Did I come out of writing retirement solely to write this one-shot from Carrie’s POV after the spirit rally? Yes, yes I did.Â
I also just want to make it clear that I do like Julie as a character, and I think it's a testament to the show's writing that I could clearly see both sides of their story. We stan both girls in this household, and hope season two (when it inevitably gets announced) will delve deeper into their history and Carrie's story.
It was happening again.
Carrie should have known the yearlong reprieve would be short lived.
Don’t get her wrong, she felt for Julie. She really did. Losing a parent was hard. Unimaginable. Her parents divorcing and her mother moving back home to the east coast had been hard enough. For a while, when Broadway was Carrie’s ultimate dream, she’d thought they’d live happily ever after together in New York. But the space between them was bigger than just the distance between them now. She’d put all her focus into Dirty Candy for the past few years, and now Broadway was nothing more than a distant memory of a dream.
Julie’s no friend. The words kept echoing through her head. Nick didn’t get it, couldn’t see past the allure of the girl on the stage. But Julie was selfish. She upstaged Carrie at every opportunity, doing everything she could to steal the spotlight.
Carrie sighed, wishing she’d taken off her stupid wig and gotten changed out of her costume before class. She wanted nothing more than sweatpants and her bed right now. She wanted to wallow in self-pity at her defeat; to stew in the anger she could feel running through her veins.
It’s not that Carrie had an issue with people putting themselves first. But it was a trait she’d had to learn. The spotlight she’d been born into wasn’t hers, and she’d had to fight to make her own space. She hadn’t thought about it too hard when they were kids, but one day she’d looked around and realised that Julie was always the centre of attention. Carrie was the backup singer. Flynn was the rap feature. Julie was the star.
Carrie knew how bands and music groups worked, but in the back of her mind she’d wondered why they couldn’t share the spotlight, rotate the roles and give everyone a chance to shine.
Now she was the star and she wouldn’t let anyone relegate her to the background ever again.
As she tried to focus on the science babble her teacher was currently spewing, a new thought crossed her mind. Who the hell were those boys? She was all over the LA music scene, she made it her job to know the competition, but she didn’t know them. And since when did Julie know how to work holograms? That wasn’t something you just quickly picked up.
What about Flynn? Carrie remembered how mad Julie and Flynn had been when she’d announced that she was starting her own group, how they’d whispered behind her back about her daddy’s money and her not being talented enough to shine without all the bells and whistles. And they thought she was cruel. A demon. Carrie had just wanted to make her own space, because they weren’t giving her any.
But Flynn, she was happy being in the background. Or she was for now. Surely she wouldn’t let Julie start a new band without her, wouldn’t let it go without Julie getting some taste of the treatment Carrie had received.
But then again, Julie always seemed to get her way. She probably wasn’t facing any sort of punishment for hijacking the spirit rally. She was probably back as the star of the music program. Hell, they’d probably kicked the new kid out for her. Carrie would never get away with pulling the kind of shit Julie did. Julie hadn’t sung for a year. Fair enough that she was struggling with it, but she only had to sing once. And she couldn’t do it when they were in the music room, but suddenly she could a few days later in front of the whole school? When it conveniently upstaged Dirty Candy? How could she not take that personally? Julie didn’t want her to succeed, and she knew it.
Carrie checked the time, briefly considering faking a stomach-ache so she could go home. But then she’d have to sit there surrounded by blown-up pictures of her Rockstar dad. Every time she mentioned Julie he babbled on about her talent and how she’d be a star. Carrie swore he wanted Julie to be his daughter instead of her sometimes. He didn’t understand how hard Carrie worked; he’d never worked that hard himself. He’d come out of nowhere as this amazing songwriter, but as soon as he got some success he’d employed songwriters to do the hard work for him. Everyone said his newer music wasn’t as good, but he didn’t seem to care. The new stuff still sold and being the best didn’t seem to be his goal. She didn’t quite know what he wanted.
The bell rang, signalling the end of class. Carrie got up quickly, knowing she had limited time to get changed out of her costume. She couldn’t walk around in it all day, past people high-fiving Julie in the halfway. That was meant to be her recognition. That dance had been hard and figuring out how to keep her shoes from flying off mid-routine had been harder. She’d spent every waking moment perfecting that routine, and it had all been for nothing.
We gonna talk about how the Viri and Hugo “you’re so beautiful” scene can be seen as a parallel to the noorhelm one, but Hugo actually knows who Viri is as a person and he finds her even more beautiful as a result
The misogyny really shows when some of ya’ll hate on Zoe (wtfock) and Nora (skam Espana) + other female characters and its super concerning, to say the least.Â
You act like a female character acting out suddenly makes her this malicious bitch and that she’s a bad person but when your favourite male character is pushy, demanding, tries to make choices about things that he doesn’t get a say over, calls someone a slur and accuses someone of SA, you pull the “my baby is just going through a hard time so it’s okay” card and then you go and hate on the female characters when they are also going through a hard time.Â
When the male character is being pushy and in the wrong, as he tries to argue against the female character and tries to persuade her into doing things his way, it’s framed as if the female character is in the wrong for wanting to do things her own way, “she’s being irrational”, “she’s not thinking straight”, “she should listen to him” (even though it’s not his choice) “shes such a bitch for acting that way”, “Woah she’s being crazy”
It doesn’t help when the misogyny is written right into the storyline and embedded right into the character arc of the Nora’s but when you’re about to go on a rampage when a female character acts out and does something that doesn’t sit well with you, just ask yourself about why you are pissed off at this female character but if your fave male character did the same why would you just pull the “he’s going through a hard time card”
maybe, just maybe, it’s the internalized misogyny towards female charactersÂ
