Mladen Posted December 28, 2018 Share Posted December 28, 2018 4 hours ago, Zorral said: It was a waste of at least one darned good actor, Sandra Oh. I'm not so sure about the other one, for various reasons, the non-originality of her character among the forefront. There was quite the debate about who did the better job. Both of the actresses did excellent work with the given material but it was Oh's prominence that got her all those nominations. 3 hours ago, Heartofice said: Killing Eve should be the template for feminist drama. And which show these days is not "template for feminist drama". From "Grey's anatomy" to "Game of Thrones" and everything in between, every single show with a prominent female character is claiming to be a feminist drama. And in comparison to dramas 40, 50 years ago, heck, even 20 years ago, most of them rightfully hold the banner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted December 28, 2018 Share Posted December 28, 2018 A young psychopathic woman killing people doesn't make something 'feminist.' Or even make something a feminist statement. Killing is not feminist by definition. Being bored with your job and your really nice husband so fixating on a psychopath for excitement is not a definition of feminist by any means. But you all know that? So what else is going on here? Beyond the male gaze fantasy? Of course real feminist action is a lot less glamorous. But you all that? Nor is this even original, not new and shiny as proclaimed, especially after the first Blade Runner, which was a really long time ago, and the Kill Bills and the rest since then. It's just got this film gloss of big budget cosmopolitan films like the Bournes, which one doesn't see much on tv, especially when a woman centered. It's usually something like The Night Manager in which the woman gets beaten up and killed. It's funny. Reasons that show this not as feminist -- or even anything beyond surface (one likes surface sometimes, especially for escapist entertainment, I get that, but I do have this thing about amoral killing, so amoral that we don't even know who is ordering the killing or why and nobody else cares either. Anyway I can list reason after reason why this isn't as new and shiny as people say, and why it isn't feminist (one way is also to see who likes it best; see: male-gazey. But people who think I'm full of it don't give a single refutation beyond this is grrrrrrrt! the actors are grrrrrrrrt! (not necessarily, and certainly not all of them)! The writing is great -- not beyond being smart-ass it's not, and smart ass doesn't stand in for grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt, or even necessarily good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mexal Posted December 28, 2018 Share Posted December 28, 2018 7 hours ago, Zorral said: It was a waste of at least one darned good actor, Sandra Oh. I'm not so sure about the other one, for various reasons, the non-originality of her character among the forefront. Non-originality of her character? What other show has a character like Villanelle? And how does this impact the performance Jodie Comer gave, which in my opinion, was the best performance on the show? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofice Posted December 28, 2018 Share Posted December 28, 2018 What I think made Killing Eve 'feminist' was that it's a show full of strong, interesting female characters, taking on jobs you would traditionally expect men to be doing, but it wasn't done in a way that makes you roll your eyes or make you suspect it was trying to make a statement. Sandra Oh's character is great at her job, in fact she values her job over her family life. Her husband stays at home and worries about her safety and she is clearly the main career winner in that relationship. It was all done in a way that felt totally natural and made sense. Just because a character is a cool assassin doesn't mean something is male gaze. I'm not quite sure what you mean by this idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted December 28, 2018 Share Posted December 28, 2018 8 hours ago, Zorral said: one way is also to see who likes it best; see: male-gazey. Oh FUCK RIGHT OFF with this shit. You don't like the show that's fair enough and I'm not for people telling you you cannot be feminist if you don't as I say, but right here you're trying to imply that liking it is a moral failing. Cheap-arse argument that is. Especially bollocks since from everything I've seen this show has attracted a big audience of female and otherwise not-in-it-for-perving-the-ladies audiences. You're also demanding refutation but you've given no specific criticism beyond 'there's a prison sequence so it must be male-gaze' so what is there to refute? If you think this show suffers from male gaze I'm frankly not sure you know what male gaze means. Almost the entire point of it is to take situations, stories and cliches that are usually presented from and for a male eye and tell them from a women's perspective. There's no sexualisation of Eve whatsoever and very little of Villanelle, and when there is it's always made weird and uncomfortable. But then you're also talking about how it's all about this big film gloss it's got and it's like... only in the scenes where Villanelle is killing someone, in direct and obviously deliberate contrast to the desperately unglossy scenes of Eve doing her work and going home but even Villanelle's appartment and non-work scenes are hardly shiny and glamorous so I'm really not sure what you were watching when you watched this show. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HexMachina Posted December 28, 2018 Share Posted December 28, 2018 8 hours ago, Zorral said: A young psychopathic woman killing people doesn't make something 'feminist.' Or even make something a feminist statement. Killing is not feminist by definition. Being bored with your job and your really nice husband so fixating on a psychopath for excitement is not a definition of feminist by any means. But you all know that? So what else is going on here? Beyond the male gaze fantasy? Of course real feminist action is a lot less glamorous. But you all that? Nor is this even original, not new and shiny as proclaimed, especially after the first Blade Runner, which was a really long time ago, and the Kill Bills and the rest since then. It's just got this film gloss of big budget cosmopolitan films like the Bournes, which one doesn't see much on tv, especially when a woman centered. It's usually something like The Night Manager in which the woman gets beaten up and killed. It's funny. Reasons that show this not as feminist -- or even anything beyond surface (one likes surface sometimes, especially for escapist entertainment, I get that, but I do have this thing about amoral killing, so amoral that we don't even know who is ordering the killing or why and nobody else cares either. Anyway I can list reason after reason why this isn't as new and shiny as people say, and why it isn't feminist (one way is also to see who likes it best; see: male-gazey. But people who think I'm full of it don't give a single refutation beyond this is grrrrrrrt! the actors are grrrrrrrrt! (not necessarily, and certainly not all of them)! The writing is great -- not beyond being smart-ass it's not, and smart ass doesn't stand in for grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt, or even necessarily good. Still waiting for an actual explanation of why this show is male gaze-y. and if you take the time to read what almost everyone else on this thread is saying to you, the issue isn’t that you have different opinions/tastes. Several have acknowledged that the tone of the show is likely offputting to some. What we are taking issue with is these blanket procoamatioms of being a bland, unoriginal, male gaze show because... Sounds like you had an unfortunate run in with fans of the show elsewhere. Sorry about that. But take up the issue with them, not us Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red snow Posted December 28, 2018 Share Posted December 28, 2018 It's also possible to like the show even if it isn't feminist? Zorral posts seem to suggest that people only like the show on feminist grounds (but are deluding themselves). Am i deluding myself if i claim the main draw is the quirky style? I kind of get people's point that just because a show has female leads and a female showrunner doesn't automatically make it feminist. It doesn't automatically make it bad either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veltigar Posted December 30, 2018 Share Posted December 30, 2018 More On 12/26/2018 at 9:17 PM, Mexal said: Matter of taste. I loved it too though I thought it ended a bit abruptly. I could have used another 2 episodes. A longer runtime? It barely had enough story to cover the episodes it already had On 12/26/2018 at 11:03 PM, Zorral said: I have received a great deal of incredulous and angry push-back from loads of feminists for sharing your opinion. But I maintain that people were told, OOOO new and oh so shiny, the best -- women violence! so everybody drank the kool aid and neither actually thought through anything, thus not noticing that what they were swallowing was cotton candy laced with threads of blood. Blood, spilled by female, so yay! good! You are a brave soul opening that can of worms On 12/27/2018 at 9:01 AM, Heartofice said: I can see how some people might not be 100% impressed by the story of the show, which goes off the rails ever so slightly in the final third, but almost everything else about the show is incredible. The writing, the dialogue, the performances, just how snappy it is, it's ever so off kilter version of the world, even the costumes and the locations are great. The costuming and locations is by far the best thing about this series. Loved Villanelle's fashion style. Particularly that pants suit (?) she was wearing when she Spoiler stabbed Bill was to die for. Quite literally in his case. The snappiness is a close second. The writing was dross though. It had one of the most infuriating plots I have seen in a long while and the characters were just insufferably stupid. This series is like Hannibal without the visual flair and the intellectual heft of that series. Even if everything else was perfect, there is for me no substitute for proper writing. On 12/27/2018 at 9:01 AM, Heartofice said: Anyone who doesn't love the show has no heart or joy in their lives. You see, that is kind of an overly hard statement and totally uncalled for. I do have heart and joy in my life, particularly when I'm stealing candy from babies and/or am able to torture small animals. On 12/27/2018 at 9:12 PM, Risto said: And the television is grateful for not having you against it I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, but I'll take it as a compliment On 12/27/2018 at 10:22 PM, Heartofice said: I’m amazed that any feminist would hate the show, seeing as its one of the best examples of a show with female characters taking on real roles and it feeling completely natural, rather than some sort of box ticking exercise. I watched the show at the same time as Bodyguard and you always got the sense they were crowbarring women into roles. All feminists think alike ay? I thought only the Sith dealt in absolutes? On 12/28/2018 at 2:18 AM, Risto said: There was quite the debate about who did the better job. Both of the actresses did excellent work with the given material but it was Oh's prominence that got her all those nominations. I don't know how the actress is called, but give me Villanelle's actress then. I have never really warmed to Oh and her character is one of the worst offenders on the stupidity front, really hard for me to seperate the performance from that. On 12/28/2018 at 4:48 PM, red snow said: It's also possible to like the show even if it isn't feminist? Zorral posts seem to suggest that people only like the show on feminist grounds (but are deluding themselves). Am i deluding myself if i claim the main draw is the quirky style? I kind of get people's point that just because a show has female leads and a female showrunner doesn't automatically make it feminist. It doesn't automatically make it bad either. I'd actually agree with your assessment. The show is very inclusive (can't think of many other shows where a character like Bill would be allowed to talk about his sexual adventures with men like that) and it certainly is more progressive than most, but I would think most regular people like it more for the quirkiness than the supposed politics behind it. Now with the critics I'm not sure. It's suspicious how little this show gets called out for its stupidity and bad narrative, so I do think that there is a bit of bandwagoning going on there. I think that just shows how unwilling contemporary commentators are to go outside of their bubble or take on an original opinion. I mean, I severly dislike the show because it is a bit of an intellectual oubliette (also one of the reasons why I dislike soaps and sitcoms so much) but I'm perfectly capable of for example appreciating its snappy dialogue and the terrific costuming. Not enough to bring me back probably, but I have to admit that was quality. On 12/28/2018 at 5:18 AM, Mexal said: Non-originality of her character? What other show has a character like Villanelle? And how does this impact the performance Jodie Comer gave, which in my opinion, was the best performance on the show? Hmmm, I wouldn't be surprised if Alice from Luther was quite the inspiration for example. There are probably other examples as well (I saw a few people throw out La Femme Nikita as a comparison, but I don't know that one exactly). On 12/28/2018 at 8:29 AM, Heartofice said: What I think made Killing Eve 'feminist' was that it's a show full of strong, interesting female characters, taking on jobs you would traditionally expect men to be doing, but it wasn't done in a way that makes you roll your eyes or make you suspect it was trying to make a statement. I would disagree with the bolded part, but I would have rolled my eyes if it were men as well, so can't argue with the general giste of things On 12/28/2018 at 8:29 AM, Heartofice said: Sandra Oh's character is great at her job, in fact she values her job over her family life. Her husband stays at home and worries about her safety and she is clearly the main career winner in that relationship. It was all done in a way that felt totally natural and made sense. Just a little factcheck but wasn't he a teacher? I didn't think he stayed at home exactly. Although generally your argument stands of course. Also Oh's character great at her job? That might actually be one of the main things I disliked about it. We're always told she's great at her job and people like Carolyn keep believing in her, but I would argue that based on some of the shit she pulls in the show she isn't even fit work as a traffic cop. Like when she endangered Frank and Courtney's (?) life to stop the car and wait for a shooting Vilanelle to get closer... Really fuck that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red snow Posted December 30, 2018 Share Posted December 30, 2018 To be honest the main thing original about villanelle is what the actor brings to the table (her darting crazy big eyes is something other actors would have trouble replicating along with the quick switching from lack of emotion to feigned emotion) and the fact it's a woman as opposed to the thousands of similar male villains we've seen on screen. I think she's pretty similar to Hannibal in many ways - she is unhinged but you have a grudging respect for her personal code. There's also the slightly camp/sexy- yet scary take that her and mads mikkelsen have with their respective roles. I agree with the luther villain comparisons too but i think that's more to do with the lack of female comparisons but the whow makes a point of showing how villanelle hates kids and will kill anyone who she is ordered to. Luther villain was a bit more personal motivation in her killings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted December 30, 2018 Share Posted December 30, 2018 I think Alice (the Luther villain) has more in common with Hannibal than either of them have with Villanelle, who is far less compulsive but far more impulsive. Like, I don't think either of them could ever work under orders, even chaotically and kicking against them as we see from Villanelle. I always wanted a Hannibal/Luther crossover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mexal Posted December 30, 2018 Share Posted December 30, 2018 2 minutes ago, polishgenius said: I think Alice (the Luther villain) has more in common with Hannibal than either of them have with Villanelle, who is far less compulsive but far more impulsive. Like, I don't think either of them could ever work under orders, even chaotically and kicking against them as we see from Villanelle. I always wanted a Hannibal/Luther crossover. Neither of their personalities are as childlike as Villanelle which brings a level of fascinated chaos to her character and actions that neither Alice nor Hannibal has. She's unique, at least the way Comer plays her. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofice Posted December 30, 2018 Share Posted December 30, 2018 12 hours ago, Veltigar said: Also Oh's character great at her job? That might actually be one of the main things I disliked about it. We're always told she's great at her job and people like Carolyn keep believing in her, but I would argue that based on some of the shit she pulls in the show she isn't even fit work as a traffic cop. Like when she endangered Frank and Courtney's (?) life to stop the car and wait for a shooting Vilanelle to get closer... Really fuck that. On this, yes I agree. I think 'Great' is probably the wrong word. She was 'passionate' about her job, obsessive almost. She also got quite lucky on a number of occasions and did some very stupid things during the course of the series. However, for me, characters making mistakes and doing stupid things tends to improve a show / movie, because humans are imperfect and always make mistakes. I think sometimes its possible to watch things like this through a calculating lens and come out thinking because people are stupid then the show is stupid. I personally think the show isn't a hard hitting drama or especially deep, its not a show about police procedures or intense investigations. Its much lighter than that and should be watched through that lens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramsay B. Posted December 30, 2018 Share Posted December 30, 2018 Sociopaths have always fascinated me and I needed a show to watch so I binged this over the last few days, and overall I liked it. The two leads were of course the strength. The way Jodie Comer can portray certain facial expressions all the time, especially when killing, is really impressive. She was phenomenal. The whole cast is strong too. One of the only negatives for me was that it is was fairly predictable at times. Spoiler Bill being killed early on, Villanelle being hung out to dry in prison and turning on Konstantin. Not really dealbreakers but just a minor nitpick. The banter between Irina and Villanelle the last episode was great too. I could’ve watched a whole show with them just going at it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veltigar Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 12 hours ago, Heartofice said: On this, yes I agree. I think 'Great' is probably the wrong word. She was 'passionate' about her job, obsessive almost. She also got quite lucky on a number of occasions and did some very stupid things during the course of the series. However, for me, characters making mistakes and doing stupid things tends to improve a show / movie, because humans are imperfect and always make mistakes. I think sometimes its possible to watch things like this through a calculating lens and come out thinking because people are stupid then the show is stupid. I personally think the show isn't a hard hitting drama or especially deep, its not a show about police procedures or intense investigations. Its much lighter than that and should be watched through that lens. Passionate is a good descriptor in my eyes. I definitely agree she was that. 22 hours ago, polishgenius said: I think Alice (the Luther villain) has more in common with Hannibal than either of them have with Villanelle, who is far less compulsive but far more impulsive. Like, I don't think either of them could ever work under orders, even chaotically and kicking against them as we see from Villanelle. Vilanelle is like a manic pixie dream girl from hell. 22 hours ago, polishgenius said: I always wanted a Hannibal/Luther crossover. RIP Luther in that case Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polishgenius Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 7 hours ago, Veltigar said: RIP Luther in that case Alice kills Will first, then Hannibal eats Luther and it all goes to hell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veltigar Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 2 hours ago, polishgenius said: Alice kills Will first, then Hannibal eats Luther and it all goes to hell. Ah well, Hannibal still has Jodie Foster & Julianne Moore Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A wilding Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 On 12/30/2018 at 12:41 AM, Veltigar said: Also Oh's character great at her job? That might actually be one of the main things I disliked about it. We're always told she's great at her job and people like Carolyn keep believing in her, but I would argue that based on some of the shit she pulls in the show she isn't even fit work as a traffic cop. Like when she endangered Frank and Courtney's (?) life to stop the car and wait for a shooting Vilanelle to get closer... Really fuck that. Spoiler opinions: Spoiler I would say the part where Eve stops the car marks the point where she crosses the line, and her obsession with Villanelle overwhelms her professionalism. From that point onwards she diverges from the standard driven-but-ultimately-vindicated protagonist and totally loses sight of the larger picture in her obsession. In consequence she never finds out who Villanelle is working for, what exactly Carolyn is up to in the last couple of episodes, why Konstantin was replaced, and so on, and neither do we. Carolyn was entirely justified in firing her. I think that is why the story feels like it goes off the rails towards the end. "The plot is not what the story is about" as Mrs W told me. That said, it did not work for me, I just found Eve's behaviour increasingly annoying. And what was Villanelle doing returning to her flat at the end? She knows her ex bosses know about it, and they must surely want her dead by then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jen'ari Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 On 12/31/2018 at 1:17 AM, Veltigar said: Vilanelle is like a manic pixie dream girl from hell. That is the best description of her!. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heartofice Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 Was rather hoping to get more about this "Male Gaze" stuff.. oh well, guess we shouldn't hold our breath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mladen Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 On 12/30/2018 at 1:41 AM, Veltigar said: I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, but I'll take it as a compliment I was referring to your valued criticism which usually makes me rethink some things. Take it as a compliment, for God's sake Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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