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Maj
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Post by Maj »

My brother took everyone in the family to see the musical Cinderella (R&H), and it was hysterical. The guy who played one of the step-sisters rocked it (Best line: Nobody hobbed my knob).

Also, Sherlock is back! The first episode of season two was pure awesome.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

I felt the purity of its awesome was seriously diluted by its regressive sexual politics. This is 2011, Irene Adler shouldn't be less empowered than in fucking 1891.
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Post by Maj »

Why was she less empowered?
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

A Scandal in Bohemia: Opera Singer
A Scandal in Belgravia: Sex Worker

I could go on about how I knew we were in trouble when we saw Irene's ass before we saw her face, or how instead of being an intellectual rival to Holmes she manipulates people with sex, or how instead of succeeding and failing on her own merits she gets her schemes from Moriarty and needs to be fucking rescued by Sherlock; but that first distinction strikes me as being all that's necessary.

I don't feel like I'm in a good position to pass judgement on how she seemingly identifies as a lesbian but still crushes on Sherlock, but I do think that it bears mentioning as a questionable choice.
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Post by Maj »

We clearly didn't watch the same show.

;)
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Are any of my critiques inaccurate?
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Post by RobbyPants »

I just watched Burn After Reading. It was pretty funny. I'm beginning to like the Coen Brother more and more, lately.
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Post by Avoraciopoctules »

Adventures of Tintin was pretty good. Well worth putting up with the 3d effects.
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Post by sabs »

Of course it was pretty good. It's based on the best Graphic Novel series in the world ;)

It was a fun watch, and got my kids interested in one of the defining comic books of my childhood. It was like watching Golden Crab, The Secret of the Unicorn, and Rakham the Red brought to life on the screen.
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Post by Maj »

angelfromanotherpin wrote:Are any of my critiques inaccurate?
<shrug> A matter of perspective, I guess.
angel wrote:A Scandal in Bohemia: Opera Singer
A Scandal in Belgravia: Sex Worker
Adler may have been an opera singer in the original, but that was incidental to the fact that the story was based on her playing the courtesan to the king. I fail to see that much difference.

Besides, Adler's dominatrixness was the perfect excuse for why she was such a badass. She disarmed the people after her. She drugged Sherlock and whipped him into submission. Not exactly unempowered.
angel wrote:I could go on about how I knew we were in trouble when we saw Irene's ass before we saw her face
I don't think that really has anything to do with a lack of empowerment.
angel wrote:or how instead of being an intellectual rival to Holmes she manipulates people with sex
So the gun in her safe is her manipulating people with sex? The deductions about the dead hiker and the boomerang or the fact that Holmes was hit in the face by a friend? The sneaking Sherlock's coat back into his room? The feigned death? The trapped cell phone?

The Americans implied that she'd already outwitted them at least once. Hell, even though it was also manipulating with sex, the fact that she wore nothing to her introduction with Sherlock was incredibly smart because it gave him nothing to work with clue-wise. Her measurements as a safe combo wasn't all that shabby, either.
angel wrote:or how instead of succeeding and failing on her own merits she gets her schemes from Moriarty
She said that she didn't know what to do with the information she'd gathered - I thought she was referring to the airplane codes for the terrorist plot - and Moriarty told her how to mess with the Holmes brothers.

It came off to me like Adler having the goal of living it up for the rest of her life and Moriarty recognizing the code could do that. Further, Mycroft's code could be cracked by Sherlock, thus playing the brothers off each other while sending some very powerful people after the two of them.

At no point did I ever feel that Moriarty was calling her shots or making her plans.
angel wrote: and needs to be fucking rescued by Sherlock
Artistic license. She rescued Sherlock from Moriarty at the beginning of the episode.
angel wrote:I don't feel like I'm in a good position to pass judgement on how she seemingly identifies as a lesbian but still crushes on Sherlock, but I do think that it bears mentioning as a questionable choice.
Brains are the new sexy. Personally, I would expect a Domme to be Bi.
But that's just me.

;)
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Let me put it this way: if the reimagined Sherlock was also reimagined as gender-swapped, do you think there is any chance that the masculine version of Adler would have been a gay (and it is gay, not bi) sex worker introduced with an ass shot? Who instead of having a character-defining modest victory over the detective is utterly defeated and reduced to begging? Of course not.

Moffat's Irene Adler is built around her sexuality; it is her job, how she gets her macguffin, how she pulls off her disappearing act, by 'knowing what men like.' The episode's entire scheme is a honey pot trap. Yes, she is smart and tough, but she is sexually manipulative first.

And that makes her far more regressive than the original character. Who out-thought Holmes, who managed to fool him with a disguise because she was a trained actress, and who won his respect, not his lust or his pity.
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Post by Maj »

Angel wrote:and it is gay, not bi
The conversation:

Watson: ...I'm not actually gay.
Adler: Well I am. Look at us both.
<Sherlock's phone goes off with moaning notification>
Adler: I don't think so, do you?

I interpreted Adler's admission ("Well I am") as mocking John's vehement denial. Like she wasn't afraid of saying it when he was. The "Look at us both" refers to the fact that regardless of sexuality, she and John can't seem to do anything but orbit Holmes.

The last statement was remarking on Sherlock's sexuality (he's not gay).

Also, she got the code Sherlock cracked from a male MOD official who "was a bit tied up at the time." So clearly her dominatrix ways swing in both directions.
Angel wrote:And that makes her far more regressive than the original character. Who out-thought Holmes, who managed to fool him with a disguise because she was a trained actress, and who won his respect, not his lust or his pity.
The original Adler was introduced to the reader as an adventuress. That does not mean what a D&D geek might thinks it means. Further, the only thing she did was fool Sherlock with a disguise and leave him a picture of herself in an evening dress (which, I'd like to point out, notably had low décolletages as opposed to day-time dress).

Going with SHER as modern Adler's passcode was something I thought was brilliant - even though it may have shown some sentimentality on her part, Holmes is renown for not being sentimental, and not really being able to relate to it. By understanding what her code is, he demonstrates that he gets it, and we see his own vulnerability (this iteration of Holmes could actually be the father of Nero Wolfe).

;)

I get that some people are going to see the episode as being demeaning to women, but quite frankly, I didn't see it and I prefer to continue thinking of the modern Adler as badass, not disempowered.

So there.

:tongue:
Last edited by Maj on Fri Jan 06, 2012 5:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by angelfromanotherpin »

Maj wrote:The original Adler was introduced to the reader as an adventuress. That does not mean what a D&D geek might thinks it means.
It means she's sexually liberated and openly has sex with her lovers out of wedlock. It does not mean she's a prostitute. Conflating the two positions is something I'd expect in the nineteenth century.
Maj wrote:Further, the only thing she did was fool Sherlock with a disguise and leave him a picture of herself in an evening dress (which, I'd like to point out, notably had low décolletages as opposed to day-time dress).
Um, no. Holmes has a scheme to find out where she keeps the compromising photo without her knowing who he is or that he's done so. And while it works initially, she manages to reason out that it must have been both him and a scheme in time to be able to confirm her suspicions with the disguise and then get clean away with the photo - thereby defeating him. The photo she leaves behind is only ambiguously for Holmes - he certainly behaves as if he believes it was meant for her old boyfriend what with turning it over to him and then asking for it as his payment.
I get that some people are going to see the episode as being demeaning to women, but quite frankly, I didn't see it and I prefer to continue thinking of the modern Adler as badass, not disempowered.


Barb Wire and Lady Death are badass, but that doesn't mean they aren't first and foremost masturbation aids.

Honestly, I would not have had a problem with Moffat's Adler if she had been an original creation for the series. I am not saying she is not a strong character. I am saying that despite the intervening passage of women's suffrage and the civil rights movement, she is more designed to be a masturbation aid than the character she was adapted from. And that's not okay.
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Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

I sense something in Angel here that I've felt myself many times.

I actively dislike female characters who use sex as a tool to get what they want because I've been on the receiving end of that so many times in the past I can't imagine that any woman wouldn't try it at some point.

I'm not going to throw around fancy buzz-words like "disempower" and "regressed" here. I'm just saying that a woman acting like she likes you for something that she wants then dropping you ranks as the most painful thing I've endured. I've honest to god been sexually assaulted on several occasions, and being manipulated like that hurts just as bad, at least it hurt me just as bad. I can't watch a man get manipulated by a woman with sex without feeling like I'm going to vomit.

And Angel is giving a hint that he's been there too. At least, I sense that hatred in him that I know only too well.
Last edited by Count Arioch the 28th on Fri Jan 06, 2012 6:09 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Kaelik »

As just a matter of social politeness, when you are a terrible person with no redeeming qualities, but extremely terrible ones, don't talk about how you see your shittiest qualities in others.

I mean, no one likes it when Hitler talks about seeing Jew Hatred in other people, so don't attempt to shove your sexism on to others.
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Post by Chamomile »

I think your own experiences are clouding your judgment, Count. I don't really get that vibe from AFAP at all. I'm pretty sure he's mostly concerned about a strong female character being downgraded to being less strong, just like he says. If you want to be cynical, you might argue that he only believes this to cover some kind of insecurity within himself or whatever, and that he doesn't actually care about women or even any specific woman at all, but either way I'm pretty sure he dislikes the character for completely different reasons from you.
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Post by Maj »

angel wrote:It means she's sexually liberated and openly has sex with her lovers out of wedlock. It does not mean she's a prostitute. Conflating the two positions is something I'd expect in the nineteenth century.
They're both sluts. They both got compromising information from people by being sluts. Who gives a shit? Why is choosing to sleep around without getting paid somehow more empowering than choosing to sleep around with getting paid?
angel wrote:And while it works initially, she manages to reason out that it must have been both him and a scheme in time to be able to confirm her suspicions with the disguise and then get clean away with the photo - thereby defeating him.
No. She realized that she exposed something valuable in front of a stranger and got suspicious (It's not like she hadn't already had to deal with the King's agents). She donned a disguise to follow him in order to verify her suspicions and realized it was Holmes when they arrived at his address (which had been given to her as warning some months before).
The photo she leaves behind is only ambiguously for Holmes - he certainly behaves as if he believes it was meant for her old boyfriend what with turning it over to him and then asking for it as his payment.
It was for the King. She said so in her letter.
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Post by Maxus »

I actually re-read that story the other day.

From what I gathered, she was enjoying her time with the King, and thought they were in a solid relationship. Except he wouldn't even consider marrying her, her being a commoner and all. It isn't explicitly spelled out that he was dick to her about that, but it's heavily implied.

And she was in a fury about that and blackmailing him with the threat of ruining his courtship of one of the Scandinavian princesses--except she found an actually decent guy, got married (unwittingly with Sherlock as the best man), and then didn't care.

But, yes, I much prefer her as an opera singer who scores a point on Sherlock.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

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Post by RobbyPants »

I just watched the first episode of Archer yesterday and it was great! I need to pick up the first two seasons.
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Post by PoliteNewb »

Maj wrote:
angel wrote:It means she's sexually liberated and openly has sex with her lovers out of wedlock. It does not mean she's a prostitute. Conflating the two positions is something I'd expect in the nineteenth century.
They're both sluts. They both got compromising information from people by being sluts. Who gives a shit? Why is choosing to sleep around without getting paid somehow more empowering than choosing to sleep around with getting paid?
If you do it for money, the implication is that you wouldn't do it without the money...hence, doing it without getting paid is a more free choice, since an external influence is removed.

You honestly see no difference in sleeping around for your own gratification and being a sexual plaything for money?

I don't want to bag on prostitutes, I think it's a valid choice for people who want to do that...but there's no point in denying that sex work is often demeaning to the people who do it, and a lot of people choose it because of the compensation, not because they actually enjoy it (like a lot of jobs). Comparing that to something you do without compensation, for enjoyment...is a little off, don't you think?
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Post by sabs »

Except, Adler in the original is a Black Widow, and uses Sex for Favors/Power. Wether she enjoys it or not, is.. hard to say. Adler uses sex as a way to control men, her payment may not be in cold hard cash, but she IS getting paid for it.

She's smart, clearly beautiful, and uses sex as a means to an end.
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Post by Kaelik »

PoliteNewb wrote:If you do it for money, the implication is that you wouldn't do it without the money...hence, doing it without getting paid is a more free choice, since an external influence is removed.
If you do it with attractive people, the implication is that you wouldn't do it to ugly people...hence, doing it without caring how attractive your partner is is a more free choice, since an external influence is removed.

Or you know, that's retarded.

It's not a less free choice to do something because you get more out of it.

I would have sex with Jessica Alba. I would also have sex with Jessica Alba if she paid me a million dollars.

I would not have sex with Betty White. I would have sex with Betty White if she paid me a million dollars.

That doesn't mean that I am making a less free choice to have sex with Betty White. It means that the million dollars is changing having sex with Betty White from something I do not want to do, into something I do want to do, and to the extent that "free choice" means anything real at all, it means that I am making a free choice with different answers based on the change in circumstance.

Exactly like my refusal to have sex with Jessica Alba if she has Aids is not because my choice is less free, it's because the circumstances have changed.
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Post by Maxus »

sabs wrote:Except, Adler in the original is a Black Widow, and uses Sex for Favors/Power. Wether she enjoys it or not, is.. hard to say. Adler uses sex as a way to control men, her payment may not be in cold hard cash, but she IS getting paid for it.

She's smart, clearly beautiful, and uses sex as a means to an end.
Original? Did you even read the original? She thought she was in a committed relationship with the King of Bohemia. And then she found out he thought her just an amusement and was understandably pissed off at this and threatened to go public. Hell hath no fury.

Once she calmed down, she got over it, found herself a decent guy, and let the King go on his merry way because she didn't care any more.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Post by Maxus »

I'm genuinely enjoying Anor Londo in Dark Souls. The place has some incredible architecture, and every time I turn around I find some sweet loot. It's basically the part of the game that says, "Yeah. You've hit the big time. Here's your Silver Knight armor, and Havel's equipment set. Let there be awesome bows and mighty swords and Church Ninjas."

Seriously, I got my ass handed to me by about four of the church ninjas because I didn't realize how many of them there'd be coming at me at once.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Post by Maj »

PoliteNewb wrote:If you do it for money, the implication is that you wouldn't do it without the money...hence, doing it without getting paid is a more free choice, since an external influence is removed.
Gotcha. I don't know how much I agree, but I'm just trying to understand someone else's perspective.
PN wrote:You honestly see no difference in sleeping around for your own gratification and being a sexual plaything for money?
In this particular case, no. This version of Adler came off more like she's tried investment banking and found it unsatisfying; she tried being a spy and didn't care for it; she found being a CEO of a multinational corporation too unfun. So she decided to be a dominatrix to very powerful people and make massive amounts of money doing it.

At no point did I even come close to the impression that she was working for someone other than herself, or working for any other reason than that she liked to.
PN wrote:Comparing that to something you do without compensation, for enjoyment...is a little off, don't you think?
I'm with sabs on this. The original Adler may not have charged by the hour, but having a sugar daddy was definitely payment.
Maxus wrote:Original? Did you even read the original? She thought she was in a committed relationship with the King of Bohemia. And then she found out he thought her just an amusement and was understandably pissed off at this and threatened to go public. Hell hath no fury.
I did. I realized after reading angel's first post that my impressions of Adler were largely created by auxiliary literature written by other people. So I went back and reread the story and was horribly disappointed.

Adler was a well-known player of the field. She retired from singing at a young age and moved to London. She has compromising letters and a photograph of the [then] crown prince of Bohemia from five years prior. There is no mention of the emotional content of their relationship other than that the king was "insane" and "mad" about her.

We know that Adler is planning on revealing the photos in three days time (when the King announces his betrothal) - according to the king, it's because Adler doesn't want him to marry another woman, but there is nothing to confirm (or deny) that. During the story, she gets insta-married to one Mr. Godfrey Norton.
Maxus wrote:Once she calmed down, she got over it, found herself a decent guy, and let the King go on his merry way because she didn't care any more.
With two days left to go? After months of threats to release the photos? With my 21st century sensibilities, I would presume that finding a decent guy didn't happen as quickly as the wedding did. If that's the case, then Adler was threatening the king while entertaining another man. If that's not the case, then Adler found a guy in a couple of days, married him, and ran away to save her own skin (she did that last part regardless of her true feelings for any male in the story).
Last edited by Maj on Sat Jan 07, 2012 1:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
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