indirectmonitor

[indirectmonitor]

Here's something that surprised me. Michael Johnston, gay Corey from Teen Wolf, debuted his boyfriend on Instagram this past year. Surprising because I recall back when the show was still on air, I looked him up on social media and found something where he was talking about a crush he had on some girl who didn't feel the same. This was from something prior to him being cast as a gay character on Teen Wolf, so it didn't strike me as being performative. He seemed like a nice guy who was just happy to be on the show, so I didn't begrudge him for being "straight". Anyways, I liked Corey, but I also felt that, despite its gay showrunner, the queer characters on that show often got the short end of the stick. And Corey and his boyfriend Mason were no exception (although Mason got to come back for the reunion movie at least).

What's interesting is how much queerer the show was behind the scenes, with Froy, Tyler, Colton, Charlie, and Andrew also having come out as queer, one way or another. Certainly makes me eye the rest of the male cast with some curiosity.

[indirectmonitor]

I have to say, I am warmed by how much attention Ivan and Fedyor have gotten, despite being fairly minor characters. These two have reminded me of why I sometimes feel that supporting players like them are the real underdogs. Sure Mal is supposed to be this unimportant person in Ravka who keeps getting almost murdered, but in the meta-context outside of the show, he's one of the six lead characters and has insane plot armor.

And sure, Shadow and Bone has Jesper, but it's hard for me to forget that traditionally this has been what most queer characters have been relegated to -- small bit players in service to the stories of cishet protagonists, only to be killed off when the writers feel they need to up the body count to make things "serious".

The writers of Shadow and Bone have so far shown themselves to be fairly socially conscious but I wonder if they have thought through the optics of making two characters queer only to have them meet their novel-ordained doom in the following season. Again, I know they have Jesper (and will soon have Wylan) so maybe they have done their calculus and feel that one will balance the other. I'm not judging them, if that's what it sounds like I'm doing; I'm just curious where they will take Fedyor and Ivan and just speculating on whether the writers have factored this in when making their choices.

[indirectmonitor]

Danny Miller interview

I watched the (controversial) interview for the second time in light of the reactions to it since and I think part of the problem is that a lot of what he said is so vague that people are making assumptions about what he meant and then getting upset over these assumptions when it’s not really clear that that’s what he meant at all.

Take for example the “bond” he says is between Robert and Rebecca that Aaron doesn’t have with him. Theories I have read range from some kind of denigrating statement about the bond between two men not being as strong as a man and a woman to saying that it’s just a reference to the fact that Robert and Rebecca now have a baby together and the shared bond of biological parenthood is something Aaron can’t have with Robert.

I honestly don’t think either is the case, but what he’s saying is so non-specific that he could literally be talking about anything. We don’t even know if he’s talking about what’s already happened or if he’s talking about future scenes that we haven’t seen yet. It’s that ambiguous.

But since we’re all throwing our hats into the ring, here’s my theory: I don’t think he’s talking about the superiority of heterosexual relationships because I don’t think Danny Miller is that stupid. I don’t think he’s talking about the baby either because he’s only seen maybe two months of scripts ahead and it still wouldn’t even have been born yet. What I think is he’s talking about are the scenes that have already aired, how Robert and Rebecca are, in a way, from the same strata of society. How they can talk about high-powered business deals over a glass of wine and saunter about with their nice clothes, fancy connections, and $50 shower gel. We’ve already seen this. This is what’s already happened. And we already know what happens after.

Now I’m not saying that I’m right, because god who knows what he could have been talking about. But couldn’t he have been? Doesn’t it all fit?

[indirectmonitor]

Question

Ok, not to be a downer, because the last clip was just great, but how did Even know that Isak was going to the kosegruppa event? Because Isak only went because Sana blackmailed him and I don't know how Even would have known about it. I'm thinking either Even assumed that Isak was going after seeing Vilde ask Isak and his friends, or Isak wrote his name on the same signup sheet and Even saw it (but then how did Even know Isak's name since they hadn't met yet?)

[eastcoastlion-deactivated202401]

The saddest part for me wasn’t when Isak started to cry. When the scenes jump between the time they’re laying in bed to when they had burgers, that’s what got me the most. You could tell, in my opinion anyway, that Isak recognized what was happening, but didn’t want it to be true. His face dropped when Even was speaking, and the way he was looking at him when they were laying down? Ugh, I can’t.

[indirectmonitor]

So... Super sketchy behaviour from Even today, eh? I'm not going to say I don't believe the mental illness theory, because it's still the best theory. It's the only theory that can explain all the clues (except for why Sonja forgave Even two days after leaving her for a guy he met five weeks ago). I'm just saying it's little too easy? And I'm also not sure how they're supposed have Isak work that out with Even given that there's only a six minute clip on Friday and two episodes left. Unless they plan on having that play out in S4. So for the hell of it, here are a few more theories (all of them crazy) for what could be going on and what Sonja might have been calling Isak about: 1) Even and Sonja are actually married 2) Even and Sonja have a kid (being raised by their parents) 3) Sonja is pregnant 4) Even murdered the last guy he cheated on Sonja with 5) Even is not really Even, but his evil gay twin who escaped his parents' attic 6) Even is a Scientologist 7) Even is Isak's father

[indirectmonitor]

Fetishization

There's been a lot of talk about "straight girls" fetishization of gay men and how this is so awful and people are angry about it. As a gay guy, can I just say that I can't really give a shit why someone is watching as long as they watch? I'm coming from the perspective of never seeing same sex relationships on tv or in movies because, as we've been told, no one but the gays care to see gays in the media. And even when there are gay characters, they're usually just a token or trapped in sexless relationships where they don't even kiss because "normal" people don't want to see it. So after all these years, now that there's finally all these non gays who want to see gay relationships (and therefore making it more marketable for creators to put them in their shows) we're going to shame them because the only people allowed to want to watch gays are the gays themselves? This is elitist bullshit. This is not seeing the forest from the trees. We should be welcoming, not turning people away because we have for whatever reason decided that their motives are not "pure" enough for us.

[indirectmonitor]

Is anyone else hoping that for the 4th season of Skam, Isak will be more like Eva in S2 and not Eva in S3?

[indirectmonitor]

I'm going to spend a minute and defend Even and Sonja in their roles in outting Isak. First of all, I think when Even came clean to Sonja about what was going on, I felt that, considering how long they've been together, she deserved the whole truth from him. And it's also not exactly hard for Sonja to guess who it is when you consider that Even and Isak ran off together on Halloween and even before that she met Isak when she went to Even's place and saw them alone together eating cheese sandwiches. In fact, he could've just told her it was some guy and she immediately guessed that it was Isak and then saw the confirmation on his face. For Sonja, I think she felt bad for Emma because now that she knows about Even and Isak, she could see that Isak was using her. I don't think it is any worse than when Noora told Eva about what she found on Isak's phone.

[indirectmonitor]

Ok so now that its confirmed that Even told Sonja the whole story about him and Isak, what are your theories about why she was so cool with it literally four days later?

[myownsparknow]

Lowkey I have a theory about Even, that maybe something happened to his parents. Might explain his staying back a year in school, might explain the look when Isak talked about not having his mom in his life, might explain him hesitating so long when Isak asked what Even’s parents would think of him, might explain his unease with the parallel universe theory.

Or, maybe not. 🤔

[indirectmonitor]

Can we talk about the fact that Eskild thought that the reason why Isak has been walking around like death the past week was because he thought Eskild was still mad at him?

[indirectmonitor]

I think part of the reason why this season seems so short in comparison to the previous ones is that there aren’t as many side stories as there were before. I mean, Season 2 alone had Vilde being obsessed with William, Vilde’s eating disorder, Sana and the Hijab pack, Eva still getting over Jonas, the Yakuza gang stuff, Eva and Eskild investigating Isak... But this season we only have Noora coming back and maybe a little bit of Vilde and Magnus. Other than that, there hasn’t really been much going on besides Isak’s own story.

[indirectmonitor]

I'm honestly just relieved that no one is talking about the sleeping pills anymore.

[indirectmonitor]

I don’t really think he is going to steal Linn’s pills because what’s supposed to be the outcome of that? He overdoses? He uses them to commit suicide? That kind of high stakes drama hasn’t happened before on Skam so I don’t think that’s going to happen now. He’s going to talk to someone.

[indirectmonitor]

It's gonna be either Eskild or Jonas. My guess is Jonas because of the clip earlier this week where Jonas said he's available to talk.

[indirectmonitor]

I got the feeling that by the way Even didn't pursue him that Even knows he shouldn't be talking to Isak. Either it's because he's not respecting his own request for space or because staying away from Isak was part of his agreement with Sonja when she took him back.