Hello, Tailor

Rationalizing Wonder Woman's Amazon costumes

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 16:45:00 +0000

Entertainment Weekly just posted the first pic from the new Wonder Woman movie, and it's stressing me out because I'm worried these ladies are gonna get stabbed in the junk.

The way I see it, there are two options here:

Wonder Woman and friends are sword-proof and invulnerable, and the armor is just a fashion choice.
The armor is "real," but inexplicably exposes everyone to lethal blows to the neck, arms, and upper thighs.

Now, I'm the first to admit that there's no such thing as a ~practical superhero costume. Their job is to look cool and distinctive, not to make perfect rational sense. Unfortunately for Wonder Woman, her wardrobe choices are colored by decades of sexist garbage movies where women wear skimpy outfits to satisfy our old friend the Male Gaze. In that context, this photo could probably benefit from... some pants, basically. Maybe just one woman wearing pants.

Analysing ~sexualized movie costumes is a real can of worms, because you very quickly become embroiled in the issue of shaming real women for their fashion choices. However, there's a very big difference between a real person deciding to wear a strapless metal bathing suit (do what thou wilt!) and a movie studio marketing its first female action hero in the same kind of outfit. These costumes do not exist in a cultural vacuum.

With Wonder Woman, a lot will ride on the film's tone and aesthetic. To me, the costumes in that photo suggest the camp tone of Xena: Warrior Princess, where it felt perfectly acceptable for everyone to run around wearing leather bikinis. But this is a big-budget movie, spinning off from Zack Snyder's relentlessly dark-and-gritty Justice League franchise. It is almost certainly going to be Serious.

Lady Sif and the Warriors Three in Thor. Like Sif, Thor often wears sleeveless armor.

Marvel's Thor movies are probably a more useful comparison than Xena, and I can't help but look at the difference between Wonder Woman's Amazons and Thor's Asgardian brethren: Heimdall, Sif, and the Warriors Three, who represent a variety of races, body types, and costuming styles.

In the EW article, director Patty Jenkins says, "I, as a woman, want Wonder Woman to be hot as hell, fight badass, and look great at the same time," and goes on to describe the Amazons' high-heeled shoes as "wish-fulfilment." She also highlights the importance of the main characters looking "authentic" and "appealing to women," which I found interesting because, well... first and foremost, "women" is a pretty broad category. Some will find Xena-style costumes empowering, while others will find them tremendously offputting. Especially since the costumes look like armor, which implies they're meant to have some kind of practical purpose.

Better to have a broader range of styles between the characters, which makes it more obvious that individual women are making individual choices.

Wonder Woman DVD movie

When costuming a fantasy movie, you have to deal with a tricky balance of internal worldbuilding and external expectations. Wonder Woman is more complicated than most, because it comes with the baggage of Hollywood sexism and decades of comicbook canon.

In terms of external expectations, they had to design something that vaguely resembles the Wonder Woman of the comics, while also looking badass, sexy (apparently), and appealing to women. And those costumes need to be taken seriously by audiences in the context of a quasi-historical action movie. As for the internal logic of those costumes as fictional creations, we have to assume that the armor is purely decorative. The Amazons are superhumanly impervious to sword wounds, and their all-female society... somehow developed a beauty standard that involves body hair removal, bare legs, rigid boob armor, and high-heeled sandals. Stranger things have happened, I guess?

The Big Short: Douchepocalypse Now

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Tue, 26 Jan 2016 01:47:00 +0000

The Big Short is full of scenes where finance bros stare at each other in dawning horror, stunned by the realization that the U.S. economy is built on fraud and misinformation. Conveniently, that is exactly how I feel about The Big Short receiving any kind of critical acclaim whatsoever.

Going into this movie, I knew two things: the wigs and hairstyling looked horrible, and at some point Margot Robbie would explain The Economy while gratuitously nude. Thus warned, I assumed I was in for a reasonably good Oscar movie with some dumb misogynist garnishes. How wrong I was.

Instead, the experience was like gazing into Michael Moore's butthole with a telescope built by Seth MacFarlane.

Billed as a kind of biographical comedy, The Big Short is more like a docudrama with occasional jokes thrown in. The technical details are complex, but the basic narrative is simple: a handful of hedge fund managers correctly predict that the housing market is going to crash, and decide to bet against the U.S. economy. So while they do uncover some stunning examples of Wall Street fraud, they're not exactly underdog heroes. The cast is split between loud rich men who are Right but widely ignored by the financial establishment (Steve Carrell, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, et al), and everyone else, who is Wrong.

As a teaching tool, The Big Short does a good job of explaining the 2007 financial crisis. Its strongest point (aside from a couple of great performances from Christian Bale and Steve Carrell) was the way it flipped the narrative, encouraging you to root for the financial crash to happen so the protagonists would be proven right. But otherwise, you're stuck with dialogue feels like an interview transcript, interspersed with documentary-style montages of Americana footage. And it's relentlessly, pointlessly sexist throughout.

Take the Margot Robbie scene. Halfway through the movie, Ryan Gosling breaks the fourth wall and says something like, "This is boring, so here's Margot Robbie to explain it in a bubble bath." And that's it: two minutes of Margot Robbie talking about subprime loans from a bathtub.

Later they did something similar with Anthony Bourdain, and then with Selena Gomez and the economist Richard Thaler. In other words, two men who are experts in their field, and two women whose job was to look pretty while giving someone else's economics lecture. The pinnacle of smug, self-aware sexposition.

If you're telling a story about Wall Street during the financial crash, most of your main characters are going to be douchebags. It's unavoidable. The problem is that instead of digging into that characterization and examining why these guys are the way they are, The Big Short is just... a douchey movie about douchebags. It's critical of Wall Street on an institutional scale, yet still buys into the smug sense of humor shared by its cast of finance bro protagonists.

All the truly effective moments were drowned out by shitty little scenes like the racist joke about Ryan Gosling's Chinese math consultant. The second punchline comes when the consultant breaks the fourth wall and points out the joke is racist, but in a film populated by white protagonists and written by two white guys, this just doesn't work. Rather than being a moment of pithy self-criticism, it feels more like they hired an Asian actor to walk back a racist joke that the audience had already laughed at.

The final nail in the coffin was my discovery that Adam McKay straight-up deleted a woman from the narrative. Financial analyst Meredith Whitney was among those to predict the 2007 crash, and she even appeared in the nonfiction book The Big Short was based upon. But for whatever reason, Adam McKay decided not to include her, and instead focused on an oversized cast of white guys. The women in the movie were: Margot and Selena, some strippers, Steve Carrell's supportive wife, flirty Karen Gillen, a black lady who was Wrong, and a blind lady who was Wrong.

This kind of casting speaks volumes about Adam McKay's attitude to women, and makes it all the more embarrassing that he got nominated for Best Director and Adapted Screenplay. In another film, I'd accept an argument that the predominantly white male cast was a) realistic, and b) an intentional commentary on rich white guys getting away with murder. But in the context of a movie where Steve Carrell explains mortgage fraud to a topless stripper, it's clearly just poisonous garbage.

Awards eligibility post & highlights from 2015

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Sun, 24 Jan 2016 19:54:00 +0000

It's Hugo Award nomination season, and I'm eligible in the Fan Writer category!

If you enjoy this blog, please consider me on your Hugo ballot! (Or other non-Hugo awards that I don't know about!) To nominate for the 2016 Hugos, you either need to have attended Worldcon in 2015, or have bought a ticket for Worldcon 2016 or 2017. Or you can buy a "supporting membership," which lets you vote on the Hugos (so ~prestigious!) and get ebooks of the nominated books/short stories.

For the "fan writer" category, you can consider anything I wrote in a ~fannish capacity. So, this blog, along with my Tumblr and Twitter, etc. Here are some highlights from 2015!

Interview: Agent Carter costume designer Gigi Melton

Interview: Mad Max: Fury Road costume designer Jenny Beavan (Now nominated for an Oscar!)

The new heroes of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I'm looking forward to writing more about Star Wars this month!

What was up with that Black Widow scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron? My most ~controversial post of 2015, apparently.

Age of Ultron: The empire of Tony Stark On Age of Ultron's imperialist overtones, and Tony Stark's status as a burgeoning supervillain.

Ant-Man: Fun, but still a waste of $130 million

Review: Mad Max: Fury Road The most important movie of 2015.

Podcast: Guest appearance on Into It, discussing Mad Max: Fury Road with regular host Elle Collins.

For my other writing, head on over to Tumblr, where I host my more casual posts & commentary.

P.S. My friend Elizabeth Minkel and I recently launched a weekly newsletter for fanfic recs (a new fandom or fic theme each week!) and cool fandom news/links. You can sign up here, and check out previous issues here. It's pretty great!

The new heroes of 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Sun, 27 Dec 2015 00:54:00 +0000

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The Force Awakens aims straight for the nostalgic hindbrain of Star Wars fandom, but my favourite moments were invariably the ones where we saw something new.

The looming wreckage of a Star Destroyer on Jakku, hinting at three decades of history without a word of exposition. Kylo Ren's desperation to forge a new identity outside the established rivalry between Jedi and Sith. Rey's wordless introduction, focusing on her surroundings and her evocative theme music. And in a more general sense, the diversity of the cast, which may be the most significant innovation J.J. Abrams brought to the franchise. It's hard to articulate how important and exciting it feels to see actors like John Boyega, Daisy Ridley and Oscar Isaac at the helm of a story like this, except to say: oh my god I'm so in love.

You can easily map various aspects of the original trio onto Rey, Poe and Finn. In the foreground, Rey continues the Skywalker legacy as a Force-sensitive prodigy with a natural affinity for machines, trapped in an isolated desert settlement but dreaming of the stars. Then Finn and Poe share attributes from both Han and Leia: the pilot, the icon of the rebellion, the outlaw, the reluctant hero who is motivated more by love than by political ideals. Poe's arc in the first half of the film even follows Leia's role in A New Hope, as he passes important information to a droid before being kidnapped and interrogated by the enemy, only to be rescued by a stormtrooper.

This melting pot of familiar motifs is reminiscent of the way J.J. Abrams remixed Spock's death scene for Star Trek Into Darkness, but this time it was far more effective. While Into Darkness offered an unsatisfying copy of an already iconic moment, The Force Awakens had more in common with the way long-running superhero comics get updated for modern audiences. It extracted the most compelling ideas at the heart of Star Wars, pulled them apart, and rearranged them to make something fresh. This didn't always work (in particular, the Starkiller Base attack was unnecessarily derivative), but the three new leads were a phenomenal success.

Finn

First off: I'm super hyped that everyone's imaginary BFF John Boyega got to play one of the most interesting characters in the movie. Finn is funny and moving and instantly relatable, and he also answers an ongoing question that lurked in the background of the original trilogy: what kind of person becomes a stormtrooper, and why?

Finn's character arc raises so many interesting questions about life as a stormtrooper. Is he an anomoly, or have others abandoned the First Order and the Empire before? Rather than being the faceless drones of the original trilogy, are stormtroopers actually victims of cult indoctrination on an industrial scale? Are Poe and Rey the first friends Finn has ever had? Is Poe's jacket the first possession he's ever owned? Finn's background becomes more and more fascinating the more I think about it, not least because he's explicitly characterized as being so warm-hearted and full of personality, a burst of colour buried in the drab monochrome prison of the First Order.

TFA's nostalgia factor is something I plan to explore in a later post, but in terms of the main three characters I think it goes beyond their loose overlap with Han, Luke and Leia. The new heroes also embody some of the key narrative concepts at the heart of the franchise, with Finn representing the ongoing theme of personal choice. He takes the opposite role to Kylo Ren and Anakin, a classic example of an unwitting hero who drags himself out of obscurity to meet his true destiny.

Rey

Finn and Rey made me realize how many films just don't understand how to depict youth. I don't mean teen movies or coming-of-age stories, but the kind of youthful vitality that comes off Daisy Ridley and John Boyega in waves. They're so emotive and energetic! They react to everything so fast! They feel so much!

Rey is a new kind of Jedi. In fact, you could argue that she's not a Jedi at all. She uses the Force and she fights with a lightsaber, but she has none of the traditional Jedi training or ideology that we know from the other movies -- something that I hope gets explored in Episode VIII. Because let's face it: the Jedi suck.

The prequel trilogy, for all its many faults, is an effective parable about the Jedi being brought down by their own hubris. They're a stagnant organization, recruiting infants to go through rigorous training and then selecting the best ones to live the life of a monk. (Come to think of it, the Jedi have some things in common with the First Order's stormtrooper training program in that regard.) Stuck in a conference room on a heavily urbanized planet, the Jedi Council of The Phantom Menace were a perfect illustration of how far the Order strayed from the Living Force.

The Jedi's main purpose was to build empathy between all living things, but at the same time they pressured their members to avoid strong emotional attachments. So while Anakin and Padme's courtship is one of the worst love stories ever committed to film, you've got to admit that it's a compelling narrative conceit. By upholding the doctrine that forbade Jedi to fall in love, the Order sowed the seeds of its own downfall.

Throughout The Force Awakens, Rey's strength refutes the Jedi's traditional philosophy. Her greatest moment of Force-sensitive power is during her duel with Kylo Ren, but even then she's hardly an image of meditative calm. She's self-taught and passionate; the effort she exerts is visible in her face and body. We see her struggle, and get angry and excited and triumphant, and none of these emotions are perceived as a weakness to be eradicated. (Of course, Luke was similarly energetic in the original trilogy, but he had Yoda and Obi-Wan telling him to "calm his mind.")

I'm very interested to see what happens when Rey starts training with Luke, because while she clearly does need training in the Force, the other movies prove that the old-fashioned Jedi route is fundamentally flawed.

In the prequel trilogy, the Jedi Order feels old and tired, and eventually implodes. Then Obi-Wan and Yoda impart the remains of their knowledge to Luke in classic patriarchal mentor fashion, but Luke only defeats the Empire with the help of his friends. And we just found out that when Luke started training new young Jedi (presumably in the mould of his old masters), one of them went berserk and killed the rest. So I'm hoping that the next film will see Rey develop into a new kind of Jedi, one that fits more naturally with the idea of the living Force, combining vitality with serenity instead of eschewing all extremes of emotion.

As for Rey's thematic role in the franchise, she clearly follows in the footsteps of the Skywalker family saga. I don't necessarily buy into the popular theory that she's Luke's daughter, but the film does draw a ton of parallels between her, Luke, and Anakin. (Which makes it all the more ridiculous that so many Internet Fools called her a Mary Sue -- a meaningless criticism that always originates from a wellspring of misogyny.)

Luke had a relatively sheltered upbringing with his aunt and uncle on Tatooine, which explains why he spends so much time being petulant and bad at fighting in Episodes IV and V. Rey's childhood was far more lonely and harsh, forcing her to gain the kind of survival skills that Luke never needed. However, the key difference between Luke and Rey isn't their respective skill levels or life experience, but the ways they develop on the road to heroism.

In A New Hope, Luke follows a very traditional hero's journey storyline where he learns new skills to defeat an enemy. Rey's arc, on the other hand, is more about inner strength. She already knows how to take care of herself, but she remains on Jakku because she's tied to the memory of her family. Her turning point is less about fighting an external opponent, and more about letting go of the past and fulfilling her full potential.

There are so many great little moments that emphasize this point throughout the film. The marks on her AT-AT's wall resemble a prisoner counting down their days in captivity, but when she locks eyes with that old woman near the beginning of the movie, you know she's seeing a possible vision of her own future. Like Luke and Anakin before her, you assume that she's trapped in this desert outpost against her will -- but as soon as she steals the Millennium Falcon, you realize that she could have left Jakku at any time. This loyalty to her missing family is all the more heartbreaking when you see how powerful and determined she becomes when she finally leaves, reflecting Finn's confusion and excitement at his newfound freedom.

A quick note on Rey's parentage

Star Wars fans are going to spend the next 18 months debating whether Rey is a Skywalker or not. Personally, I hope she isn't -- partly because we've already had one Skywalker family ~revelation with Kylo Ren, and partly because it's hard to legitemize a scenario where Luke (or Han and Leia) leave a small child alone on a desert planet. Especially if she was abandoned as a direct result of Ben Solo turning to the Dark Side, an event that would have to take place when he was about 15 years old for the timelines to match up.

But either way, the most important thing to remember is that this is a J.J. Abrams movie.

After Lost and Star Trek, J.J. Abrams has more experience with fan theories and speculation than any other filmmaker on the planet. He's savvy about which hints to include and what details should remain a mystery. So with that in mind, I'm 100% sure there are no stray clues in TFA. The film is riddled with parallels between Rey and Luke (and/or hints that Rey was a Jedi trainee as a young child), but I doubt there's any way to reverse-engineer a full picture of her backstory from all the conflicting information we already know.

For my money, I think it makes for a better story if Rey's parents are someone new and unexpected. Kylo Ren is already continuing Anakin's legacy in a fresh and interesting way, and even by Star Wars standards, it feels a little too obvious to make Rey the third Skywalker to come from such similar origins -- particularly if that story requires some kind of memory-wipe situation for Han and Leia. Those marks on Rey's wall should mean something more than a new angle on Skywalker family angst.

Poe Dameron

Poe had far less character development than Finn or Rey, which honestly does not matter at all because he made up for it in sheer charm. While Finn and Rey did most of the emotional heavy lifting, Poe's role was vital in its simplicity: he embodied Star Wars' sense of cool.

Poe Dameron is the living personification of the pure exhileration Star Wars is meant to inspire. He's a heroic, handsome pilot who laughs in the face of danger and flies a cool spaceplane with his robot buddy. He's just cool, which is the only reason Star Wars ever needed for including things like laser swords, cape-wearing supervillains, shiny gold robots, or alien jazz bands. (N.B. that musical genre is canonically known as "jizz," just FYI.)

Also, it was entertaining to see Poe Dameron and Han Solo in the same movie, because it really highlighted how much Poe resembles the character some people think Han Solo is -- if they don't understand Han Solo at all, anyway.

Let's get one thing clear, here: Han Solo is not a hotshot pilot antihero. He's a huge dweeb who constantly gets into trouble thanks to his bad decisions, and is conclusively terrible at handling his emotions. His romance with Leia is endearing because he's such a disaster zone, not because he's some kind of cool charmer. Whereas Poe kind of is that character, albeit more straightforwardly heroic and cheerful. He's not a bad boy, but he is charming in a way that feels pleasantly retro, as if he was transported straight from the pages of a 1940s adventure story.

If you've read this far (and if you have: oh my god, well done, this post is long), you're probably enough of a Star Wars fan to have see the coverage of the Finn/Poe relationship. Honestly, as someone who writes about fandom for a living, this huge surge of interest kinda took me by surprise. I wrote an article about the Finn/Poe/Rey OT3 shortly after seeing the film (paying special attention to the romantic cinematography: "the camera spins around Poe and Finn like they're in the ballroom scene of a Regency romance.") but I was still blindsided by the amount of mainstream attention this pairing received.

On the one hand, Disney has the opportunity to make a long-overdue change in Hollywood if it allows Poe to be portrayed as canonically queer in the next movie. But at the same time, the Poe/Finn ship (and Poe's potential queerness) is based on the same kind of subtext that fans have been speculating about for decades. It definitely helps that Poe is not an established character like Magneto or Sherlock Holmes, but I'm still not enormously optimistic about the likelihood of Star Wars being the first blockbuster to introduce a queer action hero. But hey, I'll be happy to come back and eat my words when Episode VIII comes out, you know? In the meantime, we can all enjoy our headcanons about Poe falling exuberantly in love with Finn at first sight. <3

Finn: Hey, I just met you Poe: And this is crazy Finn: But here's my number (FN-2187) Poe: So call me maybe
— Gavia Baker-Whitelaw (@Hello_Tailor) December 23, 2015

Coming up next: Posts about literally every other aspect of this film, in hideously exhausting detail.

Find me on Twitter and Tumblr.

Ant-Man: Fun, but still a waste of $130 million.

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Sat, 25 Jul 2015 18:18:00 +0000

Following this film's much-discussed behind-the-scenes meltdown, my expectations were low. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Ant-Man is a decent movie, if not a particularly interesting one. At the very least, it was more coherent than Age of Ultron.

Both movies were the product of embarrassingly public disputes between their directors and Marvel Studios, but Ant-Man managed to resolve itself into an entertaining (if lightweight) heist movie while AoU was a mess of conflicting subplots and franchise tie-ins: Joss Whedon's weird Black Widow issues and inconsistent characterization vs. Marvel's obsession with clumsy sequel foreshadowing. You could pick out certain scenes in Ant-Man that felt like Edgar Wright's work, but it didn't feel patchy like Thor's bizarre cave-swimming subplot did in Age of Ultron.

Ant-Man and the Marvel Cinematic Universe

More than any other MCU movie so far, Ant-Man captured the tone of a solo comic in a larger fictional universe: casually acknowledging the existence of other superheroes without going for an actual team-up. We've now reached the point where the MCU is big enough to support cameos from familiar side-characters without it seeming forced, which is great for worldbuilding purposes. It's just too bad this only happened after the departure of Edgar Wright, who wanted to make a standalone movie with (presumably) a more esoteric tone.

Ideally, Marvel should find a happy medium between franchise crossover moments and allowing filmmakers more freedom to make a personal mark. That's why comics like Ms Marvel and Hawkeye are so popular: they have a memorable sense of personality.

This version of Ant-Man would have been fine ten years ago, but after a decade of superhero origin stories it felt disappointingly formulaic. It's already bad enough to launch yet another white guy superhero before Black Panther or Captain Marvel, but beyond that it was simply a boring setup. An everyman hero, a tough female lead, a two-dimensional villain, some funny side-characters, and a frisson of daddy issues. Nothing we haven't seen before.

To make matters worse, there were no compelling narrative themes to chew on -- other than the focus on father/daughter relationships, I suppose. It felt like a film whose primary purpose was to introduce a handful of new characters to the MCU, rather than a story that could stand on its own in any meaningful way.

The Hope Van Dyne problem

It didn't help that there was no good reason for Scott Lang to be Ant-Man. I've already written about this at the Daily Dot, but basically this film shot itself in the foot by making Hope Van Dyne "too" competent. Scott Lang is likeable enough but since Hope is demonstrably more qualified than him, it's unclear why she isn't the protagonist.

When you look at the skillset provided by each of the main characters, it would make more sense to have Hope use the Ant-Man suit and cast Scott as her unlikely sidekick. You could even keep Scott as the POV character with the same backstory, just give Hope more screentime -- preferably with Darren Cross -- and a more active role in the heist.

The internal explanation for Hope's lack of superheroism is that Hank Pym was trying to "protect" her from using the suit, which makes sense from his perspective but fails to explain why she didn't just ignore him and take the suit anyway. To have Pym present her with the Wasp suit in the end credits felt like the final nail in the coffin, to be honest.

Basically, Hope Van Dyne is the personification of Marvel's attitude to female heroes: badass and skilled enough to be defensible as a "strong female character," but still shunted off into the sidelines for no good reason.

Costuming and design

I strongly suspect that Edgar Wright's Ant-Man would have been more visually interesting than Peyton Reed's, for reasons that are explained in this video about Wright's skill for visual comedy. Aside from some of the shrinking scenes, this was one of the most aesthetically nondescript films in the MCU franchise -- and that's saying something.

While Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain America all have satisfyingly distinctive visual styles, most of the MCU movies follow a very bland American blockbuster aesthetic. Ant-Man's suburban homes and spotless corporate laboratories were so painfully generic they could have been lifted from any mainstream US blockbuster from Transformers to Tomorrowland. It also suffered from the same problem as Daredevil: a total failure to create a believable sense of place.

Hell's Kitchen (albeit a fictionalized version that retains its slum status in 2015) is a key aspect of Daredevil's story, but the show depicts it as an urban landscape with no distinguishing features. It's barely even recognizable as NYC, never mind a specific neighborhood. Similarly, Ant-Man's San Francisco setting was reduced to a handful of exterior shots, which I believe was a real misstep.

Stories do not become universal once they've been whittled down to the featureless outline of lowest-common-denominator familiarity. They are recognized as universal when the audience engages with the characters on a human level... and it's difficult to do that when those characters are projected onto a completely flavorless landscape.

I tend to believe that there's no such thing as a bad costume designer. Not at this level in Hollywood filmmaking, anyway. I also know for a fact that Ant-Man's designer did great work on other movies (Ex Machina, Hellboy II and Stardust indicate a pretty wide range), so I'm assuming the film's lack of stylistic individuality is a result of Marvel's desire to create a visually homogeneous universe.

Most of the main characters dressed in unassumingly bland clothes to the point of having zero personal taste (aside from Michael Pena, somewhat), with the most interesting detail being the contrast between Darren Cross, Hope and Hank's differing styles of businesswear. Meanwhile Scott Lang looked so boring he could have been the encyclopedia illustration for "generic white male." He had the visual personality of the dad in a family car commercial.

I'm hoping that Marvel learns its lesson from Ant-Man, and either gives its directors more creative freedom or starts aiming for its individual franchises to have more personal style. Because while this movie was fun, it felt passionless and unoriginal. Without a clear sense of its own identity, Ant-Man failed to provide a compelling argument for its own existence.

Misc. thoughts:

Good work on the ants. There's something charmingly weird-90s-children's-movie about keeping a dog-sized ant as a pet, and I love it.
That opening scene was just wild. Michael Douglas and the villain dude aged down. Hayley Atwell aged up. Howard Stark played by John Slattery again, even though most people have forgotten this casting from Iron Man 2 and now think of Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark.
I've decided that Howard Stark was caught in some kind of weird industrial accident that transformed him from looking like Dominic Cooper to looking like John Slattery sometime in the 1970s. Either that or HYDRA swapped out for an unconvincing double because he was becoming too much of an annoyance. That's why Howard was always such an asshole to Tony: he wasn't actually Tony's real dad.
Hope's role has apparently been cut from Civil War, which makes her end-of-movie teaser even more tragicomic.
As always, not enough time was spent with the villain. I would've liked to see more of Corey Stoll being an obsessive weirdo asshole, especially opposite Michael Douglas.
Scott's ex-wife was played by the same actress who played the Generic Mom Character in Jurassic World AND Tomorrowland. Hollywood is fucking grim.

Previously: Avengers: Age of Ultron -- The Empire of Tony Stark

INTERVIEW: "Mad Max: Fury Road" costume designer Jenny Beavan

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 22:01:00 +0000

Previously: My review of Mad Max: Fury Road

The Mad Max series boasts some of the most influential costumes in sc-if/fantasy cinema, kick-starting a trend for post-apocalyptic fetish punk that inspired numerous movies, music videos and outlandish outfits at Burning Man.

Oscar winning costume designer Jenny Beavan was brought in to develop the look of Fury Road, a far cry from her best-known work on historical dramas like The King's Speech and Sense and Sensibility. The result was a fresh new aesthetic that blends grimy realism with the kind of memorable extremes we've come to expect from a Mad Max movie.

Just as director George Miller's attention to detail led to the most exciting movie in the franchise, Jenny Beavan's costumes were the most technically ambitious and character-driven so far. Happily for me, she agreed to an interview about her experiences on the film, discussing the vision behind Fury Road's costumes.

HelloTailor: One of the fascinating things about Fury Road is the way George Miller worked from a 3,500 panel storyboard instead of a traditional script. Did you collaborate with [concept artist] Brendan McCarthy on the character designs, or did you get started after his storyboard was complete?

Jenny Beavan: No, I didn’t have any collaboration with Brendan McCarthy - but I did meet him when he visited Namibia, which was exciting. I came on board relatively late in the proceedings, considering the project had been prepping for some 12 years I think!

The earlier Mad Max movies have a really iconic post-apocalyptic look. How did you balance the references to Norma Moriceau's Mad Max costumes with the new aesthetic for Fury Road?

Mad Max: Fury Road was absolutely a continuation of the Mad Max genre and at the same time completely different - if that makes sense. We are in the same and a completely different wasteland, and with a lot of new characters. Because George Miller is the genius behind all the films there will always be a certain continuity, as it is his vision we were all creating.

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

What was it like to work on set in Namibia? I read that you spent several months there while they were filming, which sounds like a unique experience.

It was an extraordinary experience. Namibia is one of the most beautiful countries on earth and the the second least populated. It has the perfect wasteland landscape and a reasonable infrastructure, in the town of Swakopmund, to support a film crew. But it is still a very long way from any film making experience I have ever had - and a long way from home!

In Namibia we found a fantastic and very talented local crew of artisans who normally make all sorts of handcrafted goods for the tourist trade. We also brought in some key crew from South Africa, Australia and the UK as our local Namibian crew, with their wonderful organic skills were not used to the pressures and demands of filming. But their contribution to the organic, mad, eclectic look is undeniable. I feel that Namibia was the best place to make the costumes for this film - it is possible that in the UK or Australia we may have had too much sophistication for the apocalyptic look!

I will never forget the climate - the blazing sun and heat, followed 10 minutes later by a freezing fog just descending on the desert and turning everything damp and cold. My crew alternatively protecting the actors from the heat or the cold… Then dust and the sand, endlessly blowing through the workroom, the tents on set, my apartment, elephants… the sound of the Atlantic ocean crashing on the shore, and the sunsets, much used by our cameras!

How did you and your team create and source items to fit with the post-apocalyptic look of the film? Do you have any particular favourites?

The brief was that if anything had a more important use for survival in the wasteland then it should not be used for decoration - but also when people have so little they make the most of what they do have and probably decorate it, as they do their bodies with scarification. So, a fine line between everything and nothing! Some characters had breathing problems, so a wonderful opportunity to make some strange apparatus for Immortan Joe and his sons.

As you may know there were two attempts to film Fury Road before our 2012 production in Namibia, so a lot of ’stuff’ had been collected in Australia. I remember going into a warehouse at Fox studios in Sydney in 40 degree heat outside (so goodness knows what the temperature was inside the tin roofed warehouse) and seeing mountains of boxes, all full of bits of metal, cloth, spare car parts - stuff. I suggested we just take the lot to Namibia and sort it out there as it might be useful. Who knew, really?

In fact we used lots of the contents of those boxes as Namibia, with its very small population and limited resources, did not have huge quantities of post apocalyptic junk. We did find good leather there for Max’s costume - all made ‘in house’ by a clever local cutter, Annelise Ras. And we could get a basic cotton canvas which we would dye black in massive quantities to be the Warboys' trousers. Other fabrics had to be sourced from outside Namibia, so from South Africa or the UK.

I think some of the masks were among my favourite items as they were so completely ‘off the wall’ and owed nothing to anyone except the sheer creative talents of my team - and in terms of the principals I became very fond of all of them, even disgusting Organic Mechanic. But maybe I do have a bit of a particular fondness for Immortan Joe - although he can still scare me - even though I know it is just a costume, and Hugh Keays-Byrne is one of the nicest men. And I do love the ‘wives,' as they are so inappropriately dressed for a car chase across a wasteland - but then they had lived in a bubble and had no need for protective clothes in any sense.

What were the practical concerns when working on such an action-focused film?

Massive logistical issues with 150 stuntmen all playing every part and doubling for the leading actors. Literally hundreds of costumes to make, so each stuntman had his own version of whatever character they were going to be that day and then wrangle into their boxes.

The sand and dust also had a huge impact on safety and especially eye protection. We had most stuntmen roaring through the desert completely unprotected by the vehicles they were driving, so we had to add in goggles and harnesses without it being too obvious.

I read an interview with Rosie Huntington-Whiteley where she talked about customizing the Wives' costumes. Did you work with the actresses to find individual looks for each of the Five Wives?

George had seen a film of a ballet in Germany where the dancers were lightly wrapped in fine cloth and liked the image for the Wives. We experimented with wrapping and cloth for gentle protection and I did a lot of work with Jane Law wrapping mannequins. When we did the fittings we had all sorts of ideas made as prototypes but we also wanted the actors input as to how they felt they would have worn their simple cloth. So they were fun fittings and we could give each of them a little bit of individuality.

I'd love to hear more about the backstory for some of the main characters, and how that was illustrated through costume design. For example, Immortan Joe has such a complex and unusual costume with the codpiece and the transparent torso armour, you get a real sense of the War Boys' mythology just by looking at their tattoo scars and makeup. Could you tell me a bit about characters like Furiosa and Immortan Joe and his family, and the ideas behind their costumes?

Well, most of them are dying of cancerous tumours caused by the toxicity of the earth, so their costumes are a mixture of protection and practical necessity such as the breathing appararati on Immortan Joe and his sons.

All costume is storytelling so the Wives were kept in a bubble and needed little in the way of clothing. Immortan Joe needed protection for his rotting skin but also needed to look like a powerful Dictator, Furiosa is a woman in a man’s world - a skilled engineer and driver of the War Rig, so needed a practical outfit that would support the harness that held her false arm in place.The Warboys had their skills with cars but were otherwise bored and sat around decorating each others bodies with scarification, and so on!

Finally (although perhaps this is too early to say), are you planning on working on the Fury Road sequel?

If they do one - who knows? A bit early to say I would think! I would love, and be honoured to be a part of another Mad Max!

Previously: My review of Mad Max: Fury Road

Interview with Snowpiercer costume designer Catherine George

Mad Max: Fury Road

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Sat, 23 May 2015 21:16:00 +0000

I saw John Wick recently, a movie I'd heartily recommend to any fan of the action genre. With inventive fight scenes and skillful cinematography, it was the definitive "badass man goes on a revenge killing spree" movie. Thankfully, this means we can now retire that trope forever. We're done. It's over. After its millionth retelling, this story can cede its spotlight to things like Mad Max: Fury Road, which displayed a far broader understanding of human nature.

[Also, before I go any further into this Very Serious Review: THROW ME IN THE TRASH, FURY ROAD IS AN EXPLODING MUTANT MASTERPIECE OF LIZARD-CHOMPING, FLAMING GUITAR-PLAYING GENIUS. I spent the first third having heart palpitations over Max's mask and blood tube, the second third thinking, "WHAT THE FUCK!? DUDES ON POLES WITH CHAINSAWS!?" and the final third having some kind of religious experience where I wanted to cry because Tom Hardy made a quizzical grunting noise or the Motorcycle Matriarchy had shown up to save the day, or simply because We Are Not Things, dammit!

And then I went home and read a metric fuckload of behind-the-scenes coverage, because this was a rare instance where that shit is legitimately interesting. Did you know they shot 480 hours of footage? And yet the editor, Margaret Sixel, pulled it all together into one of the most comprehensible and dynamic action narratives I've ever seen! Give that woman an Oscar.]

In every regard, Fury Road was made for me. It took my favourite genre (wildly over-stylized apocalyptic fantasy) and imbued it with emotional and political themes I understood on a personal level. For too long, I've had to watch Hollywood blockbusters with part of my brain switched off, attempting to ignore their obsession with cops and soldiers and steroid-inflated machismo. BUT NO LONGER, MY FRIENDS. No longer.

Obviously I do appreciate characters like Captain America and James Bond, but the fact is that they are not my heroes. What personal connection can I possibly have to Bruce Wayne? None, even as a power fantasy. Whereas with Fury Road, I can really feel this shit. It fulfills my desire to see women work together to protect each other, and for people to overthrow their destructive and abusive leaders. It works on a fundamental level because I know what it's like to live in a world ruined by centuries of pollution, controlled by a cruel patriarchal culture that disregards the souls and bodies of women.

You can hardly describe Fury Road as realistic, but its story felt real to me in every way that counts.

It's appropriate that a film about searching for life in the desert should be so spiritually refreshing, an oasis in Hollywood's bland landscape of identikit blockbusters. I'm not just talking about Fury Road's overt feminism, but also the way it tells a story through action, how it eschews clumsy exposition, and how it conveys a powerful narrative message while still being beautiful and entertaining in a thoroughly accessible way. It's a perfect iceberg movie: characters with very little explicit backstory or even dialogue, existing in in a highly stylized moment, and yet rich with meaning and subtext beneath the surface.

We Are Not Things

I loved the way Fury Road kept coming back to liquids. Water, mother's milk, blood, gasoline -- and how they were bartered from person to person with different meanings. Max being dehumanized as a blood bag for the War Boys. The women at the Citadel being milked by machines but eventually freeing the water supply for the people in the wasteland below. Max later deciding to give Furiosa his blood, after he regained his humanity. (BTW, I particularly enjoyed this as a counterpoint to the classic action hero method emergency medical care: Punching dead people in the chest until they wake up, possibly while yelling, "Wake up, dammit!" Blood donation was far more effective, highlighting Max's character development and the huge difference between this scene and the way he was treated like livestock at the beginning of the movie.)

Not forgetting the endless fights over gasoline, which can basically be summed up as:

My friend, after seeing Fury Road: They spend the whole movie driving around fighting over fuel they need to drive around and fight over fuel, it's just so pointless!

Me: I believe that's what we call a "metaphor."

And, of course, the first time the Wives appear to Max, they are bathing in fresh water in the middle of the desert.

I've seen a number of reactions to this scene, including displeasure that the female characters were introduced in a "sexualized" way. I don't agree with that interpretation, although I understand how it could be seen as an eye-candy moment: a group of beautiful women bathing while wearing skimpy clothes. In the context of pop-culture, this kind of scene is always sexy. We're conditioned to see it as such, regardless of context.

In that sense, I found the Wives' appearance surprisingly thought-provoking. Because women's bodies should not be inherently sexualized, no matter what they're wearing. All we actually see is the Wives washing dust from their bodies and getting rid of their chains and chastity belts, before freezing in fear and apprehension when Max comes into view.

It's certainly not a sensual ~shower scene~ and there's no male gaze moment where the camera hints that the protagonist wants to bang some hot chicks. In fact, no one expresses any kind of sexual desire in the entire movie, because they're all too focused on staying alive -- not to mention being incredibly traumatized.

When Max stumbles across the War Rig his only desires are water and escape, so you can easily interpret the appearance of the Wives as a "WTF LOL" moment. A sudden descent into surreality as Max shifts from a world of torture and horror into a world where beautiful, peaceful people are washing using clean water. From Max eating a live lizard to the Citadel's blood banks to the first high-octane car chase, this is the first sign of humanity and calm in the blasted hellscape of the desert.

With Immortan Joe as an avatar of toxic masculinity and greed, the main antagonist of Fury Road is the concept of objectification. Each of the heroes' personal journeys are about regaining their own humanity and agency, either through empathy (in the case of Nux and Max) or escape. So, even if you dislike the Wives' costumes or their introductory scene, they were definitely fully-fledged characters by the end of the film.

Instead of going the typical action movie route and ignoring character development in favor of stunts and special effects, Fury Road developed its characters through action. This movie went eons beyond our normal expectations, where we grudgingly award points for a well-written female character or a vaguely interesting backstory. It left that kind of judgement in the dust, a two-hour car chase with more female characters than men, including a pregnant pacifist messiah and a motorcycle gang of elderly desert cowboy grandmas. It's like this movie came from another damn planet.

Next: Interview with Mad Max: Fury Road costume designer Jenny Beavan

Links

Every killer car in Mad Max: Fury Road, explained.
Art by comics artists inspired by Fury Road
Interview with a 78-year-old actress who played one of the Vuvalini
Charlize Theron's stuntwoman and Tom Hardy's rehearsal double fell in love on set.
IMDb's list of Fury Road character names (you will NOT be disappointed)
How they created the flame-thrower guitar, which WAS NOT a CGI trick
18 minutes of raw footage from the set of Mad Max: Fury Road

Age of Ultron: The Empire of Tony Stark

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Fri, 01 May 2015 22:11:00 +0000

Previously: My reviews of The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier
"What the was up with that Black Widow scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron?"
My unspoilery review of Age of Ultron over at the Daily Dot.

Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD.

When you write a negative review for a summer blockbuster, the response usually goes something like this: Why Do You Hate Fun? To get this out of the way, I'm not judging Age of Ultron from a tower of joyless snobbery. Rather, I think it failed in two pretty basic ways: As an "event" sequel to the Avengers franchise, and as a Joss Whedon movie.

I didn't have high expectations for Age of Ultron, but I generally trust Whedon to deliver an entertaining story with a solid emotional core. The Avengers still holds up as a fun, well-paced movie with an unusually engaging villain, making Age of Ultron all the more disappointing because it didn't live up to these three specific standards. It had all the big-budget action setpieces you'd expect, but overall it was incoherent and riddled with lazy storytelling and self-contradictory characterization. Even Whedon's trademark witty dialogue often fell flat for me, with too many jokes either interrupting the action or feeling like they'd been written for other characters.

Ultimately, I don't think Whedon had any interest in maintaining continuity within the franchise. To a certain extent this was fine, because Age of Ultron had to be accessible to a wider audience. They couldn't include detailed callbacks to earlier movies. But AoU didn't just sidestep recent installments in the franchise, it contradicted them. For example:

How did the team get together? AoU opens with the Avengers storming a castle to retrieve Loki's scepter, strongly implying that they've been based out of Stark Tower for some time. However, CA:TWS ends with Cap and Falcon going off to find Bucky (which admittedly gets a throwaway mention in AoU) and Natasha dropping her Black Widow identity to go travelling and "find herself." How did Natasha come to rejoin the Avengers, and when did her not-very-plausible romance with Bruce begin?
Tony Stark destroyed his Iron Man suits at the end of Iron Man 3. Obviously we all KNEW he'd go back to being Iron Man, but AoU doesn't mention how this happened. Instead we launch straight in with him using a private army of Iron Man drones to invade/protect Sokovia. Pepper Potts was offscreen throughout, which felt especially odd compared to Erik Selvig's pointless cameo.
Steve Rogers' characterization veered back to its Whedon state in The Avengers: stuffy and priggish, with no real impact on the plot. Bizarrely, Steve's "worst nightmare" hallucination was little more than a simplistic flashback to WWII, telling us nothing further about the character. Then there's the running joke where Steve (a frontline soldier who grew up in 1930s NYC), scolds Tony for cursing. In what universe does that make any sense, other than to fabricate some LOLs for the Robert Downey Jr quip machine?

While some of AoU's narrative flaws can be blamed on editorial demands from Marvel (ie, too many characters and overly long action sequences, or the needless Infinity Stone foreshadowing), the most glaring problems were often in areas where Joss Whedon usually excels. Let's start with our villain, Ultron.

The puppet without strings.

During the press tour for AoU, Marvel made a big deal of Ultron and James Spader's performance, with Whedon saying things like, "Ultron's pain is very, very real to me. He can't control the way his pain makes him behave, and I can relate to that." Well, OK. But in the actual movie, Ultron goes from birth to "I want to kill everyone" in the space of about ten seconds, with minimal explanation for how he got there.

As a manifestation of Tony's security paranoia, Ultron is fascinating. But as a character in himself, he felt kind of thin and poorly developed. I got the strong impression that several Ultron scenes must have been cut, meaning we never got a proper explanation for his actions -- besides, obviously, his role as a mutated version of Tony's desire to build bigger and smarter types ways of protecting himself. AoU was full of Frankenstein references, but they all felt a little half-baked.

Ultron isn't even visually interesting: another metallic humanoid robot. His idealized male physique and human mannerisms definitely implied something about his role as Tony's son/creation, but the end result was just another evil killer robot. They really missed a trick by avoiding the Uncanny Valley, I think. Ultron bending over at the waist to speak to Ulysses Klaw was one of my favorite moments for him, because it showed Ultron's physical differences beyond "very strong metal dude."

I touched on this in my Daily Dot review, but it bears repeating: AoU never found a smart way to deal with Ultron as a non-corporeal entity. For most of the movie, Ultron doesn't need a body to survive. When you combine this with the knowledge that none of the main Avengers can die, it removes a lot of tension from the battle scenes. They either should've made more use of Ultron's nature of an AI (rather than an army of killer robots), or spent more time on psychological/emotional threats like Scarlet Witch.

In order to orchestrate a Final Battle, Ultron had to be trapped in his physical bodies. Ordinarily I'd be prepared to handwave this kind of narrative loophole, but it felt cheap given the film's failure to explore Ultron's motivations and impact. To what extent were civilians even aware of his existence? Why does he decide to levitate a Sokovian city instead of screwing with nuclear launch codes or shutting down everyone's power supply? Why does he travel to meet Ulysses Klaw instead of manifesting himself in a nearby machine? Is this meant to illustrate his repressed desire to be human, or is it just lazy storytelling?

Stark is here to help, whether you like it or not.

Tony Stark's cyclical character development is one of the few things this movie did well. Over the course of five movies he's gone from thoughtlessly building weapons of mass destruction, to... thoughtlessly building even more terrifying weapons, for different reasons.

After vowing to shut down Stark Industries' weapons division in Iron Man, he's gone on to build armies of Iron Man drones, help S.H.I.E.L.D. develop HYDRA's fleet of lethal helicarriers, and create Ultron. And then! He tries to solve the Ultron situation by creating another superpowered AI. The more he tries to change the world for the better, the more he destroys. And unlike the rest of the Avengers, he has the power to do so on a massive scale.

In creating Ultron without the knowledge or consent of anyone else on the planet, Tony Stark stops being an influential tech mogul and becomes an imperial force. Pepper Potts is offscreen, JARVIS is destroyed and Rhodey is defanged, leaving no one to rein in Tony's megalomania. Even Bruce Banner only puts up a token protest against the idea of Ultron, which seems decidedly odd considering Bruce's history as the poster child for Frankenstein disasters. The Hulk is the result of an experiment to create more efficient soldiers, yet Bruce is willing to go along with Tony's plan to create an all-powerful artificial army across the world? Well, OK then.

At this point in the franchise, Tony Stark is a supervillain. The narrative just hasn't acknowledged it yet, presumably because his arc will reach its logical conclusion in Captain America: Civil War. For now he's in the odd position of being a protagonist whom we all know and love, but who is also doing terrible things that ruin the lives of innocent civilians across the world.

Tony has ascended to global superpower status, commanding a private army of drones and coming close to bringing about the apocalypse. Unfortunately while the movie critiques Tony's power, it also portrays the Avengers as heroic saviors. S.H.I.E.L.D. and War Machine evacuates Sokovian citizens with help from War Machine, while new characters like Dr Cho and the Twins are either sidelined or misrepresented.

Team America: World Police

I'll talk more about Sokovia and the Twins in another post, but right now I'd like to comment on this film's other fictional location: Wakanda. In the comics, Wakanda is an isolated African nation with significant mineral wealth and technological advances. It will appear properly in the upcoming Black Panther movie, but AoU introduced it via the weapons dealer Ulysses Klaw and his stocks of vibranium.

From the outset, Wakanda is depicted as somewhere so obscure that Bruce Banner -- supposedly one of the more educated characters -- can't even pronounce its name. So, are we to assume that Wakanda isn't the influential, technologically advanced nation from the comics? Because if the MCU included a secretive and insular nation full of scientific marvels, you'd think Bruce would've heard of it. To make matters worse, the next scene is literally labelled onscreen as taking place on "The African Coast." THE AFRICAN COAST?? Where the hell is that. Which coast. Wakanda? Morocco? Egypt? Namibia? Painfully stupid.

By inviting questions about Tony Stark's status as a global power and the Avengers' status as heroes, Age of Ultron left itself too open to being criticized on its own terms. After disposing of Ultron (A PROBLEM CAUSED BY TONY), the story just skips forward several months to meet the new Avengers team. I assume they're still funded by Stark Industries, but this time with Fury and Maria Hill back in charge. Tony experiences no noticeable repercussions for unleashing Ultron, and I guess just goes back to living in his heavily armed fortress in Manhattan? So we're left with a dubious amount of self-examination compared to Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the MCU's last high-impact movie.

Miscellaneous thoughts:

Tony's "prima nocta" joke was gross. However, I can't tell if Tony is now meant to be characterized as a douchebag who makes weird historical rape jokes, or if it was just Joss Whedon being a smartass.
I was tickled by the fact that Tony's party looked... super dull and middle-aged. You've come a long way, Playboy Tony Stark.
Is everyone in New York chill with Tony keeping a drone army in his Manhattan penthouse? Yeah? OK. Well, it's not like they put him in jail for war crimes either. Being rich and famous can get you a long way, especially if you invented a world-changing method of clean energy production.
Do you think they cut a reference to Howard Stark? I feel like things were headed in that direction with Ultron's comments about human children supplanting their parents, but it was probably fine as subtext.
I really wish we'd heard from Pepper, although her presence probably would have stopped Tony from waking Ultron in the first place. On the bright side, this would've led to precisely the movie that most fans wanted in the first place: a fun domestic story about the team hanging out at a party for a couple of hours. One day, my friends. One day.

What was up with that Black Widow scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron?

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 01:47:00 +0000

I was going to post an Age of Ultron review today, but since the movie isn't out in the U.S. until next week, I've decided to stick with one specific topic: that bizarre conversation between Bruce Banner and Black Widow.

SPOILER WARNING: This post (obviously) contains spoilers, but only for one scene between Bruce Banner and Black Widow.

If you've seen the movie, you may already know what I'm talking about. It's the scene where Natasha tells Bruce she was sterilized during her childhood spy training, and how this makes her a "monster" like the Hulk. "It makes everything easier," she says. "Even killing."

This conversation was so terrible that I actually double-checked with several friends to see if they interpreted it the same way. They did. So: let's unpack what the hell was going on in the mind of acclaimed feminist Joss Whedon when he crafted this masterpiece. (By the way, Scarlett Johansson was pregnant while filming this movie.)

Bruce and Natasha begin the movie in the early stages of a tentative romance. He mentions that he can't have children, and she says that she can't either: she was forcibly sterilized as a teenager.

This backstory is horrifying, but it gels with what we already know about Natasha. She was trained (or brainwashed) as a child by a Russian spy agency, where girls were taught to be perfect assassins. From their perspective, it was "expedient" to sterilize their students, preventing unwanted pregnancies and cutting off another potential family tie. But instead of being handled sensitively, this backstory concluded with Natasha describing herself as a "monster" because she couldn't have biological children. Sterilization made it easier for her and her colleagues to kill people.

So, either the movie is dehumanizing Natasha because she can't get pregnant, or she thinks of herself as a monster as a result of abuse she suffered as a child. Here are my top three explanations for what was going on in this scene.

Explanation #1

MAYBE my friends and I all misinterpreted the scene. Maybe she wasn't referring to infertility as "monstrous," and instead was speaking in general terms about her past as an assassin. But if she was speaking generally, then why mention it right after she and Bruce were talking about infertility? Unfortunately, I think this explanation is unlikely.

Explanation #2

She is speaking in half-truths. She was sterilized as a child, but she only mentioned it to try and connect with Bruce. Sure, she likes him, but the only way she knows how to bond with people is through manipulation. This would explain why she compares herself to Bruce and the Hulk, although if this IS the case, we're still looking at a scene where Natasha equates infertility with inhumanity -- even if she doesn't actually feel that way.

Explanation #3

She literally thinks that she is a monster because she cannot have biological children.

Looking at each of these explanations, I'm brought back to Bruce's reaction, which was... not much, if I recall correctly? The obvious response was to tell her that she isn't a monster, and that the people who did this to her are the real monsters. But that didn't happen. Instead, Bruce just sort of ignored Natasha's bizarre assertion that infertility is like being the Hulk.

Is it realistic for someone who experienced forced sterilization to think of themselves like this? I don't know. Perhaps if she had been raised to believe that motherhood is the purpose of a woman's life, but there's no evidence to suggest she was. It makes sense for her to be traumatized by the abuse she experienced during her training, but to compare sterility with inhumanity? WHAT THE HELL.

If taken at face value, Black Widow's statement isn't just offensive, it's damaging. She is the most prominent female character in the Avengers franchise, and the only major female character who isn't a love interest. And now, in a movie that will be watched by millions of impressionable kids (and no doubt many adults with fertility issues), Black Widow says that she feels like a monster because she can't have biological children. Do I really need to explain why this is was a terrible idea?

Next: Age of Ultron, Part 1: The Empire of Tony Stark

Marvel's Daredevil: Episodes 1-5

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 23:07:00 +0000

"I feel like I'm on a date with Vincent D'Onofrio and he's about to murder me and drown my family in the Hudson River." -- an email from myself to a friend, while watching Daredevil. This was a compliment to Vincent D'Onofrio, by the way.

This review only covers the first 5 episodes and is relatively spoiler-free, so don't worry if you're one of those sensible people who hasn't binge-watched the entire season yet. For my ~professional (and even less spoilery) review over at the Daily Dot, click here.

As a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, my feelings on Daredevil are decidedly mixed. On the one hand:

This show is just really damn good. The dialogue and characterization are strong, and it's way ahead of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in terms of things like fight choreography and sound design.
The plot is complex but neatly organized, and the Netflix format allows things to unspool gradually rather than leaping between episodic subplots. I hate exposition and am sick of formulaic TV writing, so this was great for me.
Matt, Foggy and Karen are charming and adorable, and Wilson Fisk is an unusually compelling villain. Congratulations to whoever cast this show, because they knocked it out of the park.
I'm enraptured by the romance between Wilson Fisk and Vanessa the art dealer!! (More on that later.)
It's satisfying to see an "adult" comicbook adaptation that isn't gratuitous or exploitative. Daredevil doesn't sanitize the visceral impact of violence, but it doesn't revel in it either. To me this is an ideal balance, because usually there's a strict divide between movies like Sin City or Watchmen, which strive to be ~gritty and ~dark, and PG-rated movies like Spider-Man, where people have constructive relationships and friendly banter. Daredevil has both. I had to cover my eyes during a few of the more violent scenes, but in some ways I prefer that to when Thor or Captain America dispatches an enemy bloodlessly and with no obvious moral impact.

HOWEVER...

Like most superhero adaptations, this show has a woman problem. The two most significant female characters are a nurse and secretary, both of whom get kidnapped/beaten up and subsequently rescued by the hero within the first few episodes. Plus there are way more men on the cast than women, for no good reason.
It's unoriginal. I know Daredevil relies on a lot of familiar old superhero tropes, and that's fine. The problem is that it feels too much like a crime drama from the '70s or '80s, and not in the Taxi Driver homage sense the creators intended. Matt Murdock's childhood flashbacks are the worst example: His father training in a boxing gym that might as well be in the 1940s. Why not update this to make it feel more contemporary? Why not rewrite some of the male characters as women? Why not make Karen Page a lawyer or an accountant or an IT specialist instead of Matt and Foggy's secretary? Why not include more details that feel specific to 2015 New York? Some of these are just a matter of taste, but others feel more like an attempt to retell a story that belongs in the past.

Daredevil is getting very positive reviews, already being praised for outstripping Gotham, The Flash, etc. For the most part I agree, but lately these comparisons have begun to feel like splitting hairs. Daredevil, Spider-Man, Batman... they all have different personalities and tones, but they're variations on an extremely narrow theme. Daredevil even moreso, given its many similarities with Batman. We already have a lot of movies about white male vigilantes with daddy issues, and if we absolutely have to keep exploring this subgenre, there are surely more original ways to do so.

Basically: Is it enough that Daredevil is "good"? A huge amount of effort went into making sure the script was smart, the execution was slick, and each character was perfectly cast. But at the same time, they failed to tackle one of the most consistent problems with superhero dramas: crappy roles for women.

Karen Page and Claire Temple are both likable and well-drawn characters, and the Netflix format allows more time for development later on. But they're still rooted in gender-specific roles, and massively outnumbered by dudes.

Obviously I don't think it's sexist to cast a woman as a secretary or a nurse; that would be idiotic. But in the case of Daredevil, these roles feel very gendered alongside the plethora of male cops, journalists and criminals we meet throughout the show. Even when you include Madame Gao (who speaks only in untranslated Chinese for the first few episodes) and the Kingpin's love interest, there's still a blatant gender imbalance in the cast.

It's not all bad, of course. Karen's investigative subplot is great, and Madame Gao clearly has a larger role to play in later episodes. But on the whole, Daredevil's men fight each other and plan the future of the city, while women provide emotional support and dress the hero's wounds.

If this all seems overly negative, I'm sorry. I loved many aspects of the first few episodes, especially in the way the show balances adult-rated content with charming, idealistic characters. (Matt, Foggy and Karen are so cute! VERY! CUTE!) It's great to see a superhero adaptation that includes people cursing and having complex emotional lives but doesn't fall into the trap of mistaking cynicism for maturity. I'm sure I'll have more to say once I've watched the rest of the series, but for now I really have to talk about my absolute favourite part of the show: Vanessa and Wilson Fisk.

I SHIP THIS SO GODDAMN MUCH.

First of all: Vincent D'Onofrio is so fucking good in this role. Wilson Fisk's characterization is fascinating in itself, but D'Onofrio's performance has been killing me since the moment he appeared onscreen.

In my review of Captain America: The Winter Soldier I discussed the way superhero/villain pairings tend to mirror one another. Daredevil does this to the point where Wilson Fisk and Matt Murdock's goals actually overlap. Both want to transform and rejuvenate Hell's Kitchen, and both are doing so with a combination of legal and criminal means. The difference between them is a matter of degrees, with Fisk having more resources and less moral compunction about killing people to get his way.

Superhero movies are packed with villains who are, for want of a better phrase, emotionally unstable. These depictions range from two-dimensional nonsense (the Red Skull) to legitimately compelling (Loki), but Fisk falls into an unusual class: realistically human. His emotional problems and social anxiety aren't presented as madness or some bizarre quirk, but as normal aspects of his personality.

Is Fisk a brutal, terrifying despot? Yes, but he's also insecure and lonely and self-aware. One of my favourite aspects of D'Onofrio's performance is the way he forces words out like he's grinding them through his teeth, which usually gives the appearance of carefully controlled rage. In Vanessa's presence it feels more like he's making a physical effort just to talk to her, fighting his way through his own nerves. His interest is painfully obvious, but he's also respectful of her boundaries and cautious the power he could potentially hold over her. An unusual dynamic for TV romance.

Fisk is ruthless and calculating in his professional life, but his interactions with Vanessa prove that he's desperate to earn love on its own terms, free of exploitation or control. What a wonderful contrast to the sadism or blatant unpleasantness of most supervillains, which makes them far too easy to kill. As for Vanessa, the show manages in just a few scant scenes to create a character who dovetails perfectly with Fisk: self-possessed, pragmatic, discreet and mature.

This relationship is far more interesting to me than Matt's tedious Batman situation with Claire. I don't give a shit about another dude heroically screwing up his love life because he's obsessed with running around in a mask all night. Fisk may be a monster, but he's infinitely more compelling as a romantic lead: murderous and ambitious, yet restrained, considerate, and desirous of love.

Hugo Award eligibility & 2014 masterlist

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 23:45:00 +0000

It's Hugo Award nomination season, and I'm eligible in the Fan Writer category!

If you enjoy this blog, then please consider me on your Hugo ballot! To nominate for the 2015 awards, you need to tick one of these three boxes:

You attended the 2014 Worldcon, Loncon3.
You are going to the 2015 Worldcon (Spokane) or 2016 Worldcon (Kansas City), and bought a ticket before January 31st, 2015.
You have a "supporting membership" for this year Worldcon. This is a lot cheaper than a convention ticket and consists of the ability to vote in the Hugos (obviously), plus various goodies like ebook versions of nominated books/short stories.

You can learn more about the Hugo Awards and the nomination process here. Nominations close on March 10, but if you didn't attend the 2014 con and haven't bought your membership to the 2015 con before January 31st, then you cannot nominate.

Highlights from HelloTailor in 2014

My epic seven-part analysis of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, obvs:

Part 1: "Trust No One" -- Steve Rogers as the ~gritty superhero America deserves.

Part 2: HYDRA, Sitwell, and diversity in the Marvel universe
Part 3: Black Widow and Falcon
Part 4: The Tragedy of Bucky Barnes
Part 5: Worldbuilding in the MCU
Part 6: Costuming and design: Steve & Bucky
Part 7: Costuming in CATWS: Nick Fury, Black Widow and S.H.I.E.L.D.

My review of Snowpiercer, and interview with Snowpiercer costume designer Catherine George.

"Interstellar, costume design, and the difficulties of "realistic" visual worldbuilding."

"Costume design in Hunger Games: Mockinjay, Part 1 -- Real or Not Real?"

Some thoughts on Doctor Who companions, the Twelfth Doctor, and costume design.

Weekly recaps of NBC's Constantine.

And, less sci-fi/fantasy but definitely still in the category of fan writing:

Costuming and design in NBC's Hannibal

Sherlock reviews: The Empty Hearse, The Sign of Three, and His Last Vow.

Interview: Agent Carter costume designer Gigi Melton

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Sun, 18 Jan 2015 17:22:00 +0000

Previously: A guide to the 1940s costume design of Agent Carter

Agent Carter combines so many of my favorite things: comicbook adventures, a complex female protagonist, 1940s spy hijinks and, of course, beautiful costumes and set design. The post-war setting is a fascinating period to explore from a fashion history perspective, and I was happy to see that all of the costumes have a strong characterization element as well.

Costume designer Giovanna "Gigi" Melton caught my attention on Twitter with her many behind-the-scenes posts about her work on Agent Carter, and she was kind enough to grant me an interview. Read on for more background on the amazing costumes in this show, plus a selection of Melton's original design sketches.

HelloTailor: How did you go about researching and designing the overall look for the show? Were you influenced by any of the comics, or was it more a matter of exploring the 1940s aesthetic?

Gigi Melton: A combination of much research. For Peggy the influences were Lauren Bacall, Katherine Hepburn, Hedy Lamarr. The smart, strong, fashionable and beautiful women of the era.

For SSR [Strategic Scientific Reserve] agents Dooley, Thompson, Sousa, and Krzmenski I researched government and detective looks. For eccentric Stark it was Howard Hughes and for Jarvis it was a British nod to tweeds. Coupled with comic book research, I took all of my inspiration and tailored it to create the individual looks for the scripted characters.

HelloTailor: I saw that you managed to source at least one vintage dress for Hayley Atwell, which made me wonder how many other costumes are original pieces from the '40s. A lot of historical dramas try to use a mix of vintage costumes and new designs, occasionally with vintage-style underwear to add authenticity to the look. Is this how you worked with Agent Carter?

Gigi Melton: Most of Peggy was built for the show, however there are a few amazing vintage pieces in her closet. We have vintage style lingerie but we modify with other pieces as well because of all the action. For Dooley, Thompson, Sousa and Krzmenski , their sport jackets and suits are about half vintage and half custom, all of their ties are vintage. With the exception of vintage ties, Stark and Jarvis are custom.

HelloTailor: How do you deal with creating clothes for action scenes? That must be tricky, especially since Peggy spends so much time wearing skirts.

Gigi Melton: Lots of multiples. As an example: the gold dress in episode one has a built foundation made with cotton trigger [a sturdy type of cloth], all boned so she do the kicking as well as being slammed around. Otherwise the fabric would have ripped. We make blouses and jackets with specific slits to allow for harnesses. For kicks in skirts I have vintage style black silk tap shorts to wear under.

Carter's disguise from episode 1 was inspired by Veronica Lake.

HelloTailor: Could you tell me a little about Peggy's red hat? Did you realize at the time that it was going to become such an important part of her image?

Gigi Melton: The red hat was scripted as: A red hat in a sea of gray fedoras. For my design I thought, Peggy is competing in this man's world, and her hat needs to be powerful to match all the fedoras but still be feminine. I truly had no idea it would take off this way.

Note the red, white and blue color scheme!

HelloTailor: I'd love to know more about how you differentiated between the male SSR agents, since they have to wear relatively similar outfits to work each day. Were you aiming to give Sousa a softer look with his cardigans?

Gigi Melton: For our SSR guys Dooley, Thompson, Krzeminski, and Sousa, each have a distinctive look befitting their character. Chief Roger Dooley (Shea Whigham) wears strong double breasted suits; Jack Thompson (Chad Michael Murray) wears single breasted with a fashion edge coupled with suspenders; Daniel Sousa (Enver Gjokaj) wears sweater vests under his sport coats and pleated pants, I chose the sweater vests as a more approachable look, but also one that he could be comfortable with a crutch ; and Ray Krzeminski (Kyle Bornheimer) is a bit of a slob with his sport jacket, and open collar shirts.

HelloTailor: Finally, Jarvis really stands out from the other male characters. Were you going for a particularly British style with his tailored suits, as opposed to a more American look sported by characters like Jack Thompson?

Gigi Melton: Yes -- I wanted his look to reflect his British roots, and the Jarvis look is very distinctive to all the other characters . The script described him as a man in a tweed suit. But I wanted him to have a European style and aesthetic as well. So I felt the direction of a suit and vest, balanced with the casual but beautiful tweeds (which Britain is famous for) created a perfect look for his character as butler and front man for Stark.

Previously: A guide to the 1940s costume design of Agent Carter
Further reading: ABC's featurette on Agent Carter's costumes, and Tyranny of Style's preview interview.
See also: The Bletchley Circle

Tumblr: HelloTailor
Twitter: @Hello_Tailor

Behind the seams of the Oscars' costume design category

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 20:17:00 +0000

The Oscar nominees were announced yesterday, and of course I was compelled to write about the costume design category. Specifically, my frustration regarding the kind of films that are routinely ignored, year after year.

Do all of the designers on this list deserve to be nominated? Well, yes. They're all brilliant, and did great work on the films in question. But the selection process for this category is still deeply flawed, and fails to represent the range of talent on offer.

As Roger Ebert pointed out in his unwritten rules of the Oscars, the Academy rarely gives out awards for subtlety. "It never hurts to ask yourself," he wrote, "Who did the 'most' acting? Most editing? Most noticeable cinematography or music?"
In the costume category, this is truer than ever. The award invariably goes to the film with the most impressive and noticeable costumes, whether this means creating a selection of historically accurate crinolines or outfitting an army of elves.
Two ingredients are required for an Oscar nomination in costume design. First, it's helpful to be a familiar face who has been nominated several times before. Secondly, you need to have worked on a historical drama (preferably starring Keira Knightley), a sci-fi/fantasy epic, or a musical—the three genres that produce the most showy and memorable costumes.
Judging by these two criteria, this year's nominees are comfortably predictable.
[READ MORE]

A guide to 1940s costume design in Marvel's Agent Carter

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Wed, 07 Jan 2015 00:50:00 +0000

Marvel's Agent Carter begins tonight, and I wrote this Daily Dot article to coincide with the first episode. It's a spoiler-free background for Peggy Carter's costumes, and why the show is set during such an interesting period in fashion history.

Set in 1946, Agent Carter's seven-part espionage story is rooted in postwar culture. And like the first Captain America movie, one of its defining features is its 1940s aesthetic, immediately setting it apart from Marvel's other TV show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The biggest influence on Western fashion in 1946 was, obviously, World War II. Fabric rationing led to a trend for simpler clothes, and women's fashions suddenly became more practical due to the influx of women joining the workforce—like Peggy Carter, whose career began in the Strategic Scientific Reserve during the war. These factors added up to women wearing low heels and plain, knee-length skirts without pleats or frills, and men wearing suits without cuffs or flaps on the pockets.

Agent Carter takes place during a dynamic period in fashion history, the transition from wartime austerity to the postwar styles that would define the 1950s. By 1947 the French fashion industry was up and running again, and Christian Dior introduced the so-called "New Look" of nipped-in waists and flouncy calf-length skirts.

[READ MORE]

Mockingjay and Costume Design: Real or not Real?

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 17:37:00 +0000

Previously: Capitol Couture in the Hunger Games, and Capitol Couture: Catching Fire.

In terms of costume design, first two Hunger Games movies never quite lived up to my expectations. It wasn't that the costumes were bad -- far from it -- but they seemed far too homogeneous. Given free rein to create the most outlandish designs imaginable, the Capitol fashjons were disappointingly conservative and homogeneous.

Mockingjay, Part 1 was another matter entirely. With no Hunger Games, Capitol makeovers, or District 12, the story focused on Panem's growing revolution, shown through the eyes of the propaganda war between the Capitol and District 13. Before the film even came out, YouTube propaganda clips began to illustrate the calculated nature of President Snow's public image.

Mockingjay flipped the cliché of dark and light, with the villainous President Snow surrounding himself with pure white to match his signature white roses. His brainwashed prisoners Peeta (dressed in an uncharacteristically stiff suit and a painful-looking white paper collar) and Johanna presented a united front, fitting in with Snow's clean, luxurious aesthetic. Meanwhile Katniss, daughter of coal miners, wears black body armour and fatigues.

In the earlier films, this kind of contrast was meant to highlight Katniss's salt-of-the-earth nature with Snow's obsessively controlled image, but this time it's more complex. Katniss may look more practical and less "styled" than Snow and his entourage, but that's because her District 13 stylists decided this was the best way to market her to the rebels. Her Mockingjay armor (in real life, modeled off a Japanese archery breastplate) was designed for her by Cinna, and continues the asymmetrical theme of previous outfits she wore to public appearances.

Each Hunger Games film has a different costume designer, which I'm beginning to think was a very smart idea. I found The Hunger Games (Judianna Makovsky) to be overly simplistic, but the filmmakers probably didn't want to take too many risks when first introducing the setting. The costumes of Catching Fire (Trish Summerville) were closer to what I'd hoped for, but they still had to adhere to the visual themes set up by the first film. But as Mockingjay branches out into the wider world of Panem, more avenues open up for interesting work by the new costume designers Kurt and Bart, who previously worked on the wonderful Stoker.

Visually, District 13 felt a lot more coherent than the Capitol ever did. My issue with Capitol fashion is that while the costumes were gorgeous, they all had an oddly similar aesthetic -- something that didn't make sense when you consider the furious competition between stylists. District 13, on the other hand, has a perfect excuse for everyone to look the same: It's a military bunker where citizens are given food, clothing and shelter by the state, and where luxury items are rationed. The end result is a utilitarian grey uniform that reflects the stern practicality of President Coin's leadership.

Uniforms and bland, drab costumes are an easy way to illustrate a certain type of dystopian setting. Given the right encouragement and/or legal obligation, most people probably would agree to wear the same uniform every day, especially if they think it's for the greater good. However, there's always someone who can't bear to look the same as everyone else, which is why I'm so fond of Effie Trinket's new costumes.

Dragged away from her life in the Capitol, Effie quickly begins to modify her District 13 fatigues until she's got a collection of grey turbans and capes. Even the way she wears her shirt is different from the neat and practical appearance of characters like Beetee and Plutarch. She simply cannot bear to not look her best.

Between Snow, Katniss, and District 13, we have a white/black/grey color scheme that contrasts beautifully with the rainbow of luxurious costumes we saw in the first two movies -- and each one of these design themes has a solid foundation in the film's worldbuilding. Katniss is dressed in black by Plutarch and Effie, in armor that was designed by Cinna to make her look like the perfect Mockinjay. President Snow is dressed in pure white to offset the filth of the Districts, and the people of District 13 are proud to give up their individuality in favor of wearing the uniform of the revolution, all working hard for what they believe to be a better tomorrow.

For me, the most satisfying aspect of Mockingjay's costumes was the constant theme of "real or not real." The first two movies were already obsessed with authenticity (Katniss and Peeta faking their relationship for the cameras; the sinister glamour of the Capitol's propaganda machine), but Mockingjay upped its game.

Along with Katniss, we begin to realize that nothing is "real." When Katniss sings the Hanging Tree song, that brief moment of genuine emotion is recorded, remixed, and broadcast to budding revolutionaries out in the Districts. Her image as the Mockingjay was designed by Cinna and propped up by clever camera work. Even the goal-oriented practicality of District 13 is arguably the result of propaganda. And so, while I love the costumes of Mockingjay in their own right, their greatest strength is their ability to make the audience think about why characters wear what they do. Instead of just being beautiful or helping build characterization, Mockingjay's costumes are a central aspect of the film's worldbuilding, and constantly demand our attention.

Previously: Capitol Couture in the Hunger Games, and Capitol Couture: Catching Fire.

Posts from elsewhere: Captain America, Constantine, and Agents of SHIELD.

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Thu, 18 Dec 2014 22:39:00 +0000

I hope to have enough time for another costume design post by the end of the year, but in the meantime, here are some other things you may enjoy!

End-of-year guest post at the Book Smugglers blog.

Each year the Book Smugglers invite various authors and bloggers to write guests posts during the holiday period, and this year I was one of them! Most people discuss and recommend books from the past year (it's a book blog, after all), but I decided to talk about a single movie: Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Obvs.

While CATWS wasn't the best film I saw in 2014 -- or even my "favorite," technically speaking -- it's certainly the one I wrote about the most. I love this movie and its fandom, and this post explains why (along with a bunch of fanfic and art recommendations).

Why NBC's Constantine failed to live up to its comic book origins

I haven't decided yet whether to continue writing about Constantine here. It doesn't feel particularly constructive to keep writing negative reviews of a mediocre show, so I may just leave it until the season finale. Constantine has improved a little over the past couple of episodes, but not enough that I actually care about it being renewed or not. Hellblazer is one of my favourite comics, and this show is just... disappointing.

"Previously on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." podcast

I co-host a weekly Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. podcast over at Film Divider! We're now up to season 2, episode 8. Catch up here!

A Hero at the End of the World, by Erin Claiborne

Reminder that this book is awesome and you ought to be reading it! Find out more here.

The three main problems with NBC's 'Constantine.'

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Fri, 05 Dec 2014 23:33:00 +0000

Previously: Constantine, "Non Est Asylum" and "The Darkness Beneath."

After six episodes, Constantine has graduated past "unwatchably bad" and settled into a network TV formula. It's better than it was at the start, but it's definitely not good.

Aside from obvious issues like clunky dialogue, Constantine has three serious ongoing problems:

It's virtually indistinguishable from other genre shows of the same type, ie Supernatural.
Both of the supporting characters, Chas and Zed, are completely pointless.
It's often racist.

There's no better example of problem #1 than last week's episode, "Rage of Caliban." The plot was an unimaginative spin on "young child possessed by demons" horror movie tropes, practically begging for some kind of genre-savvy humor. It even takes place on Halloween, and the guest characters are a suburban family so bland they'd probably be rejected from a cereal commercial for being too generic.

Out of six episodes, only two have really felt individual to this show: "The Devil's Vinyl" (a reasonably interesting riff on the urban legend of a blues musician selling his soul to the devil) and "A Feast of Friends", which was adapted from Hellblazer #1 and had a satisfyingly unpleasant ending.

Every other episode is either painfully predictable, or reliant on familiar genre cliches. No wonder Constantine's ratings are dropping: It's just retreading the same ground that Supernatural has been covering for the past decade, along with a handful others like Grimm, Sleepy Hollow, and Teen Wolf. Constantine has failed to carve out a niche of its own.

Problem #2 is a weird one. I've seen plenty of shows where one or two characters felt superfluous, but this is so much worse. Chas and Zed are so unnecessary that several episodes have to write one of them out of the story. And when they are onscreen, they often have nothing substantial to do.

6 episodes in and we still don't know what Chas is doing in this show, except cooking for Constantine and being impervious to mortal wounds.
— Hello Tailor (@Hello_Tailor) November 30, 2014

Even more pointless than Chas and Zed is the angel character, whose only role is to show up and tell Constantine about "a darkness coming."
— Hello Tailor (@Hello_Tailor) November 30, 2014

Supposedly, Zed is following Constantine because he can teach her how to control her powers. In reality, her purpose is to fulfill the show's female character quota and give Constantine someone to talk to. Instead of being a fully developed character, she's more like Constantine's personal assistant -- a role that's already filled by Chas.

Chas shares Zed's exposition sidekick duties, which sometimes falls flat because unlike Zed, he isn't new to the supernatural/exorcist lifestyle. If he's already experienced in dealing with ghosts and monsters, then why have him ask Constantine to explain a simple concept like ley lines? (That wasn't even the clumsiest exposition scene in last week's episode, by the way. The worst was when Constantine literally explained what demonic possession is, implying that the writers think we've never heard a ghost story before.)

So bizarre for Constantine to basically be explaining the concept of a ghost to the mum in this episode. PEOPLE KNOW WHAT GHOSTS ARE!!
— Hello Tailor (@Hello_Tailor) November 30, 2014

Instead of having two full-time sidekicks, they'd be better off with Constantine as a solo protagonist backed up by recurring guest stars. You know, like the comic.

Problem #3 is already unsalvageable. Constantine has two white male showrunners, and for some reason they decided to make the primary antagonist a black man who is both a crime boss and a vodou priest. It's difficult for this not to have racist undertones, particularly given Hollywood's history of portraying vodou as alien, dangerous, and evil. Which is a pity, because Papa Midnite is the best character in the show. The actor has real screen presence, and adds a sense of power and charisma to a role that could easily have been a total trainwreck.

Combine the problematic depictions of vodou with Constantine's other moments of racist subtext, and the end result is disastrous. From the hideous "black gypsy magic" scene in episode 2 to the introduction of casually exoticized characters like the African shaman in "A Feast of Friends," they've already gone way past the racism limit for a tone-deaf US network TV show.

Constantine isn't the worst show I've ever seen, but I certainly wouldn't be watching it if I wasn't a Hellblazer fan with a morbid fascination for where the show is going. There are a few rays of hope now and then -- the convincing physicality of Matt Ryan's performance, and Papa Midnite's role as a not-quite-bad-guy antagonist -- but in general, it's depressingly lacklustre.

READ THIS BOOK: A Hero at the End of the World

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 22:53:00 +0000

This is a bit of a departure from my usual topics, but today marks the publishing date of one of THE MOST EXCITING BOOKS of my entire life. It's called A Hero at the End of the World and it's written by Erin Claiborne -- a very talented author who has been writing fanfic for years, and is now branching out into original fiction for the first time. This book is absolutely laugh-out-loud funny, a kind of Douglas Adams-esque satire on young adult fantasy tropes: A story about a Chosen One character who fails to live up to expectations.

A Hero at the End of the World is published by Big Bang Press, a small press I helped launch last year. It's specifically dedicated to publishing original novels by fanfic writers, and Hero is the first. And it's getting SUCH GOOD REVIEWS, I'm so excited! Kirkus Reviews gave it a starred recommendation (which is notoriously unusual for a debut novel), and the Book Smugglers (a popular YA/fantasy book review blog) rated it "Excellent." Here's the plot summary:

"According to prophecy, 17-year-old Ewan Mao is destined to kill the evil tyrant who has been terrorizing Britain for as long as he can remember. But when Ewan chickens out and his best friend Oliver Abrams defeats the villain instead, Ewan’s bright future crumbles before his eyes.

Five years later, Ewan is living at home and working in a coffee shop while Oliver has a job in the government’s Serious Magical Crimes Agency. They haven’t spoken since they were teenagers, but a routine investigation leads Oliver and his partner, Sophie Stewart, to uncover a powerful cult… one that has drawn Ewan into a plot to end the world."

You can read an excerpt here!

One of the best things about Big Bang Press is the amount of freedom we have. A Hero at the End of the World is a mainstream teen fantasy novel with a diverse cast including queer characters and people of colour in the lead roles. It's written by an author who is proud of her background as a fanfic writer, and published by people who love fandom and want to promote the work of creators who come from the fanfic and fanart communities. (And did I mention that this book was illustrated by fanartist Jade Liebes? Her art is amazing!)

I hope some of you guys decide to check this book out! Erin is a great writer, and we've put a lot of hard work into making this the best book it can be. For more info, please check out the Big Bang Press website, Tumblr or Twitter accounts! Or you can just can order a copy in paperback or ebook format right now. :D

Interstellar, costume design, and the difficulties of "realistic" visual worldbuilding.

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Sun, 09 Nov 2014 18:38:00 +0000

Interstellar is one of those movies where the costume design is almost invisible, which is part of what makes it so interesting. The simplest explanation is that the visual style is purposefully "realistic" and avoids any kind of futurism... which in itself is unrealistic. A conundrum, right? Technically, it doesn't make sense for people 50-100 years in the future to wear the same clothes as people in 2014. But from the perspective of a filmmaker who wants his apocalyptic sci-fi film to be taken seriously, this aesthetic decision makes perfect sense.

The earthbound setting of Interstellar is a classic American fantasy: a manly farmer hero, raising his kids in a bleak, rural landscape. Despite the film's image as a deep and thoughtful space epic, it still relies on the familiar old Hollywood scenario of a messianic white American dude being the one person who can save mankind. (And yes, I know his daughter does the actual saving, but this is very much a film about Cooper, not Murphy.) Underdog heroes NASA and Matthew McConaughey save humanity while the rest of the world is apparently helpless. Politically and socially, this is a tired old trope, but it aligns well with the kind of generic hero that can be inserted into a complex movie with minimal exposition. Cooper is the kind of guy who, for better or worse, is perceived as "universal." Luckily, McConaughey's performance was brilliant.

So here we have Coop and his kids, looking both relatable and realistic in their jeans and hoodies. This is the difference between a meticulously researched film that is actually realistic, and a film whose worldbuilding gives the appearance of realism, and therefore does not jolt viewers out of their comfort zone. On the whole, the appearance of realism tends to be the better choice. We're watching fiction, after all.

Decades in the future, the characters on Earth continue to wear clothes that look nondescript in the context of present-day fashions. We see Murph in her practical, neutral-toned outfits both at work and when visiting her brother at the farm. Judging by the clothes worn by Murph and her peers, fashion has stopped evolving altogether.

As someone who follows fashion, I'm certain this level of sartorial stagnation could never happen in real life. Even within a dying civilization where fewer new clothes are commercially available, fashions would continue to change over time. But I understand why Christopher Nolan and his costume designer made this decision, because it grounds the film in a sense of reality -- or rather, what we think of as reality in 2014. The other option would be to dress Jessica Chastain in futuristic outfits to illustrate the passage of time, which would clash with Nolan's desire to distance himself from the popular visual tropes of the Hollywood sci-fi genre.

When we see Murph wearing nondescript shirts and jackets, we only think of the passage of time in relation to to her age and Cooper's journey, not in the general sense of what year it is for the rest of the world. We already know the film is set in the future, so there's no point in introducing the costume equivalent of a flying car.

The space suits are the only costumes that look like "costumes" in this film, so they're the only ones that really get discussed in promotional interviews. The earthbound costumes are designed to be absorbed passively without any kind of conscious thought, rather than reminding the audience that they're watching a work of fiction.

In this interview, Interstellar costume designer Mary Zophres says, “My first, gut instinct was that you should not anticipate what the future is going to look like. In fact, there is no attention paid to sartorial aspects at all. It’s unimportant.” She goes on to say that the space suits were meant to look like they'd been cobbled together from spare parts. Since most viewers' personal image of a space suit is still based on the astronauts of the late 20th century, that's what they went for in Interstellar. Any additions or changes were for purely practical purposes.

Costuming is always important to the way we consume a movie, but it's particularly important to Christopher Nolan's work as a writer and director of science fiction blockbusters. All of his best-known films are out-and-out fantasy (The Dark Knight, Inception, The Prestige), but their costumes and set design are intended to add a veneer of realism.

Nolan movies are treated with an unusual amount of respect compared to other sci-fi and fantasy blockbusters, and I'm pretty sure his costume design choices are a major contributing factor to this attitude. With the unavoidable exception of Batman, all of his characters are dressed to look as normal and everyday as humanly possible, which distracts us from the fantastical concepts behind each movie. In Inception (perhaps my favourite costume design film of all time) Nolan is telling a story of pure fantasy, but it's illustrated in the visual language of a real-world drama.

Dreams are depicted as buildings and hotel rooms full of everyday humans, and the only fantasy elements are the stretching dimensions and timescales of the dream world. Even those are introduced to us by an architect who carefully explains the situation by scribbling a diagram on a piece of paper -- which, incidentally, is also how Nolan explains wormhole travel in Interstellar.

Because most of Inception takes place in this realistic urban landscape, and because all of the characters are dressed in staid, businesslike clothes, it feels more like a corporate espionage thriller than a successor to the worlds depicted in movies like Dark City, Paprika and The Matrix.

In the case of Interstellar, we're watching a movie that melds sci-fi ideas about relativity, apocalyptic climate change (more or less), and space travel. But we're also watching a Hollywood fairytale where NASA selects an American everyman farmer dude to lead a world-saving space mission, where five-dimensional beings help him transmit Morse Code messages to his daughter through time and space. Humanity is saved by a combination of the power of love and faith, and a message sent via books falling off a shelf and the ticking of a wristwatch.

As a viewer, this combination of hard sci-fi and nonsensical Hollywood fantasy requires a herculean feat of suspending one's disbelief. We need all the serious and "realistic" trappings we can get. Hence why Interstellar was marketed with Google-sponsored lesson plans and interviews with the film's astrophysicist, and why Nolan spent so much time on the ground-level worldbuilding elements of Coop's farm, the NASA labs, and the overall aesthetic of Earth scenes taking place in a contemporary setting.

I usually tend to write about costume design from a characterization standpoint, but characterization is rarely an important aspect of a Nolan film. In Interstellar, the most personal costuming detail is Cooper's jacket -- which is later copied by Murphy as an adult, as she wears a jacket that looks very nearly identical to her father's. In amongst a cast of characters with no individual style whatsoever, this is a beautiful little personal touch; a subtle sign that Murph hasn't abandoned her father's memory quite as thoroughly as she likes to think.

Further reading

Constantine: "The Darkness Beneath"

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Sun, 02 Nov 2014 22:24:00 +0000

Previously: Constantine, "Non Est Asylum"

If you're still on the fence about watching this week's Constantine, here's a line that tells you everything you need to know: "There's nothing blacker than gypsy magic."

Yes, this episode hinged on the kind of racist stereotype that I'm surprised is even allowed on TV in 2014. Friends, this was not a pleasant hour of television.

I think Constantine is going to save this mining town by blowing up the mine where everyone works.
— Hello Tailor (@Hello_Tailor) November 2, 2014

In order to introduce the new female lead Zed, episode 2 saw Constantine visit a Pennsylvania mining town without his regular (and so far pointless) sidekick Chas. This town had a problem with vengeful spirits killing off local miners, and because Constantine is indistinguishable from Supernatural, our hero traveled across America to solve their problem by interrogating a bunch of angry men and befriending a sexy yet mysterious lady. That's Zed, by the way. We still don't know much about her except that she was probably described as "tempestuous" in the casting call.

The victim in the pre-credits scene was a mean drunk husband who burned to death in the shower. After various unimaginative demonic shenanigans, we learn that his wife is the one who brought the mine monsters into town, and Constantine's solution is to... bring her (implicitly) abusive husband back to drag her down to Hell. Oh, and she's a "Romani girl," hence the godawful "gypsy magic" line I quoted above. To make matters worse, this tired old stereotype was completely unnecessary to the situation at hand, and could've been removed without making any difference to the plot.

The most frustrating thing with this episode was how easily they could've made it better. It was written by the creator of Farscape, a delightfully weird show with its fair share of interesting female characters. But this episode wasn't just poorly written, it was a paint-by-numbers example of generic supernatural/mystery TV. What makes this all the more baffling is that it's adapted from a comic that actually does have some personality, and both of the showrunners are supposedly Hellblazer fans. I'm yet to see much evidence that anyone in this show has gone beyond reading the Hellblazer Wikipedia page, though.

Last week I mentioned that one of Constantine's biggest problems will be differentiating itself from similar genre shows. Well, that issue is already making itself known. This episode was even more like Supernatural than last week: Constantine saves a small town from undead spirits, and the unimaginative monster-of-the-week storyline was marred by sexist and racist subtext. At least Supernatural is capable of genuine menace and horror, and its dud episodes are elevated by the compelling relationships between its lead characters. Unfortunately, it looks like Constantine is only emulating Supernatural's bad points.

The whole "Pennsylvania mining town" concept could have been used to transfer themes from Hellblazer to a contemporary American setting. But there the resemblance ends. What we got was a story where a woman is clearly intimidated by her husband (who is implied to be abusive), and uses her magic powers to warp some protective spirits into attacking miners as revenge. This is a totally solid fairytale idea, and could have ended on the very Hellblazer-ish note of Constantine having to "defeat" an enemy who isn't really a villain, but is just a normal person who has been pushed to the limit.

Instead we got an episode that fails to explore the emotional context of the setting, and culminates in the wife character being depicted as a one-note villain who is punished by being dragged to hell by the spirit of her husband. And let's not forget that Constantine just blew up the local coal mine, thus ruining the economy of the entire town. I feel like they should've made a bigger deal out of that??

There are two explanations here: Either the writers are simply misinterpreting the way the Hellblazer comics told this kind of morally ambiguous story, OR they're purposefully writing this kind of simple, cliched episode because they think it's the best way to stay on air.

I have no idea how many women are on the production staff at Constantine, but I'm guessing not many. So far Zed is slightly less cardboardy than Liv, the female lead who was written out of the pilot episode. That doesn't mean Zed behaves like an actual human woman, though. The relationship between her and Constantine is very muddled, lurching from unconvincing sexual tension to an intrinsically unpleasant dynamic where she is ~drawn to him~ while he orders her around and acts like a douche.

The thing is, the Hellblazer version of Constantine is by no means a feminist character, or even a nice guy. He tries to do the right thing, but he screws up a lot. But the comics tend to be critical of this, and we also benefit from seeing his internal monologue all the time. Ideally, Constantine would show his struggle to be a good man, but balance this with storylines where he fucks up or is forced to make bad choices. He also needs to be backed up by a well-written female character, which Zed is not. She's meant to be a foil to Constantine, but their relationship is unbalanced from Day 1. She needs his help with her powers, while he uses those powers for his own ends. On top of that, she has to persuade him to let her join him. We're also told that she's in her mid-20s -- an inexplicable decision because Angélica Celaya is 32, only one year younger than Matt Ryan.

With Zed now thrown into the mix, we're left with an entire cast of characters whose motivations are frustratingly unclear -- and not in a good way. Constantine appears to be motivated by sheer altruism to follow Liv's map and fight a bunch of monsters. Chas may or may not be some kind of traveling demon hunter as well. And Zed's reasons for teaming up with Constantine are partly because she needs his help, and partly because... she dreams about him? How convenient.

As it stands, Constantine can only go downhill if it continues on in this vein. The similarities with Supernatural are too pronounced, and so far Constantine's characterization is disappointingly weak.

I'm hoping that they do a character-focused episode soon, so we can learn more about Constantine's backstory and get a better idea of his motivation. Right now he feels like an extremely watered-down interpretation of the character we see in Hellblazer, to the point where he's only recognisable thanks to superficial traits like his accent and costume. A costume which, by the way, is already beginning to look a little awkward. He wears that brand-new trenchcoat and undone red tie all the time, and it's making him look like a poseur. Why not just take the tie off, or at least tie it properly for part of the episode? Most viewers have little or no knowledge of the comics, so callbacks like this are immaterial. They should lay off the meaningless details (Britishisms like "blighter," really?) and focus more on the actual substance of the show -- such as it is.

NBC Constantine: "Non Est Asylum"

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Sun, 26 Oct 2014 22:04:00 +0000

I'm a big Hellblazer fan, so I've been looking forward to NBC's Constantine with trepidation. Is it going to be any good? Well, no. Hellblazer is not well suited to the formulas and restrictions of US network television. But I'm a glutton for punishment, so I'm going to keep watching.

Predictably, I wasn't exactly blown away by the pilot episode's combination of stilted exposition and occult horror cliches. That being said, a pilot is a pilot is a pilot. It's entirely possible that this show will improve later on. In the meantime, I'm gonna do one of the worst things a TV critic can do: over-analyse a show based on its inevitably simplistic first episode.

We begin with an origin story that will be familiar to Hellblazer fans: John Constantine in a mental hospital. He allowed a young girl to be killed and dragged to Hell by a demon, so now he feels bad. And for whatever reason, that leads to electric shock treatment. Everything else in the episode will feel familiar even to new viewers, thanks to its solid basis in cliché. Daddy issues, a Dark Past, and a young woman (Liv) who needs the protagonist's help -- it's all there, and it all progresses more or less as expected.

"You do that a lot, you know," says Liv. "Deflect emotions with humour. Like the morally ambiguous male lead of a TV show." #Constantine
— Hell Tailor (@Hello_Tailor) October 25, 2014

Having saved the girl and confronted his literal/figurative demons, Constantine ends the episode with an embarrassing voiceover monologue while wandering the city at night. So noir. "I'm the one who steps from the shadows, all trenchcoat and arrogance," he says, like a 14-year-old boy trying to sound cool. Not exactly Shakespeare, but it adheres to my expectations for mainstream US drama pilots, which generally consist of characters explaining things to each other in very plain terms.

The biggest disappointment was that they hired the excellent Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, Doomsday) to direct an episode that could never be much above mediocre. I hope he comes back later in the series, to work on something a little more interesting. He's a perfect choice for this show, and honestly they need all the help they can get.

I've never subscribed to the idea that TV/movie adaptations need to be "accurate" in order to be good. Some things just can't be directly adapted for the screen -- for example Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which relies a lot on footnotes and a very precise literary style.

In the case of comicbook adaptations like Constantine, the original was written by multiple people over a period of decades. In this context the most important thing is to replicate the tone and characterization of the comics, and I'm not confident they're going to manage it. Most of John Constantine's most recognizable personality traits (kind of a screwup; bad at relationships; sometimes only does the right thing when pushed) are already stereotypical for morally ambiguous TV antiheroes. The problem is, Constantine is more than the sum of his parts.

There are a zillion other unshaven douchebag antiheroes on TV, most of them with their own selection of addictions, dead parents and dark pasts. At the moment, the only thing distinguishing this show from the shortlived Dresden Files adaptation is the protagonist's accent, and Constantine already shares way too many similarities with Supernatural.

The thing that should be setting Constantine apart is his status as a counterculture icon. But since this type of show is petrified of making any kind of political statement, I'm not holding out much hope.

When Constantine was first announced, the showrunners were careful to reassure fans that Constantine would be blond and that they'd try to dodge NBC's anti-smoking rules. This was to counteract the backlash against the Keanu Reeves Constantine movie, which basically took a dump on Hellblazer canon. Still, I wasn't reassured. Constantine's smoking is important to a storyline in the comics where he gets lung cancer, but making him a non-smoker would be a relatively superficial change compared to some.

More than anything else, the reason why Hellblazer has enjoyed such longevity is its social relevance. I'm all for picking apart Captain America for its political subtext, but Hellblazer is another matter entirely. This ain't subtext. Half of the classic 1980s comics read like hatemail to Margaret Thatcher, and Constantine is very much a product of his upbringing and experiences in late 20th century Britain.

In the NBC show, Constantine is presumably in his 30s, meaning he was born sometime around 1980. John Constantine, Hellblazer edition, was born in 1953 and aged in real time throughout the comics. Now, I do understand why NBC decided to set Constantine in the present day, because an occult-themed show set in 1980s Britain would be kind of a hard sell. But you've got to admit that being born in the '80s creates a very different origin story for this character.

Somewhere in the USA, a teen boy just decided to start using the word "squire" because he decided it sounded cool & British in #Constantine.
— Hell Tailor (@Hello_Tailor) October 25, 2014

One detail that rubbed me up the wrong way was a scene where Constantine argues with a bartender over who is the "most" influential band, the Sex Pistols or the Ramones. Huh? Why would someone born in 1980 have a stake in the Sex Pistols, a band that were only really relevant to the zeitgeist of 1977? Evidently this is meant as a callback to the canon backstory of him being in a punk band in the '70s, but NBC's version of Constantine was a teenager during the height of Britpop. If they wind up including flashbacks to him touring with Mucous Membrane in the late '90s, he's gonna seem like a pop-culture relic.

Realistically speaking, I know Constantine is never going to have the same political weight as the comics. That doesn't mean I can't hold out hope for improvement in other areas, though. First, they need to carve out a tone that sets the show apart from its many competitors, particularly Supernatural. Unfortunately one of the showrunners is David S. Goyer (the "S" stands for sexist), so it's unlikely to outstrip Supernatural in the feminism department.

Otherwise, I'm hoping they stop relying on demonic horror cliches and try to do something interesting with Hellblazer's occult background. That, and hopefully make it clear that this isn't a show about Constantine's heroic quest to defeat the forces of darkness. All the best Hellblazer storylines either begin with Constantine trying to avoid helping someone, or with him being blackmailed or cajoled into helping an old friend, only to fuck up horribly when the time comes.

In other words, the best way to replicate the personality of Hellblazer is to end most of this show's episodes on a downbeat, anticlimactic note. Good luck with that.

Next: "The Darkness Beneath"

Schedule for Seattle Geek Girl Con this weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 18:15:00 +0000

I’m in Seattle for Geek Girl Con this weekend! I’m doing two panels and a talk about superhero costumes — please come along! :D Here’s my schedule. (The superhero costume design talk is probably the most relevant to people who read this blog: 3pm on Sunday in room LL2.)

SATURDAY

3pm: “21st Century Boys: Slash in the Mainstream”

“Today, male/male slash is the predominant form of shipping in online fandom. Growth of slash and femslash has spawned new problems: exploitation of shipping by media; the push to make fanfic “publishable”; and the ongoing struggle to translate fandom’s feminism, diversity, and push for queer pairings into increased media representation.”

5pm: “Fandom and the Media”

This panel is basically me and several other fandom/geek culture journalists (Lauren Orsini, Aja Romano, Versha Sharma, Lisa Granshaw and Amanda Brennan) discussing our experiences in the field, and talking about what it’s like to report on fandom news when you yourself are a fan.

SUNDAY

3pm: “Evolution of the Superhero Movie Costume”

I’m doing a 45-minute talk about how superhero movie costumes have developed over the years, and why. If you like my blog posts about superhero movies, hopefully you’ll enjoy this!

Filmoria podcast on Captain America: The Winter Soldier

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Sun, 05 Oct 2014 17:46:00 +0000

I recently recorded a podcast about Captain America: The Winter Soldier for Filmoria, along with Rebecca Pahle of the Mary Sue, and Grace Duffy and Lesley Coffin, both of Filmoria. Regular HelloTailor readers may already have read quite enough about this movie, but on the off-chance that you're still interested, you can listen to the podcast here on Soundcloud! I'm still fascinated by this movie, and we all had a great time discussing it at length. :D

Costuming and Design in Captain America: The Winter Soldier -- Nick Fury, Black Widow, and S.H.I.E.L.D.

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Mon, 22 Sep 2014 21:23:00 +0000

Part 1: "Trust No One" -- How Captain America became the gritty superhero we never knew we wanted.
Part 2: HYDRA, Sitwell, and diversity in the Marvel universe.
Part 3: Black Widow and Falcon.
Part 4: The Tragedy of Bucky Barnes.
Part 5: Worldbuilding in the MCU.
Part 6: Costuming and design: Steve & Bucky.

People love to namecheck spandex when talking about superhero costumes, but as far as I recall there's no spandex to be seen anywhere in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With Cap's costume toned down to a subtle navy blue for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the most comicbook-looking character we see is Nick Fury.

With each new appearance, I've grown to love Nick Fury's costumes more and more. Not just because they look cool, but because of the internal logic of why he dresses like that. To understand what I'm getting at here, take a moment to think about S.H.I.E.L.D. itself, and Fury's role within the organization.

In The Avengers, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and other Marvel movies, S.H.I.E.L.D. is portrayed as a quasi-governmental Men in Black organization. It's populated by military types, agents like Coulson, jumpsuit-wearing Helicarrier personnel, and a smattering of individuals like Black Widow and Hawkeye. Fury is in charge, with Maria Hill as the deputy director and Alexander Pierce as his immediate superior, a kind of liaison between S.H.I.E.L.D. and various world governments.

Up until now Fury was the authority figure, a character who swoops in and solves problems or tells the heroes what to do. He was basically a trigger-happy, morally ambiguous Gandalf figure.

CATWS brought in a much-needed new dimension of fallibility to Nick Fury, as well as showing him inside S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters for the first time. Alexander Pierce, in his old-fashioned but stylish three-piece suits, both fits in with those surroundings and represents the political establishment. Meanwhile Fury, with his ostentatious black leather outfits, does not exactly seem like he belongs in a grey office building.

There's a certain internal consistency to the costumes at S.H.I.E.L.D., with Maria Hill and most of the Helicarrier personnel wearing navy blue uniforms (the same shade as Cap's new uniform and his nylon biker jacket in this movie, incidentally), and characters like Coulson and Agent 13 wearing subdued businesswear.

Nick Fury does not fall into either category. He's sure as hell not wearing normal clothes that could blend into his surroundings, and I highly doubt that his outfits adhere to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s official uniform. Instead, I can only describe his favourite costume as some kind of supervillain-themed black leather cosplay outfit.

Yes, Nick Fury is a goth.

GIF by harlequinnade

Black leather trenchcoats have a long and storied history in the sci-fi/action movie genre, and it's one that I'll go into in more detail if I ever write about The Matrix. Suffice it to say that there's no practical reason why Nick Fury, a man in his sixties, would choose to wear an ankle-length leather coat every day.

This decision was surely based on style and style alone. And since we've definitely seen him wearing several different coats, I can only imagine what the inside of his wardrobe might look like.

In The Avengers

Fury has two basic costumes throughout the Marvel franchise: a black turtleneck/black trousers outfit, usually coupled with a long black leather coat, and the black "uniform" suit we see in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Aside from being totally goth, Fury's outfits have one major thing in common: they're menacing. The softest, most casual thing we ever see him wear is a dark grey cardigan when he's hospitalized after faking his death, and even then he's wearing it with some sort of bespoke leather sling that looks like a holster.

His black body armour/leather coat outfits are a blatant visual signal for badassery, while the high-collared, uniform-inspired suit he wears in CATWS is particularly interesting in that it has a lot in common with classic villain costumes. That "uniform" jacket is reminiscent of the officer's uniforms on the Death Star. Fury has the potential to "look evil," whereas Alexander Pierce looks perfectly neutral at all times. Rich and neutral, much like Guy Pearce's supervillain character in Iron Man 3, in fact.

Nick Fury's badass black outfits make him into a visually iconic figure, even within the movie itself. This has the effect of a kind of reverse disguise because as soon as Nick Fury takes off his signature costume, it's very easy for him to disappear. When people are expecting a big, imposing figure in a sweeping black coat and eyepatch, they're not going to be looking for an elderly man in a hoodie and sunglasses. I absolutely loved this costume changeover at the end, not just because of the way it utilizes Samuel L. Jackson's age but because of the link it provides with Black Widow.

I'm not overly familiar with Black Widow comics, but my impression is that she's often portrayed as a rather vampy character. Her most famous visual characteristics are her vibrant red hair and shiny black catsuit, which is generally drawn to be sexier than the version we see in the movies. I'm happy with the MCU's interpretation of her appearance, partly because it allowed me to develop a pet theory about her hair.

The movies obviously had to keep Back Widow's red hair, but instead of going for a natural shade like Pepper Potts, they went for a bright red tone that could only come from a bottle. That's where my comparison with Nick Fury comes in. I think that Black Widow purposefully dyes her hair such a noticeable shade because it then becomes her defining feature. The result? As soon as she changes her hair colour to something else, she can easily slip under the radar. Another reverse disguise, just like Nick Fury's carefully constructed image as a leather-wearing badass.

I'm ambivalent over whether we ever see Black Widow's own "real" dress sense. Perhaps she doesn't even have one. In Iron Man 2 she wears tight, expensive businesswear while undercover as Tony Stark's new P.A., while in The Avengers we see her wearing a similar costume to the jeans and leather jacket she wears for a few scenes in CATWS. The dark leather blazer she wears in the graveyard scene looks far closer to the kind of thing we might expect from the comics (although I also think it looks about 15 years out of style, despite being a $2,400 Burberry design).

Black Widow is meant to be a very enigmatic character, and her ability to change and utilize her appearance means that her costumes are understandably difficult to pin down.

When you see Steve and Natasha together they both appear to be wearing generic, nondescript clothes, but they chose them for very different reasons. Steve probably doesn't know how to shop and may just have picked out the plainest thing possible, whereas Natasha has the capacity to put a great deal of thought and analysis into what image she wants to present to the world.

For me, the most important aspect of Black Widow's costuming in CATWS is that it's yet another volley against the idiots who think Scarlett Johansson is only onscreen to look pretty. Even in a general sense CATWS is the most sexless movie in the entire franchise, and the most sexualised Black Widow situation is perhaps a split-second shot of her butt in the catsuit in an early scene. (Incidentally, Guardians of the Galaxy was pretty awful in this regard.)

When she's wearing what we assume are her own clothes, she wears skinny jeans and casual jackets, and when she's in disguise she wears a baggy grey hoodie and sneakers. Her t-shirts for each outfit are so similar that they might as well have come from a multipack. In other words, a selection of incredibly normal, neutral-coloured outfits designed to blend in with thousands of other women in their twenties. Perfect for an accomplished spy, and perfect for the realistic tone of the movie as a whole.

Previously: The costumes and characters of The Avengers, Part 1: SHIELD and Part 4: Black Widow & Hawkeye.

Part 1: "Trust No One" -- How Captain America became the gritty superhero we never knew we wanted.
Part 2: HYDRA, Sitwell, and diversity in the Marvel universe.
Part 3: Black Widow and Falcon.
Part 4: The Tragedy of Bucky Barnes.
Part 5: Worldbuilding in the MCU.
Part 6: Costuming and design: Steve & Bucky.

Doctor Who: The Doctor's new outfit, and some thoughts on female companions and costume design.

noreply@blogger.com (Hello, Tailor) — Sun, 31 Aug 2014 20:22:00 +0000

The unveiling of a new Doctor Who costume is a lot like a superhero rebranding -- or a new collection by an established fashion label. It's a combined attempt to get people excited about innovation, while reassuring everyone that not too much has changed. And so, the BBC announced Capaldi's new costume by talking about how it blends elements of old and new -- for example, the visual callback to John Pertwee's costume.

Thanks to the age gap between Capaldi and Matt Smith, the whole "old vs. new" thing is specifically relevant to this regeneration. Smith was dressed in an almost grandfatherly way (tweed, bow tie and braces), but that had the side-effect of making him look like a hipster. This was problematic because the Doctor's costume should never resemble a current fashion trend.

If you can look at the Doctor and say, "That guy looks like he should be hanging out in a vintage shoe shop in 21st century Hackney," then it detracts from his image as an alien -- although of course, if you make him look too alien then you can't take him seriously. Capaldi's costume sidesteps this issue by being extremely simple and pared-down, which I enjoy a great deal (not least because I want to wear the entire outfit myself).

Looking at Clara and the Doctor in the first episode of season 8, the similarities between their two outfits are obvious. He's wearing a white shirt with a prominent collar and no tie, in a more severe version of Clara's lace collar. Then there's the black/white/red color palette, and the fact that he's wearing a cardigan rather than a waistcoat underneath his jacket. If you wanted, you could probably even stretch to linking Clara's tartan skirt to the fact that Twelve has a Scottish accent.

To me, this link between the Doctor and Clara's clothes is a clear sign that intentionally or otherwise, he imprinted on her after regenerating. (Although if you look at Clara's cardigan, you'll see that it's patterned with bow ties -- a callback to Eleven's signature accessory. She's still looking back to the Doctor's previous incarnation, whereas the new Doctor is calling out for her attention.

I no longer have much trust in Steven Moffat as showrunner, but I enjoyed the way the new Doctor was introduced as being rather emotionally vulnerable. He isn't just desperate for attention (which would be typical for the Doctor) but is needy for support from Clara. When he puts on his new costume for the first time, he immediately looks to Clara for reassurance.

Intriguingly, there's a third person in this regeneration costume club: "Missy." This character is almost certainly a villain, and seems to be collecting people who die as a result of the Doctor's actions.

Missy wears a female version of the Doctor's costume: A stiff white collar with no tie, and a black coat with short lapels. Missy is also clearly linked to the Doctor in some way -- although the less said about that, the better. I don't trust Steven Moffat to introduce a female antagonist who refers to the Doctor as her "boyfriend."

Regarding Doctor Who's increasingly dubious relationship with its female characters, I have mixed feelings about Clara's tenure on the show. Her characterization last season was practically nonexistent, but season 8 seems far more promising. Unfortunately, I do have some problems with this new running "joke" where the Doctor makes fun of Clara's appearance, because it's just so... pointless and mean? Moffat is weirdly obsessed with the attractiveness of his female characters, and this often carries over into episodes by other writers.

Moffat may not write every episode, but he's in charge of the overall story arc and tone of the show, which often means editing or adding to other people's scripts. For example, I find it difficult to believe that last season, Neil Gaiman wrote the Doctor describing Clara as “a mystery wrapped in an enigma, squeezed into a skirt that’s a little too tight." This line obviously annoyed me due to Moffat's history with female characters, but also because Clara's skirt was not actually tight during this scene. If you're gonna insert creepy, sexist comments into the show, then at least make sure they're relevant.

When you combine this with the way Moffat talks about women in real life, all those comments about Clara's appearance are far more distracting. In two episodes, the Doctor has called her "short and mannish," mocked her (supposed) vanity, said that she was "built like a man," and commented that she looked tired and it was good that she was "still making an effort."

The thing is, all these jokes seem to have come out of nowhere. In "Deep Breath," the Doctor says Clara is egocentric and obsessed with her appearance, but we've never seen much evidence of that. Not unless you count the fact that she always has nice hair and clothes, which you could equally have said about Martha back in season 3. Then there's all the unrelated comments about her appearance from characters like Strax, which are apparently just included for laughs.

If this dynamic only existed between Twelve and Clara, then I might accept it as a quirk of their relationship. However, we've already seen plenty of Moffat-era episodes that include things like River advising Amy, "Never let the Doctor see you age." Moffat has a creepy fixation with gender roles and women's looks, and this is inadvertently ruining a characterization detail he introduced in "Deep Breath": Clara's vanity.

I really enjoy the idea of Clara being a little vain about her looks, because it's very rare to see this trait in a "good" female character. It also explains why Clara always looks so pretty all the time, because otherwise we'd have to assume that it's simply because she's a young woman on TV. Sadly, this characteristic is completely undermined if we only ever hear about it in the context of male characters mocking and belittling her for it.

Modern Doctor Who has been very good at providing realistic costumes for its female leads. Rose's hair, makeup and fashion sense all looked appropriate for a 19-year-old girl who grew up in a London council estate. Donna wore clothes that implied she shopped in bog-standard department stores, while Martha, a doctor from a more middle-class family, looked a bit more put-together. Then once we reach the Moffat era, both of Amy's jobs ("kissogram" and fashion model) were based on her attractiveness, so her casual-but-beautiful appearance made sense. But Clara's fashion sense was always a lot harder to pin down, partly because the show failed to tell us much about her as a person.

Compared to the family backstory for Rose or Donna, Clara's background is virtually nonexistent, which didn't help when combined with her shaky characterization in season 7. In her first episode, "Clara Oswald" is actually Oswin the Dalek, who is portrayed by Jenna Coleman in a sexy red dress, perfect makeup and an apron (because she loves to bake). Clara's "real" appearance is a little more toned-down, but is still very pretty and feminine.

In the second episode of the new season, one character remarks that Clara looks like a schoolteacher -- which she is. However, those schoolteacher outfits (patterned dresses, cardigans and cute accessories) alway look very fashionable, which is why I like the idea of Clara taking a lot of pride in her appearance. It explains why she always has such perfect makeup, shiny hair, and great outfits, and I like the idea of a female character who can be heroic and nice, but also kind of vain.

It's just too bad that these traits are accompanied by the Doctor making cracks about her appearance, since this show already includes way too much gender-based humour.