and even if it was once...language evolves. That being said, this show has done absolutely no favors, for the nonbinary, trans, or queer community imo. And I say that as someone who would be considered pretty freaking "woke." I'm a queer woman and I did watch SATC when I was younger (long before I was out) and I always identified mostly with Miranda, in hindsight I think because she was queer coded. So I'm not opposed to a storyline of her exploring or coming to terms with her sexuality. But I am also sick and tired of plots involving queer woman discovering their sexuality by cheating on male partners. It's a pervasive trope, and I really think it needs to stop. Cheating isn't ok just because you're exploring your sexuality. I'd be fine with Miranda's story if her and Steve were divorced prior to it's start or she and Steve has already agreed to an open marriage because they decided they loved each other but weren't sexually attracted to each other anymore. In fact I think that would have actually been a progressive storyline. I don't particularly hate Che...Honestly we didn't learn enough about them for me to have any strong feelings. They seem to be a walking cliche. A parody of what boomers think millennials are like. Actually most of the "progressive" storylines seemed like this to me. It's what the least woke people on the planet think wokeness is. I'd super love to see a fleshed out NB character, but Che wasn't it. I also take issue with the segway between Miranda's drinking and her relationship with Che. It made it seem like she was replacing one addiction with another. Which is super common but I don't think that's what the show wants us to think happened. I also didn’t like that the problem drinking was completely unmentioned after that comment about drinking nonalcoholic cider. They pretended that Miranda just stopped drinking without issues. Having her struggle with sobriety would have been interesting. Heck having either Che being sober as well could have been something to have them bond over...or having Che's drug use and frequenting places with alcohol be a source of conflict in their relationship could have both been interesting stories to tell. All the storylines seemed very superficial in this, with really no stakes. And while I would have loved to see a continuation of SATC that corrected some of the issues with the original, namely the lack of diversity, and issues with how queer characters were treated (bi erasure, transphobia etc), this seemed to do it in the most lazy ham fisted way possible.