Monday, April 13, 2015

Can we talk Game of Thrones?

The GoT Costume Contest at the Fox on March 29, 2015
This contains Spoilers for Episode 1 of Season 5 and maybe a few extremely well-disguised long-term spoilers (more like hints) for non-book-readers (Unsullied). Read at your own risk, and please don't come crying to me afterward. You've been warned.

I was lucky enough to see Episode 1 of Season 5 two weeks early at Atlanta's Fabulous Fox Theatre as part of the Atlanta Film Festival; so when I was watching as it aired last night, I'd had some time to chew on the events that transpired. I've also been reading some of what's been written about it, and a couple of things come to my mind that I haven't seen covered elsewhere.

There's been a lot of talk about the first use of flashback and a little about the use of foreshadowing. The showrunners were quick to point out that it's not really flashback if it's the first scene, so not flashing back from anything. But, c'mon, guys, splitting hairs are we now? What I was struck by when I watched last night (don't remember thinking this the first time through), was that Cersei's long slow march in mourning black up the steps to the Great Sept of Baelor might be foreshadowing. It turned the show's focus on life in King's Landing starkly towards Religion, especially in combination with her awkward meeting with her cousin and former, um, playmate (among other things), Lancel Lannister. Young Lancel has changed his appearance, his entire demeanor, significantly, bearing the clasped hands and terrifying smile that always and only mean the certainty of rectitude that comes from the most absolute form of fundamentalist religion. We also see it on Stannis' wife Selyse's face while Melisandre officiates at the faith-specific "justice" meted out at the end of the episode in the name of their deity, R'hilor. It's not the religion that's wrong so much as it is the fundamentalism, the absolute belief that one thing is Right and everything else is Wrong. These are very strong hints that this already prominent theme is expanding. It's certainly one that resonates in our little world today.

There were quite a few departures from the books last night; some of them were pretty big. Mance Rayder's story line was changed pretty radically, as was that of Littlefinger (Petyr Baelish) and Sansa Stark. Could we be leaving Alayne behind? And where in the world are they going? As the hints were strong that Tyrion and Varys may be heading to Meereen to meet up with our Mother of (very, very bad) Dragons, which is totally (and thankfully) off book storyline; could Littlefinger and Sansa be headed to such exotic locales, or is it rougher terrain ahead for them, like Winterfell? I have no idea and can't wait to find out. Is it next Sunday yet?

I'm sure there's so much I've missed, but those were the nagging thoughts I'd wanted to bring up elsewhere but decided to put here.

Valar morghulis, y'all, and, just between us, Jon Snow knows quite a lot.


Sunday, February 15, 2015

Coming Out Against High Heels

I'm astonished that this needs doing, but it does. I look at today's young women, so confident and poised in their bodies and embracing their sexuality. Then I look at their bound, contorted feet, and all that flies out the window.

This is some broken thing, some rift in the rightness of the universe, cosmic consonance disturbed, wrongly routed.

"But I look so much better/thinner/taller," rolls out of otherwise educated, expert, enlightened minds' mouths. Comfort and health back-burnered almost without a moment's consideration for the illusion of longer legs. The reward: painfully contorted elderly feet for those lucky enough to last that long.

When I see otherwise smart women in brutally high heels, I don't see a thing of beauty; I see intelligence undermined by insecurity, neediness overwhelming accomplishment. When I see it in media professionals given the opportunity to be a role model for young girls, it becomes something worse: opportunity failed.

I just don't think platitudes about valuing who you are inside and your accomplishments above appearances ring true when spoken by women in four inch Louboutins. Such a waste of all that
confidence and ability, rendered moot by vanity. Shame on you.

They have their place, mind you, a very valuable one. They are now what they were then: Fuck Me Pumps. #NotForWork #SetAnExample #SensibleShoes #SmartIsBeautiful