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minoanmissToday I spent a chunk of my Christmas watching fanfic. FX decided to be the ones to make the Latest Adaptation of A Christmas Carol. (This post contains spoilers for a particular plot point.)
I watched it today. It was kind of overly long but otherwise quite enjoyable to a terrible person like me who enjoys Darker and Edgier versions as long as the darkness isn't pointless. The added darkness here was an interesting expansion of the story in very... fan-fictional ways, I felt. I felt like the writers asked themselves some questions about the original story, back when they first read it, that they answered in their adaptation here.
One thing I really liked about it was the point it made that being badly done by (and this Scrooge is very terribly done by when he's quite young) is not an excuse to visit horrors on others, whether at a distance or up close. Suffering can shape and scar us but it doesn't make it inevitable that we inflict it on others. We can choose better.
Another thing I really liked was its answer to a nasty supposed-philosophy question. There's a question aa certain kind of man, who thinks he's clever, likes to ask, often of women of his acquaintance. "If I offered you a dollar, would you sleep with me?" he asks. Of course the response is no. "What about a million dollars?" And one thinks of what one could do with One Million Dollars, and that his question is hypothetical, and one may say maybe or yes or something else that is not no. Whereupon he grins and says, "So, you are a whore/have no morals/etc, now we just need to figure out your price." (Sometimes this is told in the opposite direction, million first, then one dollar.)
As is obvious, I hate that supposed question for a lot of reasons (not least the implication that being willing to trade sex for money indicates moral turpitude). As one of his past misdeeds Scrooge pulls a variant of this situation on someone who came to him for help, and it is made explicitly clear that this was absolutely wrong of him, that the person's "yes" was absolutely coerced and thus not binding, and that this coercion was inexcusable on his part. I wasn't expecting that plot twist and I really enjoyed the work making it completely clear who was and who was not in the wrong (and that I agreed with it. :D)
Also, POC in Victorian/British[/pretty much any] settings make me happy. As does Guy Pierce's pointy face.
Anyway, I got to watch fanfic for Christmas! Now to read some.
I watched it today. It was kind of overly long but otherwise quite enjoyable to a terrible person like me who enjoys Darker and Edgier versions as long as the darkness isn't pointless. The added darkness here was an interesting expansion of the story in very... fan-fictional ways, I felt. I felt like the writers asked themselves some questions about the original story, back when they first read it, that they answered in their adaptation here.
One thing I really liked about it was the point it made that being badly done by (and this Scrooge is very terribly done by when he's quite young) is not an excuse to visit horrors on others, whether at a distance or up close. Suffering can shape and scar us but it doesn't make it inevitable that we inflict it on others. We can choose better.
Another thing I really liked was its answer to a nasty supposed-philosophy question. There's a question aa certain kind of man, who thinks he's clever, likes to ask, often of women of his acquaintance. "If I offered you a dollar, would you sleep with me?" he asks. Of course the response is no. "What about a million dollars?" And one thinks of what one could do with One Million Dollars, and that his question is hypothetical, and one may say maybe or yes or something else that is not no. Whereupon he grins and says, "So, you are a whore/have no morals/etc, now we just need to figure out your price." (Sometimes this is told in the opposite direction, million first, then one dollar.)
As is obvious, I hate that supposed question for a lot of reasons (not least the implication that being willing to trade sex for money indicates moral turpitude). As one of his past misdeeds Scrooge pulls a variant of this situation on someone who came to him for help, and it is made explicitly clear that this was absolutely wrong of him, that the person's "yes" was absolutely coerced and thus not binding, and that this coercion was inexcusable on his part. I wasn't expecting that plot twist and I really enjoyed the work making it completely clear who was and who was not in the wrong (and that I agreed with it. :D)
Also, POC in Victorian/British[/pretty much any] settings make me happy. As does Guy Pierce's pointy face.
Anyway, I got to watch fanfic for Christmas! Now to read some.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-26 01:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-26 01:43 am (UTC)In the original novel he definitely had some Freudian Excuse misfortunes, but this movie added some extra crispy awful (and deliberate) maltreatment.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-26 11:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-27 03:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-26 11:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-26 03:37 pm (UTC)"We've established that you're a whore..."
Date: 2019-12-26 11:55 am (UTC)Re: "We've established that you're a whore..."
Date: 2019-12-26 10:39 pm (UTC)Feh.
Re: "We've established that you're a whore..."
Date: 2019-12-27 03:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-26 03:15 pm (UTC)I've only seen the first two episodes so far, but there are several people of color in fantasy medieval Poland, and I rejoiced in their presence and thought of you.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-27 03:58 am (UTC)