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Sandman
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@Selira I think criticizing Sandman - of all shows - over its representation of race or sexual/gender orientation is probably unfair.
But more specifically many of its villains were white old men. Many of its best and most powerful characters - like Death - were POC. Other major ones were gender-flipped (Lucifer, Constantine) compared to the comic. Several very sympathetic characters weren’t straight.
As an avid lover of the comic and the many artists that worked on it (Like Jeffrey Catherine Jones, one of the most underrated, amazing, phenomenal artists of any generation), I loved all of the changes. They elevated what they changed and I am very happy with what they produced. I’m glad they didn’t fuck it up and even with my bar set that low, the series blew my expectations away.
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@Arkandel And many of those changes were in the second half of the season. In the first half we see Lucienne, Paul, Garry, Kate, Nada, Rosemary, Mazikeen, Rachel, Agilieth, Cain, Abel, Ruthven, Kevin and Ric the Vic (as well as a very brief appearance by Rose) as POC characters. There’s a pretty strong pattern of these characters being subservient to white characters, victims, or villains. Death doesn’t appear until the second half, nor do the Walker/Kincaid family in any kind of prominent role.
Just because a show was clearly trying – and to be clear, I think Sandman most certainly was! – doesn’t mean it’s above critique where it stumbled. I’m not saying it ruined the show – I loved the show! – there were just some things that had me a bit
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@Selira I refer to anyone who does not have chronic back and knee pain as a child.
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There’s a bit of a (justified) uproar online about the fact Netflix hasn’t approved Sandman for a second season yet.
I mean, I get it, it’s an expensive production. It’s also probably the best thing they’ve put out in years. And they do have a reputation for killing fan-loved shows only to replace them with utter junk.
I’m already debating whether maintaining a Netflix subscription is worth it as it is.
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There’s actually a grim reason why Netflix cancels so many shows in after the first, or more often second, season. Apparently it’s very long standing convention in the tv industry to pay actors and staff ~70% of their normal expectation during the first few seasons of a show before it “takes off”. Netflix has taken advantage of this to float a metric ton of shows for cheap and then drop them.
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@shit-piss-love Well, that’s valid from Netflix’s point of view! And from mine, I can always use that extra $20/month while I sail the seven seas for the occasional production they haven’t cancelled yet.
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NEW EP JUST DROPPED!
Dream of cats and Callipoe!
On my birthday! Life is good!
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I guess it’s good I’ve been dragging my feet on wrapping up my thoughts on the series, then.
@BloodAngel Happy birthday.
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@BloodAngel omg omg omg omg happy and happy I didn’t know they were going to release more!!!
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Was going to post a link, but then figured it might contain spoilers. It was one Neil Gaiman had posted on his FB page.
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Well. If they had to depict the SA scene, I’m glad they did it with a camera zoom onto a word processor screen and an ugly musical sting.
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@GF Thank you!
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I just watched the new episode.
And I also made the mistake of reading two articles about the new episode after the fact, one written by a man, one written by a woman.
The episode was lovely. The articles… have me expecting that any conversation about Calliope’s story is going to be dominated by a very specific subset of male comic nerds who are too fucking stupid to even understand what happened, let alone be entitled to write paid think-pieces about it in popular media.
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@Aria Well now you gotta share the link. I am in the mood to see if I will laugh or get angry.
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@GF Have you read the comics? Because it’s VERY spoilery if not.
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@Aria I have. I’m very familiar with the story.
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@GF Well in that case, here we go.
The article bothers me because it’s so completely reductive about Calliope’s story, glossing over it almost entirely save to explain how it affects the men involved and Dream in particular. I find the last few paragraphs especially egregious because the author literally argues that before Morpheus had a Big Big Sad (which is tragic and horrific, but not the focus of this episode or what’s going on with Calliope), his real problem is that he cares too much and is just a sensitive soul who has always felt things too deeply.
Because, y’know, what he did to Nada at pretty much the dawn of humanity was just a real tragedy for him, I guess? And not, y’know, that he’s been a bit of a melodramatic, self-obsessed knob who is terrible at relationships since basically the dawn of time, to the point that even his sister is all “Dream, love. Petal. Pumpkin. My dearest bro-bro. Pull your head out of your ass for, like, five minutes.”
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@Aria I was first struck by how it’s just kind of badly written. I’m sure he thinks lines like “After bonding over their mutual bondage” are clever, but they just come off as clunky. I don’t even know what he means about writing in blood saving on the electric bill.
But yeah, his assessment of Morpheus is pretty shallow and idealized. He does not seem to understand that Morpheus has a lot of toxic masculinity he needs to deal with, especially in the story about sex slavery of a goddess where those traits are thematically resonant. I don’t expect a random dude writing wiki-style summaries of comic book plots to have a solid foundation in feminist theory, but this guy does need to improve his media literacy.
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@GF I am profoundly disturbed that the man claims to specialize in LGBTQIA+ media. I saw that and I reflexively said, “…Please don’t.” Like, out loud.
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The way I always read it is that the true tragedy of the story is Morpheus wants to be better. He can be better. He has it in him; there are moments where he is genuinely… well, human.
But he’s also such an asshole. Too proud, too stubborn, too stuck in his ways. He’s good enough to make people care for him and then he fucks them over when they do - sometimes because they do.
He knows this. He wants to change. He can’t.
