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My critique has less to do with just class portrayal but more with them totally defacing my beloved childhood characters. They want to tarnish the white night, but if they keep knocking everyone off of their pedestals, who are we meant to root for? The mass murderer?
Well…yes. Right now we’re supposed to be rooting for Regina (who IS a mass murderer, redeemed or not) above all. At least…that’s how the show looks to me. (I’m still rooting for Belle and Rumple (who is also a mass murderer, I know).)
Yup. And in the vein of the whole class argument, if they make Rumple into a power hungry creep AGAIN, when it makes no sense at all, I’m gonna quit 😉
[adrotate group="5"]Ooooooh thats an interesting theory POM….. Hmmmm. I am going with that ad being true. The whole stable thing rubbed me as odd last episode and I briefly wondered if it meant anything. I also Google’d the name of her horse (Nichodemus) and found there is some character from something involving Arthur and Merlin with that name but couldn’t find anything major. All I know is,violet is not what she seems. How bad for Henry though. Falls for a girl…who doesn’t even exist xD
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<p style=”text-align: left;”>That IS an interesting theory. There’s of course the Biblical Nicodemus, but the name comes from Ancient Greek, and according to Professor Google means “the victory of the people”. Maybe it’s literally the people’s revenge (as in Camelot peasantry rebelling against being turned into a Potemkin village) Kidding. Sort of.</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>I totally buy it that Violet is a magical construct. Hopefully Blue will make an appearance and turn her into a “real girl.”</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>Poor Henry.</p><p style=”box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: #404040; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, serif; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #e6e6e6;”>Mulan</p>
The thing that distinguishes Mulan from the others is that she never tried to be anything but a warrior. Yes, if you know the Disney backstory then you know that she struggles with both being a woman and being from a humble village. But if you don’t, then Mulan is simply a devoted bodyguard — she is rewarded for knowing her place. Same as Charming.There are a couple of exceptions. Ursula was depicted as the daughter of the sea king who became a “villain” after she lost her voice, rather than a love interest or family member. She also had her father, who though strict, loved her. Cruella was born to life of privilege and parents two parents who provided for her. Then she killed one of them because she was a psychopath. Also, King George was pretty bad, perhaps even before he lost his adoptive son, Prince James, who didn’t even know about his humble beginnings as David’s twin brother. That lot seemed to be pretty bad.
So on the topic of King George this is admittedly a bit of a stretch but if you recall, his kingdom was threatened with poverty. Hence his little arrangement with Midas, the whole Charming subterfuge, and the rest as they say is history.
True but the show isn’t depicting a class struggle, or at least it’s not a central theme that the writers are consciously writing. They are depicting lower class people trying to rise above and, in a majority of cases, becoming villains. Is there a character who managed to enter the upper echelon of their own accord and not become a villain in the process? That’s the litmus test.
Right, that’s exactly the problem. I agree with @RG — the kicker isn’t necessarily that OUAT has a class issue. It’s that it’s not aware that it has a class issue (or a gender issue, or a race issue and on we go), and THAT is the thing that unites all the different critiques I’ve seen articulated in the fandom, and notably on these forums. Portrayal of class stratification isn’t the same as the naturalization of class stratification. For example, if I’m reading A. Dumas, I’m not going to expect a commentary on class consciousness. But if I’m reading contemporary fantasy, I’m likely to look for that in-between the lines metacommentary on the type of society it describes.
In part, that’s because we are all operating within a particular cultural and historical paradigm. Even if you’ve never read Marx, you have a sense of the arguments because you might have read Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. Not the best example maybe, but the point is, none of these people are writing or creating shows in a vacuum. Therefore I think there ought to be some self-awareness. The same way that it’s pretty outrageous that they have dismissed issues of consent in the era of Title IX policies and public outcry over rampant sexual harassment on college campuses. Just sayin’
The list goes on but Once’s portrayal of class, whilst eyebrow raising, is the least of its problems.
I don’t know. I see what you’re saying, but I’m not sure OUAT’s class politics should be so easily dismissed because its gender politics are even worse (and I’ll be the first to agree with you that OUAT has epically failed on that front too). I know it’s a question of personal political commitments, but I wouldn’t want one genre of critique (say, from a feminist position) to invalidate or diminish all others. Maybe a stronger approach would be to find a ground of intersection between all our different quibbles — the overlap of the Venn diagram, if you will.
On the other hand, I’m also realizing that this conversation is probably not super constructive, and that in and of itself is sad. Ultimately, we, as the audience, can’t do anything about “alerting” OUAT to the implicit ideologies it seems to peddle. E&A got their share of criticisms exactly over the issues you are raising, many many times it seems, to exactly zero effect, safe for accusations of shipper irrationality.
Le sigh.
Hm. Graham and Neal were murdered by Regina and Zelena respectively. In that respect, their deaths reflect on their murderers more than on their own stations–and again, their initial poverty serves to make them more sympathetic victims, making what Regina and Zelena did all the more horrible.
Hmm. Zelena and Regina are still around, and Regina is well on her way to becoming a hero, despite her past. Zelena, while not redeemed yet, is likely on her way — as befits her lower-born station, so far exclusively through motherhood. Meanwhile, Neal and Graham are largely forgotten. Dead is dead, right?
I’m still seeing a very mixed up bag here, not a clear trend.
I agree up to a point. I guess my argument is that there is a tendency towards classism on OUAT. Maybe it’s not a message that’s clear cut and set in stone, but I suspect it’s a sort of leaning. It’s a fall back trope. The fact that Arthur is low born doesn’t make him more sympathetic. Rather, it’s used to justify his desire to fix Camelot, and to be come the king to end all kings, essentially at the expense of everything else, including his marriage and his wife’s actual personality.
And my point is that, similarly to, say, an accusation of sexism, the counterclaim that a work of fiction isn’t sexist because some of its female characters are CEOs, or that it isn’t sexist because some of its male characters are stay at home dads doesn’t necessarily invalidate the overarching problem. Same could be said of representations of race and so forth (not for OUAT necessarily, I’m not opening that can of worms. Just talking in the abstract).
There’s a strong case that the Charmings suck as rulers because they so often put their own emotions/needs ahead of those of the people they rule–and they’re supposed to be the good guys.
LOL. Truer words and all that
I see what you’re saying, you guys. I think I’m pointing more to the system — there are exceptions to it of course, but I’m not sure those invalidate the overarching tendencies. @Keb — yes, having humble beginnings makes the character more sympathetic, but it’s the narrative structure that bothers me. With Cora, Zelena and Rumple that narrative is especially stark: Rumple craves power because he has none, and he has none because he is a poor, lame spinner. Even his bravery is only in question BECAUSE he is poor, albeit indirectly. He simply has no other recourse, his and his son’s only value is only in being cannon fodder for the war. And as @Aglepta is pointing out, the intersection of gender and class, as with Milah, opens another whole can of worms. Cora and Zelena’s stories are very explicitly about being denied the trappings and good life of royalty. Pan is just an objectionable alcoholic gambler, but with a very similar sort of story. In fact, Pan reiterates a typical cultural trope that suggests that poor people are somehow “infantile.”
Ok, let me amend this. It’s not that they all necessarily turn evil. It’s that most of the core crew of “peasants”, with the exception of Charming, are likely to turn evil, end badly, or disappear off screen on “forgotten character island” because they ultimately don’t matter. And in the case of Neal and Graham, they did nothing to deserve the endings they got. I suppose we don’t know much about Robin Hood yet – so the jury’s out. Hook, who is supposedly a reformed villain is, like Regina, from a solidly wealthy background.
There is some fluctuation in the peripheral, supporting cast — but we are told, again and again, that their stories don’t matter. Of our core crew, the only solidly positive and central character who comes from humble origins is Charming, and he’s always been an extension of Snow. In fact, when he’s striking out on his own — like with Arthur — we are shown his poor judgement. Snow even reprimands him: “You wanted to be a hero again.” To me it sounded like “know your place.” Similarly his moment of introspection “I don’t want to be known as the guy who kissed the princess” — well, tough luck, Charming. That’s all you’re good for, the audience is told. In the last few episodes Charming is portrayed in a way that’s increasingly unsympathetic and naive, just at the moment when he’s showing some initiative.
Here’s where I’m coming from, I guess. While my own kid is way too young to watch OUAT — or any TV for that matter — I keep imagining having that awkward conversation: “Pumpkin, despite what this show portrays, poor people aren’t expendable and/or evil. And if you’re in the 99%, you can pursue lofty goals — it doesn’t mean you’re going to turn into a homicidal maniac in the process.” And I think if one is feeling the need to bracket a silly, entrainment show with such explanations, there is a problem.
So many Harlequin Romance moments this past week. I mean, the pirate and the virgin princess go for a horse ride and then kiss in a field of roses (that are growing so strangely). Good god, it was like the cover of a really cheesy and poorly written romance novel.
Actually, that’s the problem. It’s not EVEN a Harlequin romance. Harlequins actually have a formula that works (pithily captured in this Newyorker article, for your reading amusement, and speaking of pirates and virgins).
Romance tends to work best when written (or, more generally, portrayed) from the perspective of the heroine. Some writers switch across the he/she divide, of course, but CS fails to do even that. We have a super passive Emma, essentially an object to be acted upon: especially visible in the scene where Emma is lying on the cot, when both her parents and Hook discuss her like she’s not even in the room. But that, again, might work, if the story were Emma-centric. Much like Twilight worked because it’s from 1st person — Bella can have as much personality as a paper cup, but she’s a blank slate onto which the reader can project themselves.
But the whole CS “romance” (*tiwtch*) seems to be portrayed from 3rd person omniscient (!?), which I think accounts for the utter ridiculousness of it.
The stupid field of roses actually fits with this. I’ll use a literary analogy. Consider:
Standard Harlequin style:
“The rolling tide of summer grass had engulfed the small meadow in a sweet-smelling flood of lambs’ tails, coltsfoot, feverfew, the drifting pollen from them like pale yellow dust on Linden’s bare arms as she lay full length among them.”
OUAT style:
“They were in a field. There were some pink roses growing at standardized intervals from each other. It was super romantic. Really. Have you noticed how super romantic it was? No? Pay attention. It was SUPER romantic. Should I repeat it? See, it’s a PIRATE, and a VIRGIN, and they are in a field of PINK ROSES (which, btw, stands for romantic love, in case some of you in the audience are a bit dull and have forgotten your flower symbolism). So yeah, they were kissing in this field of PINK ROSES, and then the scene fades to black because we demurely draw the curtain on what happens next. Because we are tasteful like that, and this is CS, so a SUPER TASTEFUL love story. Did we say ROMANTIC?”
Ugh, Universe save us from this mediocrity of a show.
I didn’t list it in the likes/dislikes thread because I just couldn’t be bothered. This episode was so bad I can’t even muster the energy to properly critique it.
But I just wanted to express my overall emphatic BLEARGH with the whole CS thing in this episode. It was, for lack of a better word, vomitous. Every. Single. Thing. About it. From the aesthetic, to the cliche horse ride/adrenaline blah blah, to the roses. Ugh!!! The stupid fake field of roses (have those people ever seen how roses grow? Hint, they aren’t tulips.)
I think I’ve finally reached the Rubicon of watching this show exclusively for the #epic fail.
Ok, without reading other people’s comments.
Overall I disliked this episode.
In no particular order:
What is this magical sand that “fixes” things? More unidentified magical substances. Enough of those.
Snow and Charming — while I appreciate what I think the writers were going for here (Snowing fighting, but overcoming their differences), I dislike how Charming and Snow were respectively portrayed. Charming came off as a dolt, and Snow as a nagging harpy. No. Just no. These characters deserve better than a reboot of “Married with Children.”
The absolutely ridiculous plot-line with Rumple and Merida. I mean, really, can it get any worse? Because, who better to make Rumple brave than Brave (TM)? I’m sorry, this is just plain stupid — from the whole “you’re the only one to be able to get the sword out of the stone” (why??? it makes zero sense), to the whole Merida think. Not impressed.
So, as we said, Guinevere is sketchy, but that’s only because she’s sniffed some magical dust courtesy of her even sketchier husband.
The entire Guinevere story. The whole thing with Lancelot seemed a little bit fast, and hence not particularly credible.
But the worst thing about this whole episode, is yet another example of OUAT’s implicit classicism. Arthur’s story is one of a lower class dude trying to come up “beyond his station” => and hence he’s a villain. If that sounds familiar, that’s because that’s also Rumple, Cora, Zelena, Pan and on and on the list goes. If you’re not born to royalty but want to achieve high status on OUAT, you’re likely to be evil. Unless you’re Charming, but that’s because he’s Snow’s sidekick, and Snow is legitimate royalty. “Fixing” the kingdom involves transforming wooden huts into a stone castle. Because clearly, if you live in the wooden house, your life is broken and need magic dust to fix it.
Ugh. I can’t even.
