Elizabeth Bear's LJ (RSS Feed)
12-13-2007, 09:06 PM
My fandom has daddy issues. And mommy issues. And issue issues.
The time-lapse fade on that establishing shot makes me happy. So understated and pretty.
"Julie wouldn't just disappear."
So today, we are here to undermine the teen slasher flick, and its ingrained tropes problematizing female sexuality. The madonna/whore complex took a beating in this one...
"You want me drunk and naked, just say so." Woman with powerful sexuality is the target, of course... but then what happens?
And then we cut to another powerful woman, and her crushing piles of necessary work. "I'm confident that they'll feel the same way." Of course they will, Jaje, because you are the secret mastermind of the B.A.U. (Drink!)
"Decomp indicated that she had been dead just over a week." JJ is upset, little catch in her throat. People preying on young rural women gets to her; she's seeing herself in the victim's faces.
"What's he been doing for the past 27 years?"
That's one of those killer lines right there: "It's a party."
And Hotch with the Anne Sexton quote, and what a quote it is. "It doesn't matter who my father was. It matters who I remember he was." There's a fabulous bit of thematic reinforcing for the whole season, right there--the layered synchronicities just keep piling up.
Gorgeous reaction shot of JJ while Reid is flipping through files and reading aloud in the background.
The bit in the mine, where Molly goes from being the flip creature she was before the abduction to somebody being strong for another is wonderful. There's an echo through this episode of women protecting other women, and their children--for right or wrong--that's very powerful. The intense dignity of all these female characters is really telling.
CotW Jr. "This case broke him."
Reid: "How so?"
CotW Jr. "Same old. Started drinking. Marriage busted up."
Okay, fabulous supporting cast this ep. And the parallel today is JJ/victims, Rossi/derelict cop
Paget Brewster looks fabulous in burgundy, too. /shallow
"He's definitely local."
And how much do I love my show for the male character (Okay, so he's Mom, but he's still a boy) stepping up to be emotionally supportive of a female character--who isn't breaking down, who is shutting up and soldiering--and admitting his own flaws and emotional distance, while developing the ongoing theme that a culture of silence is maybe not the best culture to have?
"Most of the victims are women. And most of them are about your age. It's okay if you lose it every once in a while. It reminds people that we're human."
"You never lose it."
"Maybe I should have."
Hotch = LOOOVE
("You lead by example." "And what kind of an example is that?")
Another thing I love: this show does not valorize the protagonist's defense mechanisms. It acknowledges that they are defense mechanisms, and that they work and don't work, and there's no pretense of either the bulletproof superhero stereotype *or* the broken ineffectual cop stereotype. They're human, and they're decent, and they're all incredibly tough--but they're all broken, too, and there's no way they can do this job without feeling it.
The time-lapse fade on that establishing shot makes me happy. So understated and pretty.
"Julie wouldn't just disappear."
So today, we are here to undermine the teen slasher flick, and its ingrained tropes problematizing female sexuality. The madonna/whore complex took a beating in this one...
"You want me drunk and naked, just say so." Woman with powerful sexuality is the target, of course... but then what happens?
And then we cut to another powerful woman, and her crushing piles of necessary work. "I'm confident that they'll feel the same way." Of course they will, Jaje, because you are the secret mastermind of the B.A.U. (Drink!)
"Decomp indicated that she had been dead just over a week." JJ is upset, little catch in her throat. People preying on young rural women gets to her; she's seeing herself in the victim's faces.
"What's he been doing for the past 27 years?"
That's one of those killer lines right there: "It's a party."
And Hotch with the Anne Sexton quote, and what a quote it is. "It doesn't matter who my father was. It matters who I remember he was." There's a fabulous bit of thematic reinforcing for the whole season, right there--the layered synchronicities just keep piling up.
Gorgeous reaction shot of JJ while Reid is flipping through files and reading aloud in the background.
The bit in the mine, where Molly goes from being the flip creature she was before the abduction to somebody being strong for another is wonderful. There's an echo through this episode of women protecting other women, and their children--for right or wrong--that's very powerful. The intense dignity of all these female characters is really telling.
CotW Jr. "This case broke him."
Reid: "How so?"
CotW Jr. "Same old. Started drinking. Marriage busted up."
Okay, fabulous supporting cast this ep. And the parallel today is JJ/victims, Rossi/derelict cop
Paget Brewster looks fabulous in burgundy, too. /shallow
"He's definitely local."
And how much do I love my show for the male character (Okay, so he's Mom, but he's still a boy) stepping up to be emotionally supportive of a female character--who isn't breaking down, who is shutting up and soldiering--and admitting his own flaws and emotional distance, while developing the ongoing theme that a culture of silence is maybe not the best culture to have?
"Most of the victims are women. And most of them are about your age. It's okay if you lose it every once in a while. It reminds people that we're human."
"You never lose it."
"Maybe I should have."
Hotch = LOOOVE
("You lead by example." "And what kind of an example is that?")
Another thing I love: this show does not valorize the protagonist's defense mechanisms. It acknowledges that they are defense mechanisms, and that they work and don't work, and there's no pretense of either the bulletproof superhero stereotype *or* the broken ineffectual cop stereotype. They're human, and they're decent, and they're all incredibly tough--but they're all broken, too, and there's no way they can do this job without feeling it.