Just now i was re-reading a TV line gos article made by Matt around the TCA time and there was a comment there, that said that even tho the story looked good, she/he was not fan of the actors, especially MRJ ( since ouat) bc he is a bad actor, i mean, really they actually hate an actor bc he the character he played on the previous project was in the middle of their ship
This, right there, boggles my mind. How old are these people? I mean, seriously. I don’t mean to be ageist, but sometimes it sounds like the OUAT fandom is simply overrun with middle-schoolers.
@PriceofMagic – You make some excellent points. But I think there are two main differences between Spuffy and CS. First, Spike had relationships to other characters in the show. Spike was an arrogant, impulsive loudmouth, but he was also occasionally capable of empathy, and the writers interspersed his usual comic relief dialogue with some pretty insightful lines. He was sympathetic despite being an anti-hero.
And second, despite the physicality of their relationship, Spike didn’t really come across as an inherent sleaze bucket. And at no point was he, or Buffy, or Spuffy sugar-coated. It was a bad situation all around that had a fairly bad ending, even though it was also one that had an emotional resolution.
OUAT did an extremely shoddy job at integrating Hook into the fabric of the story, and in combination with Hook coming off as completely scuzzy half the time, it just raises all kinds of red flags. Essentially, I think the secret “wish fulfillment” aspect that’s powering these really bad writing choices is that Hook is meant to be a reformed pick-up artist. But it just doesn’t work. There’s always going to be a segment of the population that’s going to look at this particular portrayal of masculinity, and reject it, not matter how much we’re being told he’s a different man. I think it’s probably about one’s gender ideology and personal politics. I’m pretty sure for my personally there is nothing that I will ever like about Hook — I suppose that’s a form of bias, but I just can’t get over the disgust over his sleaziness. It’s not because he’s a “sexualized” character, whatever that means. It’s because the character, at its very core, derives his own identity and self-worth from “adding notches to his belt”.
It’s probably also why I find Rumple, with all his ForTheEvilz ridiculousness, a lot less loathsome than Hook. Say whatever you will about DO!Rumple, he never came across as a lecher.