me: 30something, bisexual, best mom ever also me: ten years later and my icon is still an accurate depiction of my face every time i have to view a tag on this hellsite
Rethinking Justice in Elementary — "The One That Got Away"
I rewatch this episode from time to time, and it strikes me over and again just how committed it is to non-legal means of justice, which is particularly rare given that Elementary technically operates within the copaganda genre (with some room for outliers here and there).
When Kitty is about to murder Gruner, the man who sexually assaulted and tortured her, Sherlock shows up. Typically within the police procedural, Sherlock would be the Character Who Reminds [X] That Killing Is Wrong and Legal Justice is Right. But Sherlock doesn't do any of that. He tells Kitty that she deserves to know that he has found a way to prosecute Gruner. He tells her that this is an option if she doesn't want to wrestle with what it means to take a life. While following the law is not what Sherlock thinks Kitty should do, it is an option nonetheless. What would be unfair, Sherlock understands, is for Kitty to have no way out but to resort to murder.
Kitty responds, "What does that have to do with me? With what he did to me?"
And she's right, prosecuting Gruner has nothing to do with what he did to her. What the police wants is not what she wants. Kitty's assault was a singular event, and only she can determine what justice should be. It's an oddly refreshing take, given that most procedurals would remind to Kitty to uphold the law (e.g. SVU).
Sherlock replies, "Nothing. Everything. Wish I could tell you. If you decide that killing Gruner will make you feel whole again, I won't stop you. But whatever you decide, you will always be my friend."
I've thought a lot about this scene, and how it places Kitty's decision and Sherlock's love at the center of what justice should be. It also brings to the forefront Sherlock's struggle with addiction — he doesn't have many friends which means that his gesture of love is completely genuine. It's a gesture of unconditional love from a stoic man who finds it difficult to love, to a woman whose experience of love has been destroyed by sexual abuse. It doesn't matter to Sherlock if Kitty kills Gruner because the fact that she is his friend will always come first. In the end, Kitty realises that she is offered something she has wanted for so long but thought she couldn't have. That is, someone loves her so much to the point where she feels, for the first time, that she is able to say it back and mean it. So it is beautiful that the episode ultimately conludes with Kitty saying: "Do you know what I haven't said to anyone in a really long time? I love you. Isn't that the saddest thing?"
While the heart of Elementary will always be Sherlock and Watson's relationship, stories like Kitty also reveal that sobriety requires love at its center, and it requires Sherlock to show up for his friends. He is a self proclaimed misanthrope, but his time with Joan has changed him; instead of embracing being a lone genius, he puts in the work to be worthy of the care and love that he receives in return. It may be corny or whatever, but the series is about true and genuine love, the kind that is so huge that it passes on from one person to another, healing everything in it touches.
a screenplay that could not be saved by any of these things
literally how
HOW
do you take a story where one of the songs literally says it's hard for people to grasp moral ambiguity
and SAW OFF ALL THE AMBIGUITIES
they navigated this so well in act one what the hell happened here
also the screenplay got way too into its own head about wanting to make A Political Statement and elphaba's new song is like,,,,,,,,,,
how can i put this
like: imagine if the people who adapted the sound of music into a movie had decided that, instead of writing a badass original character anthem like "i have confidence," maria sings to refugees about how they should stay in austria to fight the nazis because that's what she's going to do.
also
this movie commits the cardinal sin of being boring, because the first forty minutes are largely a recap for people who don't know/remember act one. so there's some new lyrics that are just repetitious exposition
nessarose getting some more depth is possibly the only bright spot, but even THERE her sharp turn from trying to resist political oppression to becoming a literal dictator (which is from the original book) still feels excessively random in a way that makes me ask why more time couldn't have been spent HERE instead of watching glinda change costumes seventy billion times.
speaking of glinda, she was way too self aware way too soon???? like why tf is she, in Thank Goodness, already apologizing to fiyero about how hard it is to live in the propaganda machine?!?!?! his genuine anger is stripped out of this interaction, they add too many "im not the bad guy here" lines where she's already full of regret BEFORE she sings about it, and they do the same thing they did with Defying Gravity where they kill the momentum of the song by chopping it up for extra dialogue asides.
Elsewhere:
As Long as You're Mine was solid but the staging was weird and the costuming choice to have elphaba add a layer of clothing after starting to undress was distracting to the point people were giggling.
No Good Deed is effective on a production level and the visuals for it are gorgeous, but the audio made me sad because it was overproduced and didn't just let cynthia run with the intensity and self-loathing of the song.
tldr For Good is the only section of the movie that is fully enjoyable
Despite the fact that the vast majority of protesters have been peaceful, yesterday DC imposed a 7 pm curfew on its residents. Not one to…
When they say “don’t trust each other,” we must deeply believe each other. When they say don’t get involved, that is exactly the moment when we must take action. When they say lock the doors and stay inside, even as our fellow citizens beg us for help, that is the moment we must open them. And when they say let us in, that is exactly the moment when we must keep the hatred, bigotry, and ignorance out. Our ability to stand up for each other, by each other, and with each other, maybe the only thing that will separate us from the fate of history’s worst regimes.
there's a delicate balance between "seeing something on my dash so often i end up caring about it unexpectedly" and "seeing something on my dash so often that it gets added to the blocked list with extreme prejudice"
There are a lot of reasons to oppose monarchy but one of the most overlooked is that the king is always getting stuck in some kind of hazardous puzzle chamber filling up with gravel or lava or something. Do your fucking job man
The Smithsonian Institution owes its existence to John Quincy Adams, who fought to make sure James Smithson's donation to establish an institution for the "increase and diffusion of knowledge" was realized.
This mission was shared by John's wife Louisa Adams, who once explained to her 11-year-old son, future historian and diplomat Charles Francis Adams, why we study history.
She said, “History is a little irksome to a young hand, but very soon becomes interesting and is always instructive. It is true it frequently represents human nature in a degrading point of view; but it represents it justly in all its varieties, which are equal to the sublimity of virtue, and to the lowest grades of execrable vice.”
She went on to write, “Many a tyrant was once good and innocent, and many have been urged to crime by misconceived ideas of virtue—continue this study. It will expand your mind, and guard you against false reasonings and false principles, things the most dangerous to youth, as once imbibed they are most difficult to eradicate.”
She understood how dangerous—and effective—falsehoods could be in shaping young minds. So did the United Daughters of the Confederacy in the 1890s when they started dedicating Confederate monuments in public spaces with ceremonies and lesson plans intended to indoctrinate children as "living monuments of the Confederacy," defenders of the Confederate cause and white supremacy.
How might Louisa Adams, and the rest of the Adams family, feel about the Smithsonian no longer allowed to share history, as Louisa put it, "justly in all its varieties, which are equal to the sublimity of virtue, and to the lowest grades of execrable vice" if those vices don't square with the new mandate to scrub anything "divisive" that fails to adequately celebrate American exceptionalism.
I wonder, how might the Adamses feel—including Charles Francis Adams who served as Lincoln's minister to the UK and his son Charles Francis Adams, Jr. who fought at Gettysburg—knowing that exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution museums are being inspected for potential divisiveness while Confederate statues are being restored?
today the israeli defense minister was quoted as saying they want to move the entire population of gaza into one city. to prepare for, get this. shipping them to other countries. to get rid of them forever.
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