AuntieMame
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Posts posted by AuntieMame
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ClanStarling
it has been my experience that bullies of women often turn tail when confronted with another man too. I guess a variation on the all bullies are cowards at heart trope.
Regarding the rehabilitation of Joel. Hmmm. Beyond his actions and the absolute ridiculousness of Penny Panda, I think Joel looked bad because the contrast between Joel and Midge was so enormous as to be unfathomable, as if a tigress married a greyhound.
The parts of the rehabilitation that are working for me are character based rather than the obvious plots of making him irresistible to the ladies in the Catskills. The fact that he does seem to deeply and genuinely love Midge, that he is stepping up in terms of his children, that he is self aware. These things make me think that if he could take the support role and if Midge could stop using him as fodder for her routine that they could have a chance in theory.
But the male partner supporting the talented female partner? That is a huge ask in our society. Which is really too bad.
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TXHorns
You make a really good point about the Sophie and Midge feud. Sophie was willing to give Midge the opportunity of a visible opening slot and gave Midge the best advice she knew. The fact that Sophie is pompous and ridiculous because of her own issues should be judged separately from her actions towards Midge. Thank you for putting your finger on that nagging botheration i had with the books interaction. Sophie is a bit ridiculous, but that didn't erase her professional courtesy to Midge.
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I rewatched the episode last night. Is anyone else finding the difference in Rogers looks without his beard so striking that he looks like a different person?
As for Roger and Bree, the first scene reminded me that I originally found Rogers courtship very sweet. And then we had that terrible scene between them in the hotel which made them both look bad.
There isn’t anything wrong with I’m not ready to make the serious commitment of marriage yet, but let’s take our courtship to the next level, but somehow Bree looked unreasonable saying this and Rogers “Hiw dare you even think about sleeping with me and losing your virginity?” was more than cringeworthy.
If the Fanning guy’s hernia was causing that much pain? He was already in terrible shape. Many people live with hernias for months to years. I’m not saying this is a great idea but often they’re chronic rather than acute. I’m so grateful for modern medicine. I’m surprised Claire doesn’t get more pushback and trouble for her knowledge and skill.
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I meant Rogers feels about Brianna sullied by rape and a child of uncertain paternity. Note to self, make certain that pronouns refer back to names and proper nouns. Sorry about that. Rogers weeks away and staying at the stone circle ruminating on the injury done to “him” rather than Brianna just, just, irks me to no end.
I actually have no problem exploring rape and the darker emotions but let’s explore them. Not use them as plot devices. Uncertain paternity, especially when one possibility is a rapist is difficult on the mother too. The joy of birth and the deep live mothers feel for their infant helps some, but not forever.
I guess this is a very sensitive subject for me as I know two women and their now adult children who were the product of rape. There isn’t a hundred percent happy ending to that story no matter what is done and seeing this used so glibly is a bit difficult.
I have to be careful too because I just read Drums of Autumn very recently so Lizzie’s inventory of the smells and bodily fluids on his mistress’s small clothes is fresh in my mind which in addition to all the other problematic subtext in the books is adding to my annoyance with DoA. I agree that Lizzie is probably traumatized by the man trying to buy her indenture for nefarious purposes. And that does make her part of the misunderstanding relatable. But Bri, Roger and Jaime not practicing any communication? Even Claire not saying at any point how kind and helpful Roger had always been?
As others have mentioned, I wish they’d made Brianna tall as she was in the books. It would have been interesting to see the reaction of 18th century people.
I forgot to mention, I like the medical stuff, I always have and that is one of the things that kept me going with the books. It is one of the ways I might make myself useful should I ever find myself stranded in the foreign land of the past.
Even a bit of knowledge would be helpful. In one of the Poldark books, they make reference to an eye treatment where the physician near strangles the patient to force blood to the head and then places leeches behind the ears. Phwoar!
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This is the main thing that Outlander gets right imo, the portrait of the mystery of sexual passion. I could wish that mystery was better explored, but that is what is really sold and the actors playing Jaime and Claire capture that magic. My issue is that the books are touted as more than romantic fantasy.
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Can someone please explain how Roger's manhandling of Bree can be hand waved away as necessary so that Lizzie can witness it, thus ultimately giving Jaime misleading information, leading to Roger's banishment and to all of his feels about his property being sullied by another man.
i don't blame Roger for this, I blame Gabaldon. I've tried more than once to read the entire series and I always bogged down because of the subtext of sexism and sadism. I've consciously tried to ignore it. Outlander has so many things I love in terms of genre: time travel, a good historical setting that is well researched, in theory an interesting and independent heroine, even a good love story. Again in theory because often even Jaime and Claire don't rise above tropes of sexual and romantic passion. An exploration of what passion is and how the physical and emotional blends and obsesses us so fully would be welcome for example.
Newly beguiled by the beauty of the series, I made a note to try again, determined that I would be swept away by the epic saga and determined to ignore the problematic aspects of character, plot and underlying assumptions about sex and women. But I just can't do it; even as a twenty two year old reader many moons ago, the rapes of Outlander struck me as wrong even though I couldn't analyze as easily. I'll stop beating this horse when I post, but I'm trying so hard to like the books, even trying to judge them by their own merits as higher class romance novels and I'm still having trouble.
I think of Anya Setons Green Darkness which did a time travelesque story with some ugly sexual psychology and was true to the time represented and the time it was written in (i.e. Not politically correct or aware in the way we think) and that book isn't as disturbing. In the last few days, I put down Fiery Cross and breezed through the first two Poldark novels and noticed similar material dealt with very differently. Not do I want or expect people to be perfect saints or independent of their cultures. But there is something deeply disturbing that strands through these novels, especially the way Jaime's rape and Claire's cure are written and the through line of that to Jaime's offer to Lord John. As a romantic hero, Jaime is objectified too. If any of this was even examined a little bit I could cope better, but Outlander is completely unreconstituted and unexamined. An exploration of sexual passion would be nice and how and why Jaime and Claire get the passionate and the quotidian for example. An experiment I'm sure many of us have tried and failed.
I've had similar issues with Song of Ice and Fire and the constant castration and rapes, but that hasn't brought me up short in terms of finishing the books in the same way Outlander has.
Like I said, I will drop this now and stick to specific episode, character and book developments, but I'm having trouble with the books...again and I've been trying a reread/read this season.
I read that the costumer will leave after this season and I'm disappointed. I thought she was doing brilliant work. I'm an embroiderer and Raymond's vest was an amazing piece of work. Better in some ways even than the lovely wedding dress.
I liked Lizzie and that Brianna rescued her. I don't blame Lizzie for her misinformation either.
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It's learning the printing that flummoxes me too in terms of timeline. Glad I'm not the only one. Old printing presses required a lot of knowledge, maintenance and repair would be required too, not just the printing.
Butler is a favorite of mine. Kindred is more accessible than her long series.
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Ok, ring not coin. My squick and horror is with Bonnett saying "I pay for my pleasures, did you think I wouldn't?" This line just made me shudder with the nasty realism. If it was all to get the ring into Bri's hands than double squick.
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Hey Scarlett45, if you like time travel books in general, may I suggest Kindred by Octavia Butler if you haven't read it already. It is about a modern African American woman who ends up travelling to the antebellum South. And she isn't anymore prepared for the reality than anyone else would be.
Chiming in to add that even when young, and I first read Outlander shortly after it came out, I could never completely give myself over to the romance and I longed for an epic love as a young girl. Now I'm having difficulty believing Claire and Jaime as people in their forties. And is William's age off? Has it really only been six or seven years since Jaime left Helwater? That means that he travelled back to Lolly Broch, was lonely, married Leerie, left her and set up as a printer and smuggler, learning both trades, reunited with Claire and adventures in the West Indies and all of the plot so far in the New World. William appeared to be twelve or thirteen and there are references to Jaime leaving when he was six. It just seems a lot given that travel and work took longer in the eighteenth century.
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I recently read the book that this season draws from and hated not only the rape but everyone's sexism and idiocy surrounding the rape, questions of paternity, everybody's responses to the questions of paternity and Rogers behavior was a response to miscommunication at screwball comedy levels. As nodorothyparker points out, it is contrived idiocy from start to finish to put conflict into the plot but it doesn't read or watch well.
I'm going to offer an unpopular opinion here and say that Gabaldon is recycling plot elements (husband raising a child not his own because of love and honor, even though his feelings are mixed) in not very clever ways. First Frank raising Brianna, though his ambivalence is about Claire rather than Brianna, then Lord John raising Jaime's child, and this is about his unrequited love for Jaime and secondarily his wish to conform to society by keeping his bisexuality secret. I never got the feeling in either the books or the show that John cared much about William beyond his connection to Jaime. And finally Roger getting ready to raise a child that may or may not actually be his and his ambivalence is all about the child. Based on what I've read of Fiery Cross so far, that conflict isn't going aanywhere anytime soon. The through line here is that the men's feelings are primary and sacrosanct. And of course that Jaime is perfect and everyone wants him, but that is a different issue.
I think some of this might be the reason he taken decades long breaks with this series when generally a complex series with multiple brick like mass market paperbacks is equivalent to a ticket to heaven as far as I'm concerned.
Finally, if I were Roger, with all that is to come in the next episodes, I would be angry at how I was treated and that nobody asked any sensible questions. Isn't Jaime vaunted for his leadership skills as former laird and military leader and defacto laird of Fraser's Ridge? Isn't one of the marks of leadership that you try to determine the facts of the situation before flying off the handle to assault and banishment to slavery? Doesn't the fact that Roger travelled through time at least get him a hearing? I know that a lot of what I'm referring to hasn't yet happened but the reunion, hand-fasting and rape are the first domino that sets up the cluster that is the rest of the reunion and book. I too wonder how they're going to get through all of it in five episodes.
If I were Roger, I would have serious questions about joining this family, especially in the intense interdependence people needed in earlier centuries. I also hate how the question of paternity haunts Roger but not Brianna. Briannas qualms seem to end with birth but how realistic is that? A possible rape baby isn't an issue that just disappears for the mother.
What is it with Gabaldon and these explicit, terrible rapes? And she is salacious about it too. I saw Gabaldon and the cast interviewed where she told Sam Heugen how much she was looking forward to seeing him raped, disfigured, bloodied and humiliated. It was kind of creepy and promoted another break from the books and series for me.
I've adored time travel novels my entire life and I always thought Claire and Jaime as a romantic passion that we all hope for but rarely get but somehow a lot of the trappings of these novels raise very mixed feelings in me. I was glad to read here that others had issues with the contrived nature of the last third of Drums of Autumn and the anticipated rest of the season. I'm glad we didn't have to see all of the rape of Brianna. It was an especially nasty and realistic rape. Worst of all when Bonnett tosses the coin at Brianna as if that made up for it. Realistic and brutal and this makes me question Brianna's resolved feelings about paternity after birth. IRL, I'm not sure if would be so easy.
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I loved this episode. It was poignant to the point of heart piercing. I really love the fact that emphasis is put on feelings of love for an individual rather than adherence to a strictly labeled and enforced orientation. Makes me wonder if concentrating on live and connection between the individuals involved rather than the enforcement of norms might change a lot of different types of hate.
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Hey, in the real world, I agree. Children need to be raised and we all still struggle to figure out how to navigate the through line between childhood experiences and healthy, happy, productive adult.
Do the parents, specifically the mothers have to be sacrificed on the altar of motherhood in a way that robs them of actualization and the benefit their talents might bring society and humanity to achieve this? Or are our easy condemnations more about controlling women who do vital work that isn’t really valued?
It seems to me that we could solve the problem of balance between motherhood and women of talent fulfilling their talents. But we don’t want to. The answer to the question of why is where the solution lies.
I also agree that the show is playing this for cheap laughs when an exploration of the conflict would have a lot of value in terms of answering the question of why. Especially since we saw Midge caring for and interacting with her children in the first episode. Even a mediocre mother would be far more concerned about the six month absence. Not to mention that basic questions of childcare would be immediate upon receiving the answer. Can she really just assume that her mother will fill in without a murmur?
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Oh, I think there is plenty of nuance in the MeToo stories of everyday women, but these aren’t the stories we are hearing now. The movement has been taken over by people whose credibility falls by the day.
Back when we were hearing from everyday women, there was an essay in The NY Times magazine that described the everyday harassment that many women deal with from the time of early childhood.
Among other incidents the essayist described a man exposing himself to her when she was five by letting his package escape the leg of his shorts and watching her face to see her reaction. I had the exact experience at a similar age. The thing that struck me so forcibly was that the essayist made the same excuses for the man in her mind that I did: that perhaps he didn’t know that he was exposing himself, that he was unaware of his penis once he put his pants on. Then when older that he couldn’t help himself. Did this incident scar the essayist or myself for life? No.
But it was the first memory of many, many incidents since, death or fear by a thousand pecks of a chicken. And in cases of molestation, abuse, assault and rape death and fear by faster means. More importantly, for everyday women, the MeToo movement showed us that we were not alone. That this is lived experience common to most women. That it isn’t something horrible and specific to us as individuals that “makes” some men act this way. For me, that was a large part of the power of MeToo.
Another example, because of MeToo, I discovered that the handsy father of a friend, who genuinely scared me as a teenage girl had groped all of us. Makes you wonder what he did to his daughter.
Other than the connection of sexism I don’t see how the now colonized MeToo movement conflates with the conflicts of a talented woman who is also a mother. Unless you mean that women are expected to provide sexual access and emotional labor and are criticized and punished when they don’t. That women get all of the responsibility but no power when it comes to children and that women and girls are considered men’s rightful sexual prey and any challenge to that makes people uncomfortable, including many women. We’ve been socialized to consider our desirability above all else. Being a bad mother or considered a slut are still two of the worst things you can say about a woman closely followed by being ugly and they still have power...just look at all of the conversations about Midge’s failures as a mother on this board.
Dont get me wrong, Midge isn’t an engaged parent at this time, neither is Joel but the lion’s share of the blame and the responsibility will still go to Midge. Think about Joel accepting the same six month gig in an alternate reality. Even though I understand why my initial emotional reaction to that scenario is different.
It will be interesting to watch how the writers cope with these conflicts without being too heavy handed. Maybe all extremely talented people have to make some of these choices but the burden of consequences for everyone has always been mitigated for men. Society would also bemoan the loss of a talented man to society but not the gifts of talented women. The loss of women’s genius isn’t even seen as a loss and this is because women and their unrecognized love and service to the people around them is the very thing that mitigates and supports men’s individuation. This and the dehumanization of being objectified as prey is what MeToo and feminism are identifying in their purist form. That the movement has been co-opted in such a way that the experience of average women is no longer even visible and the voices being heard are easily criticized and dismissed keeps the status quo firmly in place. Best of all it makes the status quo look righteous and inevitable.
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I tend to like slender, slight men but Joel doesn’t work for me because of his personality and his actions. Leaving Midge for Penny Panda was just low. I do like that he’s been rehabilitated as a father though because the kids are going to need a parent who is present and reasonably stable and Joel seems to be stepping into that role.
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On 12/7/2018 at 10:12 PM, hincandenza said:
The Declan Howell meetup (and his close-to-the-bone monologue about putting everything into that painting and having nothing left), Lenny Bruce talking/singing about being alone and regretting the isolation, her realization at the reception for her Catholic friend that she's losing the ability to modulate her "club" voice when around family and friends, her instant agreement to a 6-month tour and later realization that it was both totally irresponsible and something she'd agree to again in a heartbeat, and her "cheating" on Benjamin with her still-husband Joel in a desperate attempt to feel something before her new life of being the lonely comic is about to start.
I don't think she'll be with Benjamin in season 3, for that reason. Midge can't return to being just another happy society housewife he or anyone is expecting as we enter the 1960s, even if he is modern enough to also prefer a "weird" wife to the bland Stepford divas hanging off the likes of Joel. After all, just after he went through a gauntlet to get her father to okay a marriage, she... turns around and leaves the country for 6 months?!? The men she was raised to attract, and the home life she was trained from girlhood to be perfect at, are simply not compatible with who she is becoming.
One of the most poignant realizations I had while watching this was that Midge couldn’t marry Benjamin, that if she does she will perforce have to be a wife and that doing this will mean the end of her career as a comic. I don’t think Benjamin is willing to really go without a traditional wife in the way he would have to for Midge to pursue not only her career but her own growth and actualization. I felt that the marriage would destroy Midge, that pieces of her soul would be sacrificed even though she would have love and social status and acceptance in return she would lose essential portions of her true self. This horrific choice is forced on all talented women and I saw this so clearly as effervescent Midge went flying out the door after her call with Shay. Midges choice is between her heart and her soul and either way she and the people around her lose. Does it really have to be this way?
Despite the loneliness alluded to by Bruce and Howell, I don’t think they’re alluding to the same thing. The expectations for men are different. Male artists are often infamous for their egotism, arrogance and I’ll treatment of the people around them (Picasso and Hemingway are easy examples) but this usually adds to their mythic status even if they’re judged an ass, it is all due to their genius, whereas women don’t get the same credit for the genius, but do get the opprobrium of committing a serious emotional and social crime.
As for the Weissman’s apartment, it made some sense that the university owned it. I’d been thinking for a while that the Weissman’s seemed too wealthy for a professor. I just thought family money was bridging the gap. Good apartments in Manhattan have always been expensive. I’ve heard of universities providing a house for the President of the university but never heard of it for faculty even chairs that are endowed. I hope Abe takes the sabbatical to think too.
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Glaze Crazy, you're very perceptive. I love the idea that Frank would have continued to be the obsessive researcher he was. Makes complete sense and is earned and in character. Frank was friends with Rogers adoptive father due to shared research interests long before Claire's adventures through the stones. It was nice to see Frank this episode.
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I just checked, Roger's pants were correct WatchrTina. But you're right too...they are a dorky length and width on a guy. Essentially capri pants, lol.
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So glad to read that others have issues with Brianna as well. I like Roger. But there is something about Brianna that just grits my teeth together. I loved Frank's appearance in this episode. He was sympathetic which he isn't always, not just because of the resemblance between Frank and Black Jack Randall, but because Frank is written in such a way that he (unjustly) somehow bears some of the fault for Claire's love for another man. I understand that for readers and viewers to fully invest in the romance of Claire and Jaime that this had to be done, but I always had mixed feelings about Frank. OTOH, I felt sorry for him while at the same time feeling the creeping dislike and association with Black Jack. Just as I'm meant to feel. To write him otherwise would make Frank the wronged and sympathetic character who lost the wife he adored through no fault of his own. I must applaud the skill of all of the writers (and the actor) walking such a fine line evoking emotion.
Quote7 minutes ago, Ziggy said:Now, now, she did have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and matches ... but I do get your point.
If I was going back into the unknown country of the past and had information and time to plan, I hope that even if I didn't get the outfit right that i would bring things useful for both short and long term needs.
Oh and weirdly? I think Roger's ugly culotte pants were in fact period correct. I think they're a style with by seamen of the time.
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CarpeFelis
I'm not an engineer but I too was surprised by Brianna not using a handy stick after spraining her ankle. I was even more surprised by the utter lack of thought in terms of what she wore and brought back into the past, especially after watching her mother prepare. Midi -length Gunne Sax dress? Really? No stockings or warm coat? Guatemalan woven purse with absolutely nothing useful in it?
I've always had mixed feelings about the character of Brianna in both books and show. I thought she was a bit spoiled but until this i never thought she was a complete moron.
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I always wondered about this too, especially as Varys is portrayed as castrati actually are physically. Of course Martin couldn’t see beyond his love of sadism (hey, I know, I’ll create an army of heartless, unbeatable warriors via torture and and and castration) to consider that castration does, at the very least, lower the muscle to fat ratio that gives men upper body strength. The timing of the castration matters too: before puberty versus after puberty. It’s also hinted that many of the castrati in the books and the show also lost their penis. How did they heal given the low level of surgery in the world? Removing the testicles is medically pretty easy; removing the penis is not.
The Unsullied training as described might net you a couple of warrior psychopaths but they wouldn’t be ripped mavens of manhood. More likely you’d get a lot of people with PTSD and not a lot oof muscle mass. The Unsullied were at least partially created as a means of shocking the viewer because if you think about it for more than thirty seconds it is clear that they make no sense whatsoever.
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There is a lot that is sad at the heart of the matter, as you o.o it out, for Joel too. He doesn't know where he fits into n life and is married to a powerhouse. My poor it isn't that one person is "bigger" in a relationship or that this can't be managed. My point is that we have real issues as individuals and as a society about what is appropriate when it is the woman who is the more talented, smarter, more charismatic person. If she invests n her talent and herself without social punishment, she is going to lose other things. The only sanctioned choice is for the talented woman to put all of her resources ultimately in the service of other s. Midge was doing this and then a series of events opened up other possibilities for her.
In terms of Joel, not knowing where you belong with no strong vocation is sympathetic. Not being shoe to accept that the more talented person is your wife? Not so much. Joel could actually be amazing support to M idge, while finding his own path, but he is unwilling to do this.
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Agreed, two separate issues. Though I still think jealousy and sexism were the issues that won. Joel could have just asked that Midge not use their marriage and separation as material. She does have other material and could develop more.
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I loved that they set two episodes here. These huge hotel resorts really did exist, a few stalwart survivors still do. I've always wanted to go to one. I don't know about r there is still entertainment.
Susie and her kindred spirit getting free lodging and being mostly invisible as support staff was both incisive and hysterical. I kept hoping for a little fun for Susie.
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Ok, that is a fair point, but I still think that jealousy of her talent, a talent Joel wanted himself is a bigger issue. Midge is a bigger person than Joel, even before the comedy. Which Midge supported, just for the record. Why do you think Joel was having n affair with his ridiculous secretary? The marriage was a mesalliance and Joel knew it,even if it wasn't fully conscious.
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S02.E08: Someday...
in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
I’m more aware than ever of my size too. Like you, I too could be fierce until it was forcibly brought to my notice that terriers can be routed if overmatched. Lol.
I wonder what is going to happen with Joel and Midge. Like another poster said, perhaps they should put that divorce on ice. When Midge wanted to be with someone who loved her, she went to Joel when the chips were down. It would be interesting to see people actually work things out successfully but not easily. Maybe this isn’t the right show for that.