Favorite Characters: Jessica Huang (Fresh Off the Boat)

I like all the Huangs on Fresh off the Boat(it and Black-ish have both become stellar examples of the single-camera family sitcom,) but Jessica has always been my favorite.  She’s such a well-done character; even though she can frequently be seen as skirting the edge of a stereotype, she never feels canned to me.  The fantastic humor of the character comes through her, not at her.

Jessica definitely fits the mold of a “Tiger Mom,” a strict Asian mother who demands high scholastic performance and irreproachable behavior.  Emery and Evan, her two younger boys, know to expect faint praise at best for any grade below an A++, she forever strives for her family to operate like a well-oiled machine, and she could be an Olympic medalist in micromanaging.  Eddie (her oldest son/black sheep) is a little cowed by her, the school principal is intimidated by her, and the employees at her husband Louis’s restaurant are terrified of her.

Her other best-known qualities fit similarly into the “uptight and controlling” category.  Much as she likes her family to be “just so,” she wants both her house and the restaurant in perfect order.  In a recent (hilarious) episode involving a lice outbreak at school, she banishes the infested Eddie and Evan to the yard while she and Louis scour the house, and getting a head-start on taxes is her idea of a satisfying night in.  She’s also notoriously frugal.  I bet this comes up at least once an episode and has been featured prominently in numerous plotlines; a recent/awesome example is when she’s disappointed at the thought that Louis went out and bought mood music for a romantic night, then gets turned on when he reveals that the CD is actually from the library.

It all adds up to one tough customer, and she is, but what the show does with this is important.  While Jessica is often the boss of the family, the series doesn’t lose sight of the fact that this is often her way of showing love.  She pushes her children in hopes of securing the absolute best for them, she wants everything in their lives to go well, and her greatest wish is for them to grow into capable, successful men.  Plus, when the chips are down, she’s absolutely someone you want in your corner.  She can turn all that tightly-wound Jessica energy on someone and browbeat them handily into submission.  When Louis encourages laxer spending habits on the family’s first vacation, she’s the one who swoops in to haggle down the resulting exorbitant bill.  And one scene from the pilot is still a favorite Jessica moment for me.  Eddie is sure that he’s in for it when his parents are called in over a fight at school, but Jessica’s only concern is why the school did nothing to punish the boy who started the fight by calling Eddie a racial slur.  After being introduced to her as the exacting hardass forever at odds with the academically so-so and hip-hop-loving Eddie, it’s so lovely to see her come to Eddie’s defense no questions asked.

Because Jessica really is so much about love, and this is most evident in how she steps out of her comfort zone for Eddie.  Another big moment for her in the pilot is when she darkens the door of the chain grocery store (where she’s never been) to buy Eddie Lunchables for school.  She gets them despite the expense, despite the fact that he turned his nose up at the noodles her made for his lunch even though he likes them (kids have been making fun of his “weird” lunch,) despite not knowing the unwritten rules behavior in this store and being too proud to admit it.  For Jessica, all that is huge.  I like it because the basic fact of the scene – going to the store to buy Lunchables – sounds so small-time, but anyone who’s familiar with Jessica knows what a big deal it is, and I think that right there is a good sign of a well-drawn character.

V for Vendetta (1988-1989)

I saw the film adaptation of V for Vendetta years ago and have only just read the original graphic novel.  It’s been long enough that I can’t clearly remember the complete plot of the movie, but I’m pretty sure there are some fairly big differences between the two.  While I thought the graphic novel was a good read, I recall enjoying the film better (premise spoilers.)

In a post-war-torn fascist England of the ‘90s (the future, at the time,) Evey Hammond, a desperate teenage girl, is menaced by corrupt government spies when she’s caught soliciting.  She’s rescued by V, an enigmatic masked man with a flair for theatrics, dramatic recitations, and social upheaval.  He has an intricate long-game plan to dismantle the government through acts of terrorism, with what appears to be some personal revenge thrown in.  Even as Evey is horrified by V’s actions and his dream of an anarchic state, she can’t quite bring herself to leave him or defy him.  Slowly, she’s drawn into his world and his dark vision of change.

As in the film, the best element of the graphic novel is V himself.  He’s pretty much a perfect comic book character:  cuts a dashing and iconic figure, has all the best lines, fights like a ninja, carries a mysterious past, and is always four steps ahead of everyone.  Besides his extreme readability, his character poses interesting, no-easy-answer questions about the line between a freedom fighter and a terrorist.  Although the world had a very different relationship with terrorism when the book was written, my 2016 eyes read it the only way they know how, and the notion of V’s ideas as grand, almost romantic, amid all the turmoil and killing, is uncomfortable in a mostly good way.  It helps, of course, that the government he’s trying to tear down is unapologetically fascist, and even then, the story is careful to portray him as both light and dark, the balance tipping either way from time to time. 

The depiction of a fascist England is mostly interesting as well.  I love me a good dystopian story, and I like seeing the effects the war and the regime change have had on the country.  The chapters that dig into the story’s past and explore what happened in the prison camps are especially good.  However, I’m unnerved by all the… let’s call it “sexual survival”… in the story.  In addition to Evey turning in desperation to prostitution at the beginning, we also have a woman forced into stripper work as a result of reduced circumstances, a woman using sexual manipulation to get ahead, and multiple instances of women offering their bodies to men in exchange for protection/stability.  I understand, obviously, that women have had a long history of sexual oppression, and I get that things like this would happen in a country that’s been ravaged by a war and is currently being run by a pretty soulless government, but I hate that we see these types of storylines for the female characters so repeatedly, the one-two punch of a woman looking for a man to save her and offering sex to obtain his protection.  While I like seeing Evey becoming stronger and surer under V’s tutelage, if this theme of sexual survival was going to be so prominent in the book, I would’ve liked to see a stronger rejection or defiance of it in the end.

Warnings

Strong violence (including terrorist acts,) sexual content (including sexual violence and reference to pedophilia,) language, substance abuse, disturbing images, and strong thematic elements.

Further Thoughts on A Stray

The major theme of A Stray may seem at first a bit on-the-nose.  At an initial glance, it might feel like, “Yeah, both the Muslim refugee and the dog are ‘strays’ – we get it!”  And it is an obvious parallel, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good or valid one.  This idea comes through really well throughout the film, always evident but never heavyhanded (a few spoilers.)

By the time circumstance (or God?) throws them together, Adan and the dog have both already experienced being unwanted or cast out from where they were.  We don’t know much about the dog’s story before she meets Adan, other than the fact that she’s without a home.  When Adan clips her with his car and has to bring her to the vet, he’s advised to bring her to a shelter – in other words, she has no tags to indicate an owner, meaning she’s probably not a recent runaway with loved ones searching for her.  Due to her easy attachment to Adan, we can probably also guess that, while she’s no doubt had it rough, she probably hasn’t suffered abuse or anything that would cause trauma and distrust.  Like Adan, she’s looking for a roof over her head and food in her belly.

Adan, meanwhile, has been passed over several times by this point.  He isn’t particularly welcome in Minneapolis by the city at large (the film doesn’t cover a ton of Islamaphobia or anti-Somali sentiment, but it’s there and does inform the story.)  He’s in a strange place where he and his fellow refugees have tried to carve out something resembling a familiar home for themselves, but he’s struggled to belong there as well.  He moved in with his friends after getting into trouble and being turned out of his mother’s apartment, and after getting into a fight with them, there’s no recourse left for him in his private circle.  Tentatively, he reaches out to the greater Somali community and starts to scrape together a new situation for himself.

Since this new situation involves a job and a place to sleep, Adan is at least somewhat better off than the dog when he first runs into her.  However, becausehe finds himself temporarily stuck with her, all that newfound security starts to erode.  He can’t work at a Somali restaurant if he tries to bring an unclean animal into the building, and he certainly can’t sleep in the mosque.  He and the dog are left to fend for themselves as an uneasy duo – well, Adan is uneasy.  The dog is perfectly happy to be with him, which unsettles Adan even more.  For her part, the dog’s situation becomes marginally safer as Adan’s becomes less so on account of her, because even though she’s still homeless, she has a human looking out for her and giving her what food he can.

Although a homeless dog and a homeless refugee obviously have very different factors contributing to their circumstances, it’s interesting to view their interactions as one marginalized “being” encountering another.  We have Adan’s instant reaction of disgust and fear, not wanting anything to do with the dog, regardless of the fact that he knows what it’s like to be without a home.  We then see him begrudgingly starting to help her despite himself, and no one around him recognizes the compassionate thing he’s doing.  Instead they turn on him, pushing him and the dog away with equal force.  No two ways about it – deciding to help the dog wreaks major havoc on Adan’s life.  And ultimately, we see him reaching out with more than just his actions.  He reaches out with his heart as well, which starts to make even the uncertainty of their situation feel a little bit okay.

Coney Island (1917)

I’m not sure what it is about this one.  The plot is thinner than paper and I’d be hard-pressed to explain what actually happens, but I still love it.  There’s just something, something fun – it’s a delight.

Okay, so this time around, there’s really not a whole lot I can say other than “Fatty, Buster, and Al St. John have fun and get into trouble at Coney Island.”  All three have their hearts set on Alice Mann and do their best to woo her (who is in turn with all of them at different points of the short – she’s really fickle.)  Also features Fatty’s dog Luke.  That’s really all there is to it.

Oh, but it’s fun.  I like seeing Coney Island circa 1917, getting a glimpse of what the various attractions were like.  The whole short of course has a carnival-like atmosphere, a buoyancy that carries the negligible story through to the end.  I dunno; if I’m just going to watch Buster, Fatty, and Al running around being silly, it might as well be at Coney Island.  Fatty “having to” dress in drag because there are no men’s swimsuits that fit him is an obvious gag, as is Al then falling for Fatty-in-drag, but it’s all done well.  It also gives us one of my favorite Fatty Arbuckle gags not involving Buster – the scene where Fatty is changing and motions for the camera to only shoot him from the waist up.  (This fourth-wall-breaking modesty reminds me of the cameraman covering the lens with his hand when Sybil Seely gets out of the tub in One Week.  I wonder if Buster was inspired by this scene, or if he might have even come up with the gag in the first place?)  Oh yeah, and Fatty spanks a fish.  That happens.

This is the second short in a row where Fatty is married and falls for a different girl.  Interesting how the unmarried Fatty in The Butcher Boy and His Wedding Night is in puppy love with a sweet girl while the married Fatty in Oh Doctor! and Coney Island can’t wait to get away from the nagging shrew and set his cap at someone else.  I wrote before about whether or not Buster’s work is cynical about romance, but I think Fatty might have him beat (to be fair, most of Buster’s films end in marriage, but still.  A wandering eye wasn’t very typical for him.)

Speaking of Buster, he’s terrific fun here as one of Fatty’s romantic rivals (plus a brief second appearance as one of a gaggle of cops, in which he has an enormous mustache and wears his police cap sideways.)  He shimmies up a column to get a better view of a parade, he expertly wields a fishing pole (but not for catching fish!), he causes some damage with a “test of strength” mallet, and he does a backflip just because he can.  Be advised, there are a few places where the exaggerated facial expressions get distracting – I don’t know what it is, but on Buster, it just looks so weird.  However, while they take me out of the humor a bit, they’re used pretty sparingly.  The rest of the time, he’s the scrappy Arbuckle-short version of the Stone Face we know and love.

Warnings

Slapstick violence and a little suggestiveness.

A Few Notes on “The Angels Take Manhattan”

Lots to complain about in “The Angels Take Manhattan” (oh so much – not a fan of that one.)  Today, however, I’m focusing on just one line that really rankles me, and my attempt (read:  fanwank) to reconcile it (spoilers for this episode and series 4’s “The Forest of the Dead.”)

A bit of setup:  there’s this whole big thing where River has her hand caught in a Weeping Angel’s grip and, despite the Doctor’s edict to the contrary, she breaks her wrist getting free.  It’s relevant for handwavy “time can’t be rewritten once you’ve read it” reasons that apply to this episode and absolutely nothing else, but that’s a rant for another day.  The point is, River lies about having broken her wrist, and when the Doctor finds out what really happened, his hopes that they might be able to beat predestination take a significant hit.  Later, when it’s just the two of them, Amy asks River why she lied, and River replies, “Never let him see the damage.  And never, ever let him see you age.  He doesn’t like endings.”

I hate this line for assorted reasons.  First, the “he doesn’t like endings” part, which is introduced and anvil-dropped heavily in this episode to foreshadow Amy and Rory’s departure at the end, feels so immature and non-Doctor-ish to me.  This is a man who’s lived with the weight of his entire planet and race being destroyed (well…) – he knows that things end.  When Four thinks Sarah Jane and Harry have been killed, he mourns, but he keeps working.  Ten is able to get past Rose.  Not well, grant you, but he still does it.  While it’s true that he doesn’t like aftermath– sticking around to clean up, facing to fallout that he hadn’t predicted – that’s not the same thing.  It isn’t until this period of the show that he clings and pines so hard re:  his companions, that he decides to wholly throw in the towel or goes completely off the rails and tries to break laws of time when he loses one of them.  Moffat may have the impression that it provides good drama and/or angst, but for me, it feels so small.  Almost… petty, and not like the Doctor I know.

Then, there’s the “never, ever let him see you age” part.  This is also referenced earlier in the episode, when the Doctor notes that Amy’s reading glasses make her eyes look “line-y” and then realizes the lines are there with or without the glasses.  It’s this weird, sad bonding moment for River and Amy, but there’s never any reference to Rory having to guard against the same thing, which creates an implicit suggestion that it’s only women who shouldn’t visibly age.  Obviously, gross.  I hateit when writers put sexist ideas onto the Doctor.  I know it’s astrange to say this about a fictional character, but it makes me angry on his behalf, like they’re forcing it on him.

So, because I never want to see the Doctor being sexist, here’s my fanwank.  Of course, the Doctor knows from his first meeting with River how she’s going to die.  He knows exactly when and where her life ends, and because he’s grown to care greatly for her, he hates to think of that day approaching in her timeline.  So, when he encounters River at points when he knows she’s not far from the Library – in this episode, she mentions being made a professor, which he knows is a precursor to that final adventure – it upsets him to know she doesn’t have much time left, and because he’s already experienced it, he knows there’s nothing he can do to stop it.  However, River doesn’t know any of this because the Doctor obviously hasn’t told her that he’s already seen her death.  She only knows that, the older she is, the more unsettled the Doctor seems.  In this scenario, he cares deeply for her no matter her age, but her perceptionis that he’s pulling away and doesn’t like to see her getting “old.”  She has no idea what’s really troubling him.