This is a side blog for my new account since I was informed by one of my friends that people miss the chaos of my old blog @nationmckinleyscorset
This is mostly going to be for reviewing movies/TV shows/plays/musicals, posting recommendations, making/reposting my old memes
I particularly love reviewing old cult classic movie musicals, horrors which not everyone is willing to watch so I can save them the trouble and queer [supernatural] media
If you enjoy my content on here you can check out my main blog which is for fanart (mostly what we do in the shadows but I'm hoping to expand to include other fandoms) @whatwedoodleintheshadows
If you would like to see my slightly more serious blog where I'm working on a sapphic vampire novel written in a gothic Victorian style you can head over to @doinglinesakawriting
Looking forward to making new mooties and potentially locating old ones <3
The intro music for The Last Man on Earth has been my alarm clock for so long that I just put the TV show on to watch and spent a few minutes trying to turn my alarm off.
Insane crappy piece of irony is Google AI using Devil Wears Prada 2 to advertise using AI to design outfits and other fashion related ideas
WHEN THE FILM HAS ANTI AI COMMENTARY EMBEDDED IN IT!
I went to go see it yesterday and was wary because of the Google AI ads and was pleasantly surprised to hear Andy ranting about people sucking the soul out of everything creative (what AI does) and see that the villain is a man who doesn't care about fashion and just wants to capitalise until fashion design is eventually overrun by AI.
The film is Inherently woke and anti AI after if it isn't explicit.
The idea that the film has this narrative yet Google AI is using them to advertise is genuinely insane and I find it so fucking frustrating.
I noticed something in the costuming of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes that's really making me question
Are Dill and Reaper related?
On Reaper's shirt there are 2 panels in blue with orange and black floral details, in Dill's (kind of spoiler alert) death scene she is wearing a brown jacket with cuffs and patches made from the same material.
Sharing fabrics could mean 1 of 3 things:
They're siblings/related in some way - further substantiated by Reaper being so protective of Dill and saying "you stick with me" instead of leaving her in the arena and how much Reaper mourned her (though I don't remember this being mentioned in the book, there are no surnames for the tributes, only forenames since they aren't "important" like the mentors).
The district is poor so a single seamstress is used by the whole district - highly believable and very high attention to detail in the costume department.
They knew each other before the arena and helped each other to fix/make their clothes/their families did.
Any way you interpret it it's a very tragic detail
Empathy is a twisted thing because what do you mean I cried harder over the killing of the pig in Lord of The Flies than the cannibalising of Jackie in Yellowjackets
Russel T Davies once again owes me a fragment of my soul back because what the fuck. This man has made me cry so much in my lifetime that he might as well be an onion.
Just finished The War Between The Land and The Sea and MY. GOD.
I don't care if he's controversial, "too political", under fire for some of his stances, he knows how to write in a way that makes you feel sick with emotion.
I have never felt so consumed by rage as when I was watching TWBTLATS, never felt as hopeful and hopeless simultaneously as when I was watching years and years. Doctor Who has made me feel such a spectrum of things that I can't even begin to describe it, the episode waters of mars in particular instilling such a deep rooted fear in me that I still feel nervous about other planets three years later. Torchwood truly is something else, that was my first experience of loving such complex characters and being so devastated by the deaths of people who are messed up to their very core.
These shows are the reason I have a TV license at this point.
Can I start this out by stating for the record that this musical has been a major point of conspiracy, speculation and discourse in the RTC fandom so the fact there is now a full recording of the show and evidence that it truly existed is really strange to me.
Link for anybody else who would like to watch it:
This post will contain spoilers and opinions so I will add a cut here, read ahead with caution.
The Siblings
The two have such a fun relationship, the idea that Penny is so expressive and her brother is so gloomy but she loves him anyway is very sweet. Even if they did commit literal crimes together, they are very close and the dynamic between them makes the show an easy watch in spite of having only two characters. Every time they finish each others' sentences I realise just how much Penny relied on him in conversations and it makes it even more heart wrenching that they would eventually be separated. Their synchronicity when speaking makes this such a fun watch, even just the contrast between Penny mostly using her hands when speaking while Ezra is pacing in the background, it is one of the most well done plays I have seen yet, especially given that the characters are played by adults but are completely believable as immature teens.
I am completely obsessed with Ezra's character. His puppet shows are amazing and his impressions are spot on. I love seeing how he comes to life when he is acting out a story even though his default speech pattern is very glum and intense. The basis of his character being that he does drug deals with his ADHD meds is both iconic and a way of slipping the siblings' poor upbringing into the plot without bringing down the mood. I think that in and of itself is really hard to do but the show somehow achieved the perfect balance between humour and dark subjects all while being performed by two very upbeat characters.
Even though they are super supportive of each other, there are also some great moments where Ezra will say something that is so wrong and so irrelevant that Penny just has to confront him and their relationship starts to feel more realistic in spite of everything in the play.
Overall, I think the duo were a genius choice to include by the writers, especially making them impersonate other character roles in the story to maintain the illusion of a presentation rather than a play. I think other people might have dampened the tone since they would not be able to mock their positions quite as convincingly while being in character.
Political Correctness
I am only really including this section and the next because I know a few people who refuse to watch shows that are not 100% politically correct but I really enjoyed this one and want to defend it a bit.
We need to address the elephant in the room to begin with: The show was written in 2006, the portrayals of ADHD are in some ways very exaggerated but not every neurodivergent person will behave the same and plays tend to be over acted to grab the attention of the audience. Additionally, I do not condone faking seizures for attention but these once again reflects the idea that the characters are children, they have very little perception of what is right and what is wrong and they were eventually caught for it.
As a lesbian, honestly the whole school lesbian section seems a lot like my experience with school and I'm not massive offended by them using those slurs. If anything, I think that the involvement of homophobic rhetoric in this show ties in well with Noel Gruber's story in Ride The Cyclone which would make sense since the two are from the same school. At the very least the main character is not a homophobe herself and is confused by why she was being labelled gay when she is not.
Self-Awareness
The thing is, this show is undeniably hilarious. Nearly every second is laugh out loud funny even if a lot of the jokes you aren't really meant to be laughing at. The show encourages you to have a good time even when you don't agree with what is being said because the characters are in the wrong and the plot revolves around them being so out of pocket.
Even though a lot of the things being portrayed in the show are dark or completely wrong, there are lines thrown in to let you know the people in the show don't support them e.g. "Orlando, there are 56 endangered species, including American-Style Democracy", and "This is a theatre, you can't say the F word until you're pretending to be poor" immediately followed by the two glaring at the audience.
Hints at Penny's fate
"Pictures of us Elysium kids looking all Doe eyed" *Holds up an image of two children with completely black eyes*
"Staring at me like gaping fish with their heads cut off"
"What's the point? We all die and all love dissolves"
"I thought I was destined to die alone"
There is also a scene where she desperately tries to tell someone her name is Penny Lamb and she is interrupted every single time, even before the accident her identity was constantly stripped away and relaced with what people wanted to think of her - Lesbian, hoe, bitch, etc.
Penny -> Jane
I still cannot wrap my head around Penny some day becoming Jane Doe - emotionless, expressionless and nameless. The idea of her being intimidating is so unbelievable when you see her in Legoland because she was so bright and happy and naïve. This show really adds to the horror of Ride The Cyclone because you can see just how much of her personality and her backstory she lost.
Ironically, Penny has a closer personality to Constance's than she does to any other character and it is so sad that no one can remember her since she acts so similarly to the other members of the choir.
Her arc really goes from sweet and misguided -> violent criminal -> completely passive and I think its important that right after she found her identity and embraced her ability to stand up for herself, it was completely stripped away from her and she became one of 6 victims in a crash. Even her saying "I was kinda famous for a bit" just to be completely forgotten by everyone is tragic.
Unanswered questions
Why did Penny join the choir? Was it a part of her community service like Mischa?
Where was Ezra? I think it is very sad to assume that Ezra never came to identify her because he is so socially nervous and unprepared for "Legoland" (the world outside the town they were raised in). If he was at the fair, did he watch her die? Did he not get on the rollercoaster with her?
Was Ricky one of Ezra's "clients"? He quoted "wickety wickety whack" (or your money back) before his introduction. Did he maybe work with Ezra selling off his own meds? Either way I think there's an unspoken connection between those two characters, but surely Ricky would have recognised Penny if he knew her brother - unless of course that's why he wasn't afraid of her. He did remember her but didn't want to say because it would tie him to a drug trafficking scheme so instead he chose to be kind to her. He also quoted "love is closest you can be to another person, because it is the closest you can come to being another person" which is one of Penny's final lines, so either he was a client or potentially he was in the audience. Maybe he was close to Penny and in some turn of fate the crash took away his memories with her.
Final Thoughts
I honestly cannot recommend this show enough, it is probably the most comedic thing I have ever watched while also giving interesting commentary on things that were very ahead of its time given the show came out in 2006 (e.g. parasocial relationships).
The acting is so melodramatic in a good way and I honestly admire the performers for keeping the energy so high the whole way through.
The writing seems completely random until it doesn't. Everything starts clicking into play around the halfway mark and you realise just how well planned out Penny's presentation is.
The ending is so unexpected and sad in a way that you can't really appreciate while the comedy is taking place but also compelling, Penny is responsible and mature in spite of taking accountability in a very immature way for juvenile crimes. Very interesting watch, I wouldn't say I prefer this to Ride The Cyclone but the two are on the same level in my opinion. I am so so glad this show was brought back so we could finally understand who Penny is.
