Isn't that always the way?
Jul. 24th, 2009 12:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenSo, I finally got to see Torchwood: Children of Earth. If this is how they work it when they're not doing full seasons, then, shit, yo, never let them write 13-episode seasons again. It was easily the most compelling Torchwood ever. They tackled big issues, and they--gosh!--dealt with them. Not in that "everyone is forgiven 'cause everyone messes up" way either, which was most shocking of all. I really enjoyed it...
...up until Day Three when I, looking for icons for a totally unrelated fandom, got spoiled for MAJOR PLOT DEVELOPMENTS by someone not putting a spoiler warning on their icon dump and I saw spoiler icons for the series. THANKS A LOT, ICON MAKER.
Seriously, I managed to go a few weeks without being spoiled through vigilance and courtesy of those who'd seen and did everything in their power to give away nothing. The second I let my guard down, boom, spoiled. SIGH.
I did still enjoy the series. I liked how weighty it felt and how it even made me sympathize with some fairly evil folk here and there. (Except that one lady. No spoilers to say that, just, yeah, if you've seen it, you know who I mean.) Over at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ivy03's post, I mentioned how very Who it seemed at parts--where perfectly ordinary people got to be amazing, and I really liked that counter-balance to the people who were inherently extraordinary or just powerful who were complete dicks a lot of the time.
I thinkivy03 gets into it in more and better detail than I'll ever manage, so go read and comment on her post if you like. (Spoilers, naturally.) The one thing someone brought up that I held onto so I could address it after I'd seen it all was this question raised over at io9: Was Children of Earth homophobic? (Spoilers!)
My short answer is no, but that doesn't mean they didn't slip up a bit. What I mean is, I don't have any issue with them killing a "gay" character. I raise my eyebrow more at the fact that said character's homosexual relationship was constantly teased or derided throughout the miniseries. I like that Ianto was basically not really gay just in love with a guy. That's fairly progressive, to say nothing of how romantic (in the schmoopy and classical sense) it is--the idea that you can overlook your own biological instinct if love is involved. I mean, that's powerful stuff that our heteronormative society can't hardly accept--that you could have romantic feelings for someone of a gender you're not normally attracted to. And that that's okay! That you can go ahead and have that relationship and not really be gay if you really aren't. Love conquers all! There's no evidence this "gay" character really is, was, or ever would have been gay. Not even bi. He just loved one guy enough not to care.
But he did care, and that's where the show went off target. Having Ianto's sister tease him about dating a man was kinda adorable, if only because at the time and later it became clear that she really did it out of love herself (we always tease our siblings, no matter their choices) and because she was desperate to know more about the life he never shared with her. Subsequent engagements on the subject were less kind. I could have done without Clement's "queer" comment entirely. That was just ugly. They lampshade it with Ianto saying it's not the 1960s any more, and that kind of talk speaks to ignorance, but still. That didn't need to be there. That it was played for humor makes it harder to divine the butt of the joke, but I'm certain it was Ianto, given how he's the bristly, fussy type who positively exploded at the comment. (The straight man who loses it is almost always the victim of the humor.) But it could have gone both ways, just as love-conquers-all is my read on what could also be read as they-took-away-a-gay-character-and-just-made-him-conditionally-gay with the whole Jack/Ianto thing.
I have other thoughts on the abuses of power and the ugliness of the ethical choices, but they've been covered by most other people. I might get around to posting them, I might not.
...up until Day Three when I, looking for icons for a totally unrelated fandom, got spoiled for MAJOR PLOT DEVELOPMENTS by someone not putting a spoiler warning on their icon dump and I saw spoiler icons for the series. THANKS A LOT, ICON MAKER.
Seriously, I managed to go a few weeks without being spoiled through vigilance and courtesy of those who'd seen and did everything in their power to give away nothing. The second I let my guard down, boom, spoiled. SIGH.
I did still enjoy the series. I liked how weighty it felt and how it even made me sympathize with some fairly evil folk here and there. (Except that one lady. No spoilers to say that, just, yeah, if you've seen it, you know who I mean.) Over at
ivy03's post, I mentioned how very Who it seemed at parts--where perfectly ordinary people got to be amazing, and I really liked that counter-balance to the people who were inherently extraordinary or just powerful who were complete dicks a lot of the time.I think
ivy03 gets into it in more and better detail than I'll ever manage, so go read and comment on her post if you like. (Spoilers, naturally.) The one thing someone brought up that I held onto so I could address it after I'd seen it all was this question raised over at io9: Was Children of Earth homophobic? (Spoilers!)My short answer is no, but that doesn't mean they didn't slip up a bit. What I mean is, I don't have any issue with them killing a "gay" character. I raise my eyebrow more at the fact that said character's homosexual relationship was constantly teased or derided throughout the miniseries. I like that Ianto was basically not really gay just in love with a guy. That's fairly progressive, to say nothing of how romantic (in the schmoopy and classical sense) it is--the idea that you can overlook your own biological instinct if love is involved. I mean, that's powerful stuff that our heteronormative society can't hardly accept--that you could have romantic feelings for someone of a gender you're not normally attracted to. And that that's okay! That you can go ahead and have that relationship and not really be gay if you really aren't. Love conquers all! There's no evidence this "gay" character really is, was, or ever would have been gay. Not even bi. He just loved one guy enough not to care.
But he did care, and that's where the show went off target. Having Ianto's sister tease him about dating a man was kinda adorable, if only because at the time and later it became clear that she really did it out of love herself (we always tease our siblings, no matter their choices) and because she was desperate to know more about the life he never shared with her. Subsequent engagements on the subject were less kind. I could have done without Clement's "queer" comment entirely. That was just ugly. They lampshade it with Ianto saying it's not the 1960s any more, and that kind of talk speaks to ignorance, but still. That didn't need to be there. That it was played for humor makes it harder to divine the butt of the joke, but I'm certain it was Ianto, given how he's the bristly, fussy type who positively exploded at the comment. (The straight man who loses it is almost always the victim of the humor.) But it could have gone both ways, just as love-conquers-all is my read on what could also be read as they-took-away-a-gay-character-and-just-made-him-conditionally-gay with the whole Jack/Ianto thing.
I have other thoughts on the abuses of power and the ugliness of the ethical choices, but they've been covered by most other people. I might get around to posting them, I might not.
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Date: 2009-07-27 01:29 pm (UTC)Gwen does think that Jack hangs the stars, but at the end of CoE, it's questionable if she knows exactly what happened. She may not.