Camp Belvidere: My Half-Assed Review

In my last post I mentioned a movie I'd seen recently called Camp Belvidere, and I threatened to talk about it. So, I'm gonna talk about it. It's a 38-minute short only available for rental via Vimeo. I find that incredibly disappointing because a) the movie's been out since April I think, and b) I could go broke renting it. I liked it that much.

I don't typically go in with high expectations when it comes to shorts. It's a challenging way to make a movie. You have a limited window in which to tell your story, and that often results in movies that are purposefully vague (re: "artsy") to avoid having to adhere to standard storytelling tactics which might not work well; movies with a lot of short scenes and quick camera changes, resulting in a frenetic feeling; or movies that just don't get to tell the whole story and leave the audience feeling disconnected and lost. Camp Belvidere rather masterfully avoids all of those pitfalls and leaves me feeling like I just watched a complete movie. A short one, but complete.

Ahem...there may be spoilers from here on out because I can't censor myself. You've been warned. I'll even make a little jump link for you.

Lesbian-related Media Thought of the Day: Soap Operas

I've just completed a binge re-watching of All My Children's Bianca/Marissa storyline. It's been a little light in new lesbian media these days (although I did just watch in interesting little short called Camp Belvidere; more on that in another post maybe) and when that happens I tend to go back to my old standbys for my girl-on-girl fix. Re-watching AMC is one of those standbys. As always, watching those clips made me start thinking about how odd the state of lesbian affairs is in the daytime soap world, so I thought this time I'd write it down and maybe not have to think about it the next time. Doubtful, but hey, no harm.

I don't know how many lesbians there've been in the history of US soaps. I'm not an avid soap watcher, although when I was a teen I tuned in to Days of Our Lives, Guiding Light, As the World Turns, and Another World whenever I had a chance. I of course didn't realize that tuning in to Another World simply because I was enthralled with Anne Heche, or that I really, really liked As the World Turns's Shannon O'Hara played by Margaret Reed might mean something...else. Like, it wasn't because of the stellar acting.

I became reacquainted with soaps by watching clips of Maggie and Bianca on AMC. I had heard about Lena Kundera but honestly, she wasn't all that attractive to me so I didn't really fancy going back to see any of that. It's kind've the way I pretend Callie and Erica didn't happen on Grey's Anatomy. I enjoyed the BAM storyline even though it just didn't make sense a good deal of the time, and it seemed that the writers were doing everything they could to keep them from having to actually do anything about the attraction between the two characters. It was so weird because they had already established this lesbian character in Bianca Montgomery, and that was such a big deal, and they'd given her a relationship already (two actually because there was Frankie I guess), but for some reason they were really balking about fully committing to Maggie and Bianca. Who the hell knows why? They kissed a total of I think 3 times during the series, and for all but the last time it wasn't mutual. You have the Maggie snogged Bianca while Bianca was with someone else kiss: http://youtu.be/Ery5wWUTgX4. I'd embed it but the user disabled that functionality. It's at the 3:40 mark.

The next time is the other way around. Maggie's in an abusive relationship with some dude and Bianca kisses her: http://youtu.be/ZYO-DcQcFc0. Same deal with the video, but this person seems to be the only one with any BAM vids on YouTube.

And the last kiss: http://youtu.be/LTmJLs4tgYk. It was still a sort've non-mutual kiss; it was a break-up kiss. They actually talked to each other and said out loud that they were lovers...right before Elizabeth Hendrickson left the show. I guess better late than never.

How Warehouse 13 Did Me Wrong

Time for today's tv rant. It's late I know, seeing as how WH13 has been off the air for a good 2 months now. For some reason this morning's shower mental meanderings took me back to it though. At the time of the finale all I could muster was an outraged tweet. I suppose I've pouted and ruminated enough now to use more than 140 characters.

There's nothing new under the sun in tv and movies. Whenever someone thinks they've done something new and inventive, it's really taking an existing framework and implementing it in perhaps a different way. WH13 was no different. Their framework was the oft-used male/female duo solving mysteries and fighting the good fight. If I thought about it hard enough I could probably come up with a few shows from every decade since tv came into existence that uses this. Off the top of my head: Hart to Hart, Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Father Dowling Mysteries, and Moonlighting for historical fare (is my age showing yet?); Bones and X-Files for something a little more current (probably reaching with X-Files, but my tv-watching dropped off with adulthood). Anyone remember Friday the 13th, the Series, which WH13 has been compared with on many occasions?

With a few exceptions (because yuck, Father Dowling Mysteries), this framework has been put to use to tell the story of partners working together and ultimately becoming "partners" in every sense of the word—even if it took several seasons (hi, X-Files!). Having attractive female and male co-stars whose characters don't eventually get it on? That's simply not done. It's become a given, something you can predict immediately. The crimes and mysteries may vary—and that's how the studios convince themselves that they're doing something "different"—but the romantic aspect is pretty much a done deal. This is why I was initially so impressed with WH13. In addition to being a funny show with a neat little plot (despite its resemblance to Ft13th), I didn't feel like the whole thing was just a mask for a romantic plotline. I enjoyed the sibling-like relationship between Pete and Myka. It was fun, it was funny. It worked.

And then the final episodes. They went and ruined everything by buying in to the played out romantic subplot between the two main characters. What made it extra ridiculous and frustrating was that it didn't even flow! Watching Pete and Myka kiss didn't feel like, "Aaahhh, finally; the romantic and sexual tension has been resolved." There was no sense of coming home, of closure, of meant-to-be. It felt like "Eeeewwwww" with a side of "What the fuck?!". It certainly didn't feel like this was something the show runners had intended to happen all along. If it was, then they either have zero skills in casting people or zero skills in creating romantic or flirtatious undertones.

Adding insult to injury is the fact that despite whatever their shortcomings in writing or casting they had—with little to no work on their end—an awesome alternative to doing the guy/girl partner/romance trope. Jaime Murray and Joanne Kelly had more chemistry in a handful of episodes than Kelly and Eddie McClintock had in 3 seasons.

You know what? Let's just lay the cards out on the table. If HG Wells had been realized as a male, and an actor had been cast that had the same chemistry with Kelly that Murray had...well, we would have seen another well-used plot device employed. How about the age old "good guy falls for the bad guy" story arc? Good guy tries to redeem the bad guy, maybe sees something in her that no one else does, sees potential for good? Or hell, maybe the bad guy is still a bad guy but the good guy really, really digs her? We probably wouldn't get a happily ever after, but we'd get some maintext, right? Yeah, except Jaime Murray is a woman, and they didn't expect the two of them to zing quite like they did. And rather than flesh that zing out, let it drive the creative process a little, give that chemistry a voice, the show runners decided to take the safe road. They used the chemistry to titillate, to draw in the fans, but never delivered, never committed, and in the end shored up the standard heteronormative story we've come to expect. And Jack Kenny is gay! I mean...that's not to say that every gay person has to put gay themes or characters in their creative work. But if the bug is biting and you swat it away? Feh on you. He had an interview with Collider.com where the question was asked: "How do you approach writing for this cast, to keep the great chemistry they have?" His response?

"We write them like family members. We write them like brothers and sisters, and daughters and sons. Everybody can relate to family.  Everybody has a mother or father, or a brother or sister that drives them crazy."

Sure, sure. Makes sense. Until you read this SciFi Vision interview that has him saying that Pete and Myka were endgame from the beginning. He describes a "dynamic between the two of them that there was a will-they-or-won't-they kind of tension". I'm beginning to think I was on the money with the theory that they don't actually know how to write romantic tension, because that there that he's describing? I've seen that dynamic done expertly on many tv shows, and this wasn't one of them. Actually, I'm starting to think that maybe he didn't watch his own show. He goes on to say that it was never going to be about Myka and HG setting up house together...but that was apparently good enough to have Pete and Myka do in the end? He even directly contradicts the actresses themselves: "If you seriously sat down with Jaime or Joanne they would say, 'Well no, they're not going to go set up house somewhere.'". Murray and Kelly have been pretty vocal in their support of and openness to a Berings and Wells "partnership". And somehow putting them together would have been "trivializing" their friendship, but not so with Pete and Myka. Ugh.

I kind of want to put together snippets from his own interviews and email them to him like "What the fuck, man? Do you even know what you're saying?"

I didn't expect a Myka/HG sunset. I was hoping that they'd get some respect, that we might get to see some maintext, that the show would be brave and different. A torrid romantic affair between the troubled villain and the quirky hero for a short while would have been pretty rad. Instead they play into the same tired themes that  Kenny himself acknowledges in that interview. As he said in regards to the Pete/Myka pairing: "...it's not like we're breaking any new ground here". And that is the biggest shame of all. When you hear a creative person admit, almost cynically, that they were just following the formula. How disappointing.

More Lesbian-ish TV That I Missed: Mistresses

I've mentioned before that I'm not on real time when it comes to watching tv. I usually don't find the time or energy to get into a show until it's long been available for streaming or something. I was just made fun of on Facebook for being on S1E3 of Game of Thrones. It's my thing though. I hate delayed gratification. I made the mistake of starting to watch Faking It in real time, and now I have to wait with this huge, ugly cliffhanger until MTV does season 2, however long that will be. 

In the meantime, I take to Youtube to find out if I've been missing anything, and I came across this show called Mistresses—in particular the storyline of Joss and Alex. Joss is a real estate agent who is hired to help Alex and her wife find a house. Now, if you've watched any television at all you can pretty much write the storyline out yourself. Whenever a show introduces a lesbian character, especially if they're not part of the cast, it generally means they're about to send one of their main female characters (notice I didn't say lead) on a temporary trip to Sappho Island. I say temporary because while there are an increasing number of shows willing to take one of their main characters and send them on that journey, it's usually for a short time. There are exceptions of course, but there are far more OCs (Alex/Marissa) and Mistresses than there are Buffys (Willow/Tara) or Rookie Blues (Gail/Holly). 

I'm gonna rip on Mistresses for its predictability, but I'll start off with a bit of praise and an admission. Admission: I know that this is based on the UK version of the same name (it's a trend to just copy someone else's show these days), and I've never seen that version. I don't know how much of what happens on this show is sticking strictly to the story as it existed originally and how much is being embellished upon, added, or subtracted. So it may be that what I'm about to say about this show is out of their control, although I don't think so. While they may not be able to keep Alex and Joss together in the interest of staying true to the source, I'm sure they way they do things is open to interpretation and artistic license.  

On to the praise. One of the things that I did like about this storyline was the way they introduced the lesbian character and how they handled her sexuality. There was no big reveal—we didn't see Joss and Alex hanging out and becoming friends and then suddenly find out, oh hey, Alex is a lesbian. Joss and Alex become friends and there's no weirdness. You don't see Joss have to affirm her heterosexuality to Alex or warn her that she's not into women (because we know every lesbian really wants to bang straight women). It's all so very...human. Two women meet, have things in common, get along, and hang out. They go jogging together, drinking together, they talk about their lives and their relationships. It was beautiful. 

Then we fall into the Well of Tropes. Alex is attracted to Joss. Alex and Joss sleep together. Alex has feelings for Joss. Joss really values Alex. They give a relationship a go. Joss actually isn't a lesbian. They break up. Here's where I start ripping into the show. 

I don't have a problem with them getting together and breaking up. I have a problem with the reason for the breakup. What did her brother-in-law say? "You're not a lesbian." And that was sort've the shows way of summing up why Joss cheated on Alex and slept with her boss. She's such a hetero that she was missing the peen like crazy and couldn't help herself. One minute they have her sitting with this same dude telling him how her friendship with Alex was "the single most important thing in my life right now", and the next they show her getting all hot and bothered by this dude's mere presence. He's so steamy and dreamy, right? Suddenly. 

Here's the thing. We've long ago established that Joss is her own woman and not into the whole relationship thing. It's an integral part of her character and likely the thing that's going to be her development as the show goes on. I can't tell you how many times I heard reference to her flighty, free-spirited, no-commitments ways in the few episodes that I watched. It's her thing. And that thing would have been enough to explain why she was not going to work with Alex in the long term. It would have been more true to the storyline, to her character, and more organic. No one expects the woman who has a series of casual engagements to actually have a long-term relationship. 

Instead, they hang it on a definition of her sexuality, and a narrow one at that. So she's not a lesbian. Maybe she's bisexual. Are you saying a bisexual woman can't have a long-term relationship with a woman who identifies as lesbian? The way they've defined Joss actually leans more towards the possibility that she could be involved/in love with anyone. She even mentions that she had a threesome once before. She doesn't come across as a woman who would let a little thing like a label get in her way. Hell, she seems like the kind of woman who would actually bristle at being labeled. Why choose a hard-line definition of sexuality as the way to dissolve a relationship instead of using her inherent character traits? It's perfectly fine if she misses dudes and needs to get her hetero on. Again, it doesn't have to be at the expense of making such a hardline statement. A bisexual woman can miss men too. A bisexual, comittment-phobic woman could, say, enter a relationship with a woman, and then decide she needs to sleep with dudes again and that unless they can have an open relationship, they have to break up. This is all in keeping with the character.

Also, the whole "not a lesbian" thing as a reason doesn't jive with the way they've portrayed the relationship between these two women. Joss doesn't seem to have a problem with the whole "female" part of the relationship. One of my favorite scenes is this one:

Did that look like a woman for whom her partner's sex was a problem?

I wasn't surprised by what they did, but I was disappointed. It was just so easy and dismissive, and they started off so well. One day I'll be able to watch a show and see a girl-on-girl storyline developing and instead of feeling cautiously pessimistic I can be cautiously optimistic. Come on Rookie Blue Season 5!

Bye Bye Calzona...For Now

Before I launch into this rant, I have to make a confession.

I don't actually watch Grey's Anatomy.

I know. What the fuck, right?

I don't watch any tv show religiously any more. I think the last time I made a concentrated effort to tune in to a show on the regular was Buffy, Season 6. Even then I was actually doing double duty, watching Season 6 once a week while watching reruns of seasons 1-5 on FX to catch up because I was a Buffy noob. See, the thing is, I have issues with waiting. I'm an instant gratification kind of girl. Waiting a week between episodes or living through the little hiatuses that shows would have—you know, the ones that would inevitably include some ridiculous cliffhanger just in case you were going to forget the show existed in the interim—proved to be too much for my little impatient self. Luckily, technology trends agreed with me and now I can either wait until everything is available on Netflix and gorge myself (looking at you, Pretty Little Liars), or catch all the relevant clips on Youtube when ready. Netflix even went ahead and said, "You know what? Here. Have a whole original series in one go."

Anyway, resources are plenty for attention-challenged peeps like myself so believe me when I say that even though I've only sat down and watched a couple of episodes in the entire run of the series, I'm up on the Grey's. Between the After Ellen recaps and Youtube, I'm all set and prepared to rant like an expert. Sort've.

The episodes that I watched, by the way, were two pretty pivotal Calzona ones anyway. One was the shooter 2-part episode, where they got back together after almost dying, and the most recent 2-episode arc with the storm where Arizona's skank self cheated. Getting ahead of myself? Yeah. They were great eps too, and simultaneously made me understand why so many are addicted to this show while also confirming my belief that my little heart could not survive the waiting.

On with the show.