Grease Live: Look at Me, I'm Sandra PC

Image source from jessiej.com

Alright, that title is probably a little scathing, but bear with me!!

Whenever I see a post that says something along the lines of "2015/6 is too PC! No one can say anything anymore!" I generally find myself doing an hour long eye roll. To me it sounds like some scrawny white dude sitting alone in his room with a Mountain Dew, complaining that he can't call all women sluts and bitches, and everyone else some racist bullshit without getting called out on it anymore. But, in a twisted turn of events, I found myself saying the very same thing while watching Grease Live!

Image sourced from ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com

I know I'm starting this post on a bad note - and I have positive things to say about it, but honestly I just felt like this needed to be said, so I'm getting it over with.

Before you start wondering, no, my problem was NOT with them removing the line "all couples must be boy-girl only". That line is obviously dated, so I'm glad they removed it, but then again? You know what is also dated? The line in 'Summer Nights' "did she put up a fight". And yet, that line remained. So my eyebrows were raised. But no, my issue will never be with things going PC to accommodate the basic human rights to dance with your desired partner and to not get raped.

What my problem was, was the toning down of the teen sexuality. Most specifically, the changes to the song 'Grease Lightnin'. In particular the line "chick's will cream" was changed to "chicks will scream", and "she's a real pussy wagon" was changed to "she's a real dream wagon". WHAT? WHAT IS THIS SHIT? I get it, I get it. Blah, blah, blah "won't someone think of the kids". But honestly, when I was a kid I had no idea what the lyrics to any song were, and when I did, I had no idea what they meant. By the time I knew what it meant for a chick to "cream" I was damn well old enough to be shown that sort of thing. And anyway, what good was it when you still had the raunchy dancing and teen sex?

Image sourced from bustle.com

It doesn't make me happier to know that it was because, according to Vanity Fair "corporate sponsors like Coca-Cola forced the show to tone down some of the language." To what end anyway? If you want a family-friendly, Sandra Dee only show, maybe you should've picked a live rendition of The Wizard of Oz, or something else. The whole message of Grease is to discuss teenage sex and all that comes with it, there's just no sense in doing away with it - especially when the themes are so inescapable.

But with all this negativity said and done, this wasn't an overall bad experience. For instance, Jan, the character so often picked on for her "overeating" actually finally looks like a girl who eats Twinkies. Not to bag on the actress who played her the original Grease, but for a character who was always told she was fat and needed to diet, until now she had never actually looked like anything but super slim. More than that, but while she did have the odd comment thrown her way about her eating, and she made her own commentary on her weight, she also wasn't thrown as much negativity as the original Jan. Now that's a PC change I can get behind!

Now for the itty-bitty nitty-gritty - the performances. I would have to say, although I am a huge Aaron Tveit fan, there was little chance of him standing up to John Travolta, but I found the only issue I truly had with his performance, was of his lack of John Travolta pizzazz when it came to saying those classic lines. No one shouts/sings the name "SAAAAAANDY" or "why it could be... GREASE LIGHTNINNNN" like Travolta, and while it was disappointing that those pitchy lines were missing, I understand that they're probably difficult, and even harder when performing live. Aaron... I forgive you.

Also while I'm on the subject of pizzazz and flair in performances - what was with having a singing trio instead of a Teen Angel? Those guys killed it, but really, why not just one of them playing the suave and sexy Teen Angel? My disappointment was real.

But here I am back to negativity! I'm sorry! I did like things! In particular Vanessa Hudgens as Rizzo, and Julianne Hough as Sandy. I felt Julianne played a spot on Sandy, and in fact, was very comparable to Olivia Newton-John. Vanessa's Rizzo, I felt was a little more downplayed to the original, but I liked it, and I liked that this character was so different to the last performance of hers I've seen - Gabriella from HSM.

One last honourable mention and then I'll wrap this up - Jordan Fisher as Doody - I LOVE YOU!!!!

TL;DR: It's PC, but not in the way you'd think, and has otherwise made some positive changes to dialogue and casting to move this story into the 21st Century, but this version will still never stand up to the original. Nevertheless, it was all good fun and worth the watch... Just don't expect to be throwing out your original Grease VHS any time soon.

Sherlock and the Abominable Bride: The Game is Afoot and the Story's on the Nose

Image sourced from myvue.com

First of all, I wish to clarify that while I was once a very, very big fan of BBC's Sherlock, I no longer am. Not only was I getting rather sick of the racist and sexist undertones, and flat out pissed off at the ableist overtones, narratively speaking the third season was the equivalent of the big, bad, King of the Jungle lion spending his days licking his asshole (which is a fact of nature but still, nonetheless, a disappointment.) Because of this I was not exactly excited for the Sherlock holiday special, but I harboured enough interest in the 19th Century setting that I managed to watch it, in some ways I was impressed, in others I was less than surprised and found myself thinking about the lion analogy.

In saying all this, I might as well start with what I liked about the episode. As always, I thoroughly enjoyed the use of filming techniques, particularly where they placed Holmes' living room into the setting of Lestrade’s story about the bride.

I felt the use of camera movement, as well as the visual aspect of them being physically immersed in Lestrade's story was done really well, and things like this are what BBC Sherlock is really good at doing - when it's doing good. This is the same with the use of text on screen. One of the things BBC Sherlock does unlike any other, is employ text to read out text messages and the like - something not many others can say they've done successfully. As it turns out, this also works with things like telegrams, proof that taking a model made in the 19th Century, twisting it to fit the 21st Century, and then twisting it again back into the 19th Century, is not necessarily an impossible feat, and I have to say I was rather impressed.

Image sourced from everythingforasherlockfan.tumblr.com

I also really liked the rather on-the-nose fourth-wall acknowledgement in the episode. Moffat et al are clearly fully aware of the lack of spotlight for their female characters - or at the very least fully aware of the audiences awareness of this - and this was easy to see in the ways Mrs Hudson and Mary both made commentary on their own characters in the story. I found Mrs Hudson's commentary on her lack of commentary in the narrative refreshing, and Mary's commentary on her lack of involvement/necessity to the storyline much needed. Unfortunately, my excitement was short lived, because although the writers made these characters aware of the flaws in their writing, it soon become apparent that that was all they were going to do. I'm sorry, but simply nodding towards your flaws and acknowledging that you see them, is not quite the same as actually doing something to fix them.

As you can probably tell we've already moved on from the things I liked about the episode...

On the topic of women's roles in the episode, and the greater BBC Sherlock universe, it is clear that Moffat et al are attempting some sort of change in, perhaps the audiences attitude towards sexism in the show? But certainly not the shows attitude towards sexism. I mean, first of all, the entire suffragette storyline was clunky and forced. Even from it's first mention (Mary, seemingly random and out of the blue comment "I'm part of a campaign you know - votes for women.") the whole narrative seemed like it was thrown in after the script had already been written. None of it seemed all that thought through, and it felt a bit like an attempt to appease those damned dirty, liberal hippie SJW's. But even then it fell far short of that. The suffragette's are literally seen in KKK hoods! What on earth was Moffat thinking? What on earth was anyone, on set or off, actually thinking when they let that happen? Insane. Utterly insane. The whole story just came off as a meninist who feels like the angry feminists are ruining his show but also his main demographic.

Another problem, in terms of representation, is something I see in almost every piece of work Moffat gets his hands on. Moffat’s heroes tend to take on certain traits of autism, such as the occasional (or in Sherlock’s case, the not so occasional) misunderstanding of social cues. Instead of using this to perhaps, create storylines for autism spectrum disorder audiences to relate to, or even improve representation, instead Moffat uses this to distance his heroes from the rest of the characters in an attempt to make the hero seem “abnormal”. Occasionally this is to make the hero look even more genius, but other times it is used to isolate the hero and make him dislikable to the audience. Either way, it’s really starting to get on my nerves, and it is a poor substitute for real representation of ASD. It's offensive, it's lazy, and it is unfortunately something that so many of the audience is enjoying.

Image sourced from xen0phile.tumblr.com

This is much the same for Sherlock’s technical alignment with asexuality, but narrative rejection of anything other than heterosexuality. Although it should be obvious to the audience, and definitely to someone categorised as a genius detective, that he is asexual, Moffat and almost every other past and present depiction of Sherlock Holmes continues to force down our throats the idea that he is a heterosexual manly man who only refuses sexual and romantic relationships because they “distract him.”

In saying this, I am no expert on those topics, and if you are truly interested in a proper discussion on them I would have to direct you elsewhere. Instead I'll simply segway back into what I know best (or at least better) - TV and film.

Something I've heard many viewers complain about is the premise for the episode. Why on earth are they back in 19th Century England? And why would a mind palace work in that way? In some ways, I absolutely agree. Initially, I simply found the premise too obvious. I found myself hearing Sherlock mutter “. . .back of the head blown clean off. How could he survive?” and all I could think was "dammit. Of course this is all about Moriarty. Of course we can't just have a fun, cracky episode set in the 19th Century because why not?" I understand it was because the writers needed a way to link this episode back to the main narrative of the last season and the future one, but I felt it was unnecessary. I’m a huge fan of cracky episodes, and in the end I was rather disappointed that this could hardly be categorised as one, and even then, after all that, they managed to not even solve Moriarty’s case. The entire hour and a half was just a teaser, an annoying teaser that need not have strayed towards the main narrative at all to be exciting, different, and captivating.

In the end, had it have been simple a crack holiday special where Watson and Holmes and all the characters found themselves in the 19^th Century I would’ve been happy. I understand that because this show doesn’t involve itself with the supernatural or extraterrestrial that it may be hard to wrap your head around, but really, it was such a great idea but once the narrative began to move away from 19^th Century England and back into the whole Moriarty conspiracy in the 21^st Century I felt the success of the episode fall apart. It was no longer spooky, or different, or special, it was simply another narrative where we spent an hour inside Sherlock’s great, otherworldly, amazing, genius mind, and much like the rest of the characters in his mind, we simply had to sit there and let it all happen around us, with seemingly no reason behind any of it other than for the levels of Sherlock's mind palace to circle jerk. Probably with Moffat.

TL;DR: Moffat is still a sexist, racist, abliest pig, but hey, he's trying not to look like one ok guys? So can you filthy ess-jay-double-yewz stop like, bullying him?? Please?