Superlative Monday :: the 2014 Emmys and my thoughts on them

This is the only time I will do this, ever, but for some reason they had the Emmys on a Monday this year.  “But wait, isn’t it True Blood week?” you may be asking.  Yes, it is.  But… well, all the themes this week are going to be a little off because I have a lot of different weird things to say about this freaking gorram season of True Blood that don’t line up properly entirely, and I haven’t actually watched the finale yet, so I’m just going to discuss the Emmys tonight so I don’t have to wait until next week.  Sorry.

Breaking Bad (Lead Actor in a Drama Series [Bryan Cranston], Supporting Actress in a Drama Series [Anna Gunn], Supporting Actor in a Drama Series [Aaron Paul], Writing for a Drama Series, Drama Series)
I only just started watching this (I’m in season 2) and I’m… giving it a shot for the friends I have encouraging me to watch it but I’m not really there yet.  So I can’t speak to this particular season of the thing, since I’m not there yet.  But my does this show win a lot of awards.

True Detective (Directing for a Drama Series)
And you all know how I felt about this show.  Sigh.  It’s at this point that I also drop the usual “I watch so much television, how do I watch so few things that get nominated and not particularly like the ones I have seen and win?”

American Horror Story: Coven (Lead Actress in a Miniseries or Movie [Jessica Lange], Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie [Kathy Bates])
Yeah, all right.  They both did a good job.  I was pretty into Coven, generally, like it was definitely my favorite cycle of AHS, for a lot of reasons, so all right.

Fargo (Directing for a Miniseries, Movie, or a Dramatic Special)
And I liked Fargo pretty okay, too.  It wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever seen but it didn’t make me angry.  It was well-made.  (I’m bad at comparing performances, but I would also have been very happy to see Allison Tolman win in her category.  She was wonderful.)

–your fangirl heroine.

Television Tuesday :: really just a list of some subtextual television femslash ships that tumblr ships.

It is Femslash February.  This is my favorite month of the year on tumblr (and also the “Femslash February” tag is the only one I am not afraid to go in) because it celebrates ladies loving ladies with a lot of pretty art and the like.  (Really the art is the only part I pay attention to, so that is what I am focusing on right now.)  I’ve noticed that there are definite trends in the shipping, so tonight, because it is still February, I am going to record some of these.

• As far as fandoms I am in, Game of Thrones is the only one that gets a fair amount of attention.  Most of it is Sansa/Margaery (not surprising, and not something I mind, nope) and I’ll be honest, most of the Dany/Doreah stuff is my own contribution, but I’ve seen a few rare pairs too.  Of course, all of these are technically subtextual even though some of them really, really are just text.
• One of the big ones I see where everyone just seems to be shipped with everyone is Teen Wolf.  Of course, from what I can see most of the ladies are shipped with most of the dudes, too, and most of the dudes with most of the dudes, but I’ve seen a prodigious amount of Teen Wolf in the Femslash February tag this year.  “Allydia,” or Allison and Lydia, is the classic, of course, and the only one where I know who the characters are because I’ve only seen a few episodes of Teen Wolf and that’s really enough for me, probably, but other faces seem to appear regularly.
• Another everyone-shipped-with-everyone canon is Supernatural, so much that “spn femslash” is one of the tags in the “related tags” when you browse the “Femslash February” tag (that is a lot of quotation marks).  I don’t know any of these characters save Felicia Day’s Charlie, who is the only one who is canonically textually into women from what I understand, but it seems like most of the women are shipped with each other in some configuration.  I find it really interesting that this happens so often with Teen Wolf and Supernatural both because I’ve heard from many sources that both of these shows can be pretty awful to their women.  I suppose that a corner of the fandom just likes to imagine happier alternatives?  For which I do not blame them.
• Once Upon a Time also does this.  “Red Beauty,” or Ruby and Belle, and “Sleeping Warrior,” or Aurora and Mulan, get a great deal of attention; I know that “Swan Queen,” or Emma and Regina, is another.  Like I mentioned last night, I’ve given up on this show, but it’s nice to know that even though the writers apparently pull the rug out from under potential femslash, the fandom is still into it.
• I find it interesting that I see some shows in the popular posts in this tag, like Xena or Bomb Girls or Skins, that have canonical (or basically canonical) lesbians in them, but the most popular ones are things like Teen Wolf and Supernatural that do not have at least canonical lesbian relationships in them.  And other shows with canonical lesbian relationships, like The L Word or Pretty Little Liars or Lost Girl, seem rarer.  This is a paragraph about things I don’t actually watch.
• There is less Glee than I remember there being last year.  I don’t watch Glee anymore either, so I’m not sure what the reasoning for this is, but it’s still something I’ve noticed.
• There have been a few True Blood posts (some by me) but my heart feels like there should be more.  Even if season 6 ignored its queer ladies, I’d think that would be more reason for fandom to step it up and give happier alternatives like the above.  (I did see one that was Tara/Jessica/Willa, and that was interesting, and one that was Tara/Naomi which was nice, but save what I’ve done, the rest seems to be Tara/Pam.  Which I’m not complaining about, mind, I’ve participated and still adore that, but it’s still interesting.)
• I’ve only seen one thing here that was The Walking Dead‘s Andrea/Michonne, and only one that was American Horror Story: Coven‘s Cordelia/Misty, but I was glad of them.

Of course, there are many active fandoms that are not live-action television (or at least entirely; there has been a fair amount of MCU material) but that is not what I’m observing right now.

–your fangirl heroine.

Television Tuesday :: the 2013 “no” trope/plot device list, part two

And although I am very much tired of it, this list does not include “manpain,” because that is such a broad category with too many examples to list, and it does not include “dead women in general,” because last week got into specific dead female character tropes and again, it’s pretty straightforward and also happens too much.

5. Invisible femslash
Which is to say, romantic relationships between women that were either explicit or heavily implied being either not shown or narratively disregarded.  As seen this year with:
– True Blood, Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten) and Tara (Rutina Wesley) making out at the end of season five with such promise and then being given exactly one offscreen sex scene and one moment of high-on-the-blood sunshine elbow sex and otherwise barely interacting in a pleasant fashion.
– The Walking Dead, another Tara (Alanna Masterson) mentioning in conversation that she had been with a girl before and promptly finding Alisha (Juliana Harkavy) to be in a relationship with but to never get to do more than lay on top of a bed with before Alisha went amoral and died.
– Warehouse 13, which I do not watch but I heard all about the disaster with Myka (Joanne Kelly) and HG (Jaime Murray), so I asked my friend to write some on it for me, which is posted here.

4.  Varyingly pedophilic potential Stockholm
When a male character exerts an uncomfortable amount of sway over a younger female character and all you can think is “no no no, get your hands off now!” even if his hands are never actually on her.  (They usually are, though.)  Definite undertones of (sexual or non-sexual) dubcon here, too.
– True Blood, Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) inexplicably returning to Bill (Stephen Moyer) and then dressing up like a sexy schoolgirl to kidnap for him, luring the fairy girls to his house, then getting high off of their blood when she drank it and trying to make out with him.
– Game of Thrones, Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Baelish (Aidan Gillen), which is book canon but which slightly felt like they were trying to slant it toward her not having as much of an issue with it for whatever reason so that was even worse.
– Boardwalk Empire, Daughter (Margot Bingham) and Narcisse (Jeffrey Wright) and their whole screwed up dynamic.

3. Oedipal undertones
When a female character expresses an uncomfortable amount of interest over a younger male character that they are related to.  Often involves abuse of an emotional or sexual sort.  (And mind, I get just as angry about abusive/creepy fathers, but I’ve noticed more abusive/creepy mothers on television lately.)
– Boardwalk Empire, Gillian (Gretchen Mol) having way too much interest in getting Tommy (Brady and Connor Noon) returned to her custody in lieu of her dead son and Tommy’s dad Jimmy (Michael Pitt), who she had previously also had an Oedipal relationship with.
– Sons of Anarchy, Gemma (Katey Sagal) sometimes gives off a bit of this vibe toward Jax (Charlie Hunnam) though it’s not been acted on.
– American Horror Story: Coven, Alicia (Mare Winningham) quite clearly emotionally and sexually abusing her son Kyle (Evan Peters).

2.  Love triangles and/or infidelity
Exactly as it says on the box.
– True Blood, mainly in the six months later flash forward that set up a potential season seven Alcide (Joe Manganiello) and Sookie (Anna Paquin) and Bill love triangle since apparently show!Sookie will never be able to let Bill go, or at least the narrative will never be able to let them go.
– American Horror Story: Coven, Kyle and Zoe (Taissa Farmiga) and Madison (Emma Roberts) in their messy triad that had the potential to actually be a triad but is not.
– Mad Men, Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) and her boyfriend Abe (Charlie Hofheimer) and her boss Ted (Kevin Rahm) and the reduction of her usually-engaging and often work-centered plotlines to an underachieving boy-overachieving girl-authority figure love triangle.

1. Conscious irresponsibility
Not irresponsibility insofar as doing reckless things per se, but irresponsibility as in a lack of overt responsibility for one’s actions.  Often does go hand-in-hand with manpain, actually.
– True Blood, Bill at least somewhat acting like he hadn’t taken Lilith’s blood at the end of the previous season with murderous intent (Jessica asking wasn’t it a good thing that Lilith was gone, Bill agreeing that yes, probably) and never once acknowledging that the whole situation with the governor’s vamp camp was taking place because he’d said at the Authority table, “hey, let’s blow up the TruBlood factories!”
– The Walking Dead, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) and the Governor (David Morrissey) and every time they spoke to each other or others saying and thinking things like “I didn’t have a choice but to do [x thing]!”
– Mad Men, Don (Jon Hamm) as a total person.  Actually, most of the guys in the office at least sometimes.

–your fangirl heroine.

Television Tuesday :: 10 shows that show up as the subject of mixes in the Southern Gothic tag on 8tracks

This tag is just where I live right now.  And I am really somewhat obsessed with tracking the trends in it.

10. Hemlock Grove
I don’t know a single thing about this other than the fact that it’s on Netflix.  Wikipedia just told me there are werewolves.  So?

9. Game of Thrones
I don’t know why this was there, because it is about as far from Southern Gothic as anything, but it was there one time and I loved this playlist a lot in all of its technical nonsense.  And I know the trends in Southern Gothic mixes and in Game of Thrones mixes and this was surprisingly not predictable.

8. American Horror Story: Coven
This doesn’t actually start until tomorrow (and I am so excited I admit this) but I’ve already seen mixes for it in the tag.  Nothing particularly specific, but vibey.  And the vibeyness of the show is why I’m excited, so that works out.

7. Teen Wolf
Why is this in the Southern Gothic tag it is set in California.  And the few episodes I watched did not strike me as particularly vibey in this direction.  It was vibey in the direction of “modern and yet not aggressively so teenage monsters,” but the only thing that was remotely Southern Gothic about it was that there were monsters.  But maybe I’d just need to watch more to understand why it was there.  I will give props to the mix I saw described specifically as a Teen Wolf Southern Gothic AU, because that makes more sense.

6. Justified
This is like I mentioned how I tripped into the Southern Gothic tag to begin with, but it appears surprisingly not often.  I mean it definitely does appear, but still.  It’s not really a show with a big giant fandom so far as I know, so I guess that makes sense, but still.

5. Sons of Anarchy
Why is this in the Southern Gothic tag I don’t understand.  I mean, musically I guess it works as a lot of the songs in the tag come straight off the show’s soundtrack, but it’s not even set in the South.  Sons of Anarchy is set in California too.  So I don’t know, but it works.

4. Hannibal
I don’t watch this.  I had to look up to see where it was even set, which appears to be Southern.  But I guess it works?  I dunno, I usually skip these mixes since I don’t go there.

3. The Walking Dead
Set in the South.  Really messed up.  Makes sense.  The show has never been particularly musically vibey, because there’s not much time for music in the apocalypse (unless they want to give Beth [Emily Kinney] something to do, bless) but still.

2. True Blood
And it always works, and I always feel things, and I always scream in frustration because Southern Gothic vibes were yet another thing this last season did not provide me with adequately or at least in a way I was comfortable with.  (Surprise!mayor!Sam evangelizing at the church felt kind of this, but in the bad way.  For example.)

1. Supernatural
This show is not Southern either.  I don’t know why it’s here.  But it’s here a lot, or anyway it feels like it is.  I’m kind of afraid of Supernatural fandom so I haven’t done much research, but.

–your fangirl heroine.