#madeline crow

[aflawedfashion]

Madeline Crow | Douglas is Cancelled 1x01

[dandelionjack]

i watched Douglas Is Cancelled.

give it a chance, i beg you. give it a chance. even despite the incredibly cringe gen z character, whose portrayal i consider to be the only genuinely terrible part of the whole miniseries. it’s not a comedy about “cancel culture”. it’s an incendiary drama that examines how normalised gender-based abuse still is in the modern day, and the tension between lip-service “political correctness”/pop feminism and actual human behaviour.

the real protagonist, Madeline Crow (played by Karen Gillan) is a Moffat Woman™️, no doubt. the character everybody loves to hate. complex and forthright and clever and manipulative. morally grey. she doesn’t even consider herself a feminist, which is actually a pivotal plot point (something something shiv roy) . what i’m saying is… well, the irony of it being written by a man isn’t lost on me. especially a man that has repeatedly faced allegations of misogyny over the span of his career. but it’s not lost on him either, and he plays with it, just like everything else here — layers upon layers of lies and acting and false personas and dirty tricks — the truth is whatever the media spins. that’s TV.

personally, in my humble “pickme” opinion (because that’s inevitably what i’ll get called), he’s a goddamn genius. proves it again and again. i mean, i’m biased, whatever

[sprnklersplashes]

So I finished Douglas is Cancelled today and I have a lot of thoughts but a detail I particularly love is Madeline's expression at the end because despite Douglas' exit being framed in-universe as a victory, it isn't. Douglas might be gone, but Toby isn't. The person who did the harm to begin with is still there, no consequences and able to hurt someone else if he wishes. And it's because Toby is far less visible than Douglas is. Barely anyone in the general public knows his name because he isn't on-camera. I feel like it's a very good commentary on how the appearance of consequences (ie. Douglas resigning) hand-waves away the need for actual change (which come in the form of Toby being removed or, on a wider scale, a complete change-up of the media industry). As long as Toby remains in his position, we know, and Madeline knows, he can and will do what he did to her to someone else.

And it goes back to something Moffat said about the conception for the show; the ridiculousness of the idea that some sensitivity training or getting rid of one person can change the culture of a place. The show follows through on being a commentary on cancel culture, but it's the complete opposite of what was advertised.

[lawrencewargraves]

Douglas Is Cancelled + Madeline and Douglas' "official" Twitter accounts (x , x)