AuntieMame
-
Posts
469 -
Joined
Content Type
Blogs
Gallery
Downloads
Discussion
Posts posted by AuntieMame
-
-
I would love to do the reread. Is this still happening? I can easily catch up in Leviathon Wakes. Squee!
-
1
-
-
On 1/5/2019 at 10:35 AM, Doesthatmakesense said:
Hello All,
Have decided to be a delurker and became addicted to Grace and Frankie this week...binge watching all the way. In the process of going through all of the topics. Where would I find what everyone thinks about Sam Waterston (my imaginary bf since Law and Order) and Martin Sheen in their respective roles??
There should be character threads. For example, the kids are covered in one called the kids. If not, maybe we could start one called the guys. Or: The Guys - Ex-Husbands and Newlyweds.
-
4 minutes ago, Prevailing Wind said:
It's a Canadian show, taking place in Toronto in late 1800s, early 1900s. It's great! Murdoch's inventing of new items that the 21st century has is a funny sidenote to the essential mysteries. Personally, I think Constable Crabtree is actually the heart of the show; I'm more emotionally invested in George than I am in Murdoch. (But then, it might be because I just adore Jonny Harris - especially his show "Still Standing" where he visits small towns in Canada - I get that one on Amazon Prime.) Murdoch frequently has real-life personalities visiting Toronto, like Nikola Tesla, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edision, etc. Even Elizabeth Arden shows up (with her original name of Florence Nightingale Graham) developing her first skin cream. You actually end up learning stuff!
Thank you! That sounds like a lot of fun. I'm definitely going to check it out.
-
9 minutes ago, AuntieMame said:
Brianna makes no sense as a character. She is written as the big meanie anti woman who is slutty, heartless, sharp tongued, averse to children in even the most casual circumstances and indifferent to relationships, because reasons career. Because how could a woman who is resisting a life of service to others as a wife and mother be anything other than crazy, creepy, slutty and downright mean screams the writing. ON top of that she is incompetent too? If I didn't know better it would seem that the writing for Brianna is a sexist parody, but I fear the creators think they're doing something fresh and original with the character of Brianna. Its not working for me.
Running the empire into the ground is just the final, senseless straw.
I just copied this from the episode thread as I just figured out why the writing for Brianna is such a sexist mess. Mallory too, but in a different way. Mallory is just a blank space labeled wife, mother and younger daughter/sister waiting for something to happen.
I'm kind of indifferent to the boys, but they annoy me too. I do love this show, but imagine what it could have been if the supporting characters of the children had been better written. The last time I believed the kids as people was during the "if you weren't gay, we wouldn't be having cake" scene. That was an insightful and sharply written scene.
-
2
-
-
On 2/9/2018 at 1:33 PM, red12 said:
I really dislike, okay hate Frankie. I might need to take a break from her if I had to deal with her and a newborn. I love and admire Ms Tomlin but I cannot believe Frankie has not been cursed out at least twice a year by various people who come into contact with her. She would insufferable to me if she were a person.
This is a really good point. In real life you would want to kill her. In the show, no one, no one seems to question that she needs more supervision and care than most five year olds. Worse, nobody questions what is wrong with this. I adore Lily Tomlin, which is why I haven't questioned this before, but I've never met a grown woman that acts like this and if I did I would assume she had serious mental issues.
On 1/11/2019 at 11:37 AM, Crs97 said:I am rewatching to get ready for season 5, and so much this! And it's such a cheap shot. We've watched Brianna do the bare minimum to run the company, and Grace would be the first to be unsentimental and shut down a product that is no longer selling. I loved that Grace immediately was talking about rebranding or doing something to boost sales, more passion than we have ever seen from her daughter. Not a shock that products from 30 years ago might not sell so well today. Brianna should have been tinkering with the original line all throughout her tenure; products are always being improved and changing ingredients to broaden and keep interest. Instead, she just shrugs and blames her mom. If Grace still has any say in the company, Brianna should be out.
Brianna makes no sense as a character. She is written as the big meanie anti woman who is slutty, heartless, sharp tongued, averse to children in even the most casual circumstances and indifferent to relationships, because reasons career. Because how could a woman who is resisting a life of service to others as a wife and mother be anything other than crazy, creepy, slutty and downright mean screams the writing. ON top of that she is incompetent too? If I didn't know better it would seem that the writing for Brianna is a sexist parody, but I fear the creators think they're doing something fresh and original with the character of Brianna. Its not working for me.
Running the empire into the ground is just the final, senseless straw.
-
3
-
-
Spoiler24 minutes ago, bijoux said:
Another great thing about the dress
was Bud's reaction to seeing Alsion wearing it after all the set up. Just this tiny laugh, like, of course that's her dress. That's the weirdo he fell in love with.
I don't know about the first one. Just cuz, I guess.
SpoilerI wondered how Grace and Nick got married with no license either. Vegas maybe? I wonder how they're going to work this out, though Nick at least seems open to different possibilities in terms of Frankie.
I loved Buds look of love and bemusement on seeing Alison's dress too. Strange, the writers managed a quirky character in Alison but completely failed with Brianna.
-
2
-
-
Wow, that man is sooo pretty. Glad that American Gods is coming back. Meanwhile, we have a new season of The Magicians starting in less than a week to keep us occupied. Squee!
-
Are the Murdoch mysteries good? I need a new series. I like English mysteries but usually prefer books in that genre, but I'm open and I too have Acorn via my Roku.
-
For a look at a current luxury resort, check out Mohunk Mountain Lodge, which I ran across the last time I was researching the old Borscht Belt. There also still seem to be affordable inns, lodges and cabin rentals. It makes me want to take a trip. Too bad we can't time travel on our vacation as well. I've always thought that would be fun. Borscht Belt in the fifties would be a fun destination.
Hey gang. We don't have a chat thread, but could those who want, humor me? If time travel were possible in vacation, where would you go besides the Borscht Belt? Thanks in advance.
-
2
-
-
Spoiler
I think they must have used a latex mask for Jane Fonda in the last episode.
I'm so glad that others found Alison's wedding dress glorious in its amazing right-wrongness. The Victorian bodice, the tiers of ruffles, the sleeves I don't even know how to classify, the whole gestalt that is what would happen if a Gunne Sax dress had a love child with a quinceanera dress. or if a David's Bridal was bombed and the surviving pieces were made into a whole. Best of all realizing that this is exactly what Alison would choose. Oh and Alison and Bud's daughter was the prettiest baby I've seen in a while.
I stood up and saluted Alison's mom finally sending her husband all the way up Shut Fuck Mountain. I'm in a mildly similar place in life (finished being anyone's whipping post or scapegoat) so that scene, as difficult as it was in some ways, was inspirational.
And finally, one of the most poignant parts of the last episode for me was seeing Brianna and Barry just missing each other, though Barry's attraction to Brianna is intact. Sad, Barry humanized Brianna's hot mess of a character. I really hate the nonsensical writing for Brianna. She makes no sense and is internally inconsistent and not in the ways actual people of well written characters are. But fail with both daughters as characters. Who is writing this? Does anyone know?
-
9
-
-
Spoiler
I think Frankie's vibrator scheme was a way of spreading our the fifth thousand vibrators, over years of possible, but fifty thousand free units would still be overwhelming for a small business. They could have just been honest about the mix up and done a lottery for say 500 or a thousand units. I don't think a Twitter post constitutes a contract. If handled correctly it could have kept positive attention on their business.
-
10
-
-
Spoiler
I cringe loved the meta commentary of Jane with a bad facelift in the last episode. More importantly, I loved that the episode explored how much the women grew with each other and that they would have made the progress on their own that they made together.
I have mixed feelings about the marriage to Nick. The character and the actor are so charming and Grace needs that kind of healing as her marriage to Robert was cold emotionally. But, but, I love Grace and Frankie together. Maybe Nick will be open to some sort of unconventional arrangement, say a guest house for Frankie? And Grace and Nick could still travel, just come home to Frankie. I'm invested in the hope of a Season Six to see how it all works out.
I hated the women in the care facility in the context of this show. First, the men aren't treated as bumbling and they should have stopped the kids. I don't know quite how to feel about the realities this show doesn't deal with, like the actual need for care and illness and death. But that might be kind of a bummer to watch.
I loved all of the dogs, even the symbolic Great Dane.
Grace should get more credit for being the business maven she is. I don't quite understand why they're writing Brianna as an incompetent as her character doesn't suggest that. The scene where the girls called Grace on her lack of confidence and belief was genuine and ultimately sweet, but the OTT stereotypical writing of Brianna and the contradictory stereotypes ruins it. Brianna is written as an ambitious, heartless career woman who hates children and has issues with intimacy AND she is incompetent? There is always a subtext that there is something radically wrong in at the very least not wanting the whole wife motherhood thing in addition to her career and this makes for an ugly caricature of a character with some very sexist undertones. This makes Brianna's interactions with the other characters and her subplots ring a bit false for me.
I loved the wedding dress that Alison chose because it so perfectly fit her character. It really was the perfect dress for her in all her glorious nerdiness.
Spoiler-
9
-
-
I want to know how LSD separated you from make-up too. Was it one of those gazing into the mirror while tripping epiphanies?
-
1
-
-
The show may be the whipped cream, but the costumes are definitely the cherry on top!
-
3
-
-
I hope Midge isn’t pregnant either. And I don’t think she will be unless the point of the show is how a housewife had a brief shining moment but was overtaken by an unexpected pregnancy, thus devoting herself to her family.
As for Abe, I think he would have a lot of trouble suing Bell Labs. You just know they would have very strong language about works for hire. Does anyone else find the whole Abe as activist thing so bizarre that it seems to have been conjured out of thin air?
I cant even make his education and little things like World War Two fit the character timeline and profile. Just weird.
-
6
-
-
On 1/5/2019 at 3:54 PM, ProudMary said:
Midge is always "on stage." Remember, this is a woman who would rise before her husband did, put on full make-up and get back into bed before he woke up so he would never see the (physically) "real" Midge.
My dad once told me that he never saw his second wife without full makeup. She apparently had a similar routine. I was shocked and horrified.
I sometimes wonder just how much things have changed. Women’s lives still seem to revolve first and foremost around their looks and how those looks will translate into male approval and marriage. Example: A very talented female surgeon saved my life. A few years later I needed to talk to her so was googling her contact information. There were reviews on the site.
One review said “Don’t worry, she is much prettier in person.”
And some of the subsequent reviews commented on this. Not a single one commented critically. Nobody said “Hey, her skill as a surgeon matters far more than the fact that she is average in looks.”
-
5
-
-
I agree that the show writers are doing the very best they can with The Great Misunderstanding. What surprises me in the comments section is that so many here seem to think that attitudes toward a rape victim, a rape pregnancy and/or a child of uncertain paternity have changed dramatically. People might keep quiet or grudgingly say what is expected, but I don't think things have really changed all that much.
Think of the hullabaloo over defining a "real" rape. Or that a rape pregnancy isn't even possible because women's bodies can "shut all that down". If only. Think about the hue and cry about insurance companies not providing birth control if the employer seems it immoral. Enter single mothers and hatred of single mothers into a search engine and read what real live men have to say. It isn't positive and a lot of it has to do with paternity and purity. Things haven't changed. Not really. And thanks to the incomplete social revolution women are expected to provide sex but still get punished if a man feels they've misbehaved or bewitched his honor. The best women can hope for his a good brute who hits others instead of them.
Visuals. Did anyone else notice that beautiful salt glazed ceramic pitcher? It was used in another episode too. Gorgeous, though I learned that the colonists were forced to buy British goods or send raw materials to England for manufacturing so development of some American crafts lagged behind except for very local cottage industries.
I like the interpretation of the Mohawk feather head dresses. I wonder how they're doing it. I swear we've seen this group of Indians before too. Not as the local tribe, but separately. Like an earlier pister, I recognized actors and voices. A mystery.
What was that patchwork monstrosity Bree was wearing in her initial scene with Jamie? It was correct and the kind of thing people could and did do with rags, but in comparison to everything else they're wearing, it looked like it was made by a blind seamstress. I did like the way Jamie demonstrated that there was nothing Bree could have done to fight Bonnett. That was the best the writers did in getting out of the Great Misunderstanding. Then of course Jamie ruined it during the right after (almost) all was revealed.
Wouldn't it be almost impossible for everyone to leave the homestead? Even if it was autumn and what drops there were are gathered? It's my understanding That this kind of lifestyle requires constant, back breaking work. How could they just leave and not expect things to be ruined if stolen? Murtagh will be off hunting Bonnett, so no joy there. I know it is a romance, so I will handwave, but in an episode where Claire and Bree talked about what they missed? And food came up so primarily? The fact that food, it's production, processing, preservation and storage was a major preoccupation of the time doesn't even get mentioned? Sigh. Also, the garden plot they showed us was laughably small, good for a suburban dinner party, but not to feed five or six over a winter.
Romance, it is a romance. But one of the things I like about time travel and historicals is that I learn things while being entertained. I for instance loved Claire's herbalism in the early books.
-
1
-
2
-
-
On 1/7/2019 at 11:21 AM, taanja said:
Exactly! When I read people saying that rape and pregnancy stories are plot devices -- I am like -- welcome to life as a woman!
I enjoyed this episode quite a bit. Loved the Jaime and Bree cute/meet. Loved Claire and Bree seeing one another. That scene was very well done.
Jaime and Bree, however (at least the actors) are way too close in age and look more like brother and sister than father and daughter. It took me out of their bonding scene in the forest -- I was like -- they look like siblings!
I don't think it is the fact that women's biology and sexuality as interpreted by men is still an overwhelming fact of women's lives that people are objecting to when the rape as trope criticism is made. I think the objections are about the fact that these stories, the point of view, the reactions of the other characters, the thoughts and emotions evoked in the audience are still about the men involved, even when it's subtle. Jaime made a mistake defending his property. Roger is upset because his property is sullied. The plot turns on their, predictable, reactions. And reinforces them in the culture. I think this is the objection.
Stories that even obliquely address the fact that women live with the threat of assault, rape and murder at all times and that any man can do one or all three at any time and how this affects the way we think and live? How many stories are there about that?
-
2
-
-
I think it has to be the actress because Jennifer Worth's writing is so full of compassion and piercing observation, but in terms of the series, I agree, Jenny often comes across as both bland and patronizing n her service to her "lessers".
On 5/4/2014 at 2:10 PM, yeswedo said:I just started watching in season 3 and haven't seen seasons 1 & 2 yet. Jenny, or more accurately Jessica Raine as Jenny, reminds me of how I pictured Cherry Ames when I read the books as a teenager. Those books are super old fashioned compared to teen books today but show a single female making it on her own similar to Call the Midwife. If there ever is a Cherry movie or TV series made they should look to Jenny/Jessica as inspiration.
I hadn't thought of Cherry Ames, but you're right,she certainly at least looks the part. I read a couple of old Cherry Ames books as a kid in the late seventies. More seriously, she sometimes reminds me a bit of the character Colleen McMurphy of China Beach, especially getting ON her virtuous and moral high horse regarding a woman who needs an abortion.
On 6/15/2014 at 8:07 AM, lafcolleen said:In the episode with Nora (the mother of 8 kids who is pregnant again), Jenny realizes that Nora has been trying to cause/induce a miscarriage. Jenny attempts to engage with Nora, but Nora refuses to talk about it. The Nora's husband comes in and Jenny in the SNOTTiEST tone sells Nora out. Jenny then flounces out of the room having dropped the bomb and leaves Nora to face the consequences alone. Now, as it happens, Nora's husband does know what is going on, but I HATE JENNY FOR THIS!!
How does Jenny know that she wasn't leaving Nora alone with a man that would be furious about finding out she was trying to lose the baby? How does Jenny know that NORA'S HUSBAND isn't coercing her? How can she be so convinced that Nora is safe when she leaves?
At that moment, I HATE HER and I HATE HER and
Right there with you all the way. When I was a young teen, before I was sexually active, the whole abortion debate was picking up speed as the incredibly socially divisive issue it now is. I remember one of my first inklings of understanding came when I imagined a woman very like the one portrayed. What if you had a baby every year for a number of years and were struggling to take care of them? What if another child was an apocalyptic possibility? This was my first understanding of needing a termination.
And husbands could be against even contraception as we saw in later seasons. In terms of Nora and her husband, I adored the scene where the husband basically apologizes for getting Nora pregnant and she answers that it isn't like he ever has to force her. The husband then lies on the bed with her and they hold hands and cuddle and contemplate the insoluble. I thought this was a lovely portrait of love between spouses. But Jenny had no idea that this was the case.
I'm surprised that some midwives didn't have a way of providing the occasional termination. I wrote about this over on the Mrs. Maisel thread and I think shocked people, but a friend of mine, now in her seventies once told me that she gave herself a knitting needle abortion. I'd heard of course about the failures, but I never knew that some women did this successfully.
-
1
-
-
What a heroic life story, really. I've been contemplating human resilience and flaws and it sounds like real life Cynthia played a hand made middling by depression very well.
-
1
-
-
It was Trixie that replied to Toms comment about "Isn't it funny, it could be us?" with " No, Tom, it actually isn't funny at all, Tom. "
Tom also asked Trixie if being married to the church in addition to him would really suit her. I do agree with all of you though that these issues could and should have been better written and explored. Dating a friend's ex austerity are male or female is tricky ground.
-
4 hours ago, Stephanie1216 said:
You love the costumes?
i have almost stopped watching the show due to Rogers ridiculous short pants, as if he is not ugly and sissyfied enough already they put short pants on him and and teeny weeny ponytail. He grossed me out. The should have switched actors and made Bonnet Roger and Roger Bonnet. At this point I hate the rapist almost as much as I hate Roger.
are they so afraid of hiring a good looking man to play against Jamie? Think about it, there are no good looking men cast on this show except for Jamie. Even young Ian could have been a “hottie”. Fergus is handsome but they made sure to marry him off and keep him in the back ground of the story
Yes, I like the costumes. Especially the women. The costumes is accurate and I did discuss Roger's ugly pants in the original episode but did admit that though ugly, they were accurate. And the knitting is amazing. I read online about how many knitters want patterns for the knitwear.
-
5
-
-
Yeah WatchrTina, agreed, best not to think too hard about the Laoghaire and Jamie marriage plot. No good comes of it.
On 1/1/2019 at 7:31 PM, Hannah Lee said:Agree, entirely. Sure there is the whole romantic setting where they met - the time travel, the wild Scottish Highlands and rough living, the slow reveal to each other of who they were while the audience knew more (she thought he was a stable hand, he thought she was just a meandering Englishwoman - she didn't realize he was a Laird and nephew of the MacKenzie, an educated enlightened nature-sensible soldier, he didn't know she was a time traveling, stone hopping out of time healer/nurse/doctor with a mind and goals of her own.) But the appeal of Jamie, for me, was always that he paid attention to Claire, not just seeing her as an attractive woman, but seeing HER, in her entirety, including her mind, her thoughts, her words, her experiences and her body/enjoyment of him. And after the time she bolted for the stones and he gave her a beating, and she pushed back, he agreed to partner WITH her - not above her, not for her, not at her as an object, but WITH her. IIRC, the big friction between Claire and Frank in S1 E1 is that Frank couldn't (or wouldn't) see Claire, and acknowledge her, interact with her, as who she was, who she had become while they were apart during the war (and probably, she couldn't see him, either, though the show didn't explore that.) and her interactions with Jamie stood in contrast to that.
What's amazing to me is how much people struggle with that, because in some ways, it's an easy thing for someone to do, anyone, man or woman : Just pay attention to the person in front of you no matter WHO they are: listen to them, respect them, talk to them - even if you disagree with them or don't understand them entirely. THAT's the thing that sparks the connection and romance. THAT's the fantasy. But that it has to be a fantasy is a sad thing, because it's something more people could actually do for the people who are important in their lives.
The muscles, the kilt, the accent, the dirt and the dirks, the eyes and the whatever, the objectifying ....that's just the trappings! It's the SEEING and the LISTENING and the PARTNERING between Jamie and Claire that's the real appealing, sexy thing and that thing that for me, causes me to want to keep watching.
All of this Hannah Lee and it is this fantasy that keeps me watching. The hope of having a genuine partner. You are right that it is terribly sad that for so many of us this is a fantasy. Interesting observation about the hidden strain between Frank and Claire that ultimately made Jamie so attractive. I wonder how many literary romances where this is the fantasy, no matter how buried in the other trappings.
-
1
-
-
Apologies that I’m harshing people’s mellow, I’ll try not to. And of course men have written women with absolute abandon both as wish fulfillment and in absolute ignorance posing as expertise. But usually you know when you’re reading a Clive Cussler or a Harlequin. I didn’t class Outlander in that category so was surprised by the quote from Gabaldons husband. Anyway.
On 12/30/2018 at 9:55 AM, nodorothyparker said:For what it's worth my husband, an actual man who's watched this with me mostly out a mix of reluctant curiosity and bemusement, has said largely the same thing: That Jamie is clearly written as a woman's fantasy of what she thinks the ideal man to be. He doesn't quite buy that sex with Claire has to be so incredibly mindblowing that a guy would spend 20 odd years honorably pining over it or that he would always be so quick to consider it a fair tradeoff for the amount of trouble Claire often seems to bring with her.
Of course, he's been mostly pro-Frank all the way along and can talk forever about how shoddy time travel appears to have been thought out in this series if you let him. He's a real romantic like that. Me, I don't really buy into the whole greatest One True Love of All Time 4Eva thing. Even when the plotting is terrible, this is still great escapist fare and I'm good with that.
Im with Mr. nodorothyparker I’m feeling bad for Frank. The conflation in the books and in the show of Frank with Black Jack Randall elicits the negative emotional response to Frank (i.e. not the one true love and then the marriage was strained after Claire returned, but it is an emotional response you can’t think too hard about otherwise you do start sympathizing with Frank.
Mr. nodorothyparker was right about the honorable pining too. As much as I enjoyed the Helwater stuff as good reading and viewing, Jamie’s romantic life in the decade without Claire was....just off somehow. I know it was two decades but Jaime was in prison for a lot of that time. Even at Helwater it isn’t like the guy could date.
We have him blackmailed into very hot sex and married to Laoghaire. I never believed that Jamie would marry Laoghaire no matter what Jenny said. He didn’t love her and while he never would have found another Claire, I think he would have tried/hoped to find someone he did live, even if not with the same intensity that he loved Claire. The Loaghaire plot post the witch trials just never sold me. Claire aside, how could you ever trust someone who was willing to see someone burn to secure a romantic interest, maybe? Jamie isn’t dumb and loyalty and trust are much bigger deals in that culture. Even as an innocent bystander/secondary character, I would never trust Laoghaire again.
On 12/30/2018 at 10:10 AM, Cdh20 said:Your husband sounds like mine- He always reminds me that Jamie was invented by a woman, he feels bad for Frank, & he thinks Claire is so much trouble that Jamie should have enjoyed that 20 yr break!
my real reason is because Jamie loves Claire unconditionally! She can truly be herself & he never thinks less of her. So that answers my question for Auntie Mame! We want a husband that not only loves us, listens to us, respects us, wants us, & cannot live without us!
I’m Loling that several husbands here think that Claire is a lot of trouble because I’ve never thought of it that way but I can see their point now that it’s been brought to my attention. Is it the bossiness? Because when I go into nurse/medical mode I can be the same. Especially if it is an emergency and I have to snap people out of momentary shock and get them moving.
This is what we all want from men, that unconditional love and being truly seen for ourselves. Of course men want that too, but it isn’t as tied to acceptance and self worth as it is for women.
A wonderful example of this kind of live that is believable is in an old, forgotten YA historical called The Perilous Gard. The character in that personifies what you’re talking about in a believable way. Possibly my first fictional boyfriend. Throwing it out to see if there is anyone here who remembers this obscure little book.
As for Jamie, no, it isn’t the hotness, though that is certainly nice. It is the fact that he is so devoted, not just across time and decades but in the day to day. He wants to hear what Claire has to say. He sees her. He respects her as a partner, that is what beguiles. And that kind of passionate sex is a type of love all its own. The catch for most of us is that we don’t get both consistently in marriage.
As for writing male and female characters by opposite sex writers, I think writers often do best when they aren’t consciously trying to solve the mysteries of the other and just write a character with human motives.
-
1
-
Season Two: Marvelous Full-Season Discussion
in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
And the kids are Joel's. He has love and obligation to tend to them while Midge is in tour.