nevanna | Entries tagged with media miscellany

I don’t remember when and how I first learned that the Indigo Girls were queer icons, but it was sometime after I first started listening to their music (and before I had more than the slightest hint that I myself might not be straight). They were, first and foremost, the group who performed some of the songs that Older Sister taught me, and whose CDs kept us, Younger Sister, and sometimes our parents company on road trips. At some point, I also started associating their lyrics with some of the stories that I was working on at the time, or that we were working on together (a habit that continued once I entered online fandom and started using lyrics to title my fics). Much later, I also learned that Amy Ray and Emily Saliers were and are involved in activism for a variety of causes, including queer rights. And my family and I were lucky enough to see the group in concert in 2004.

At first, I thought about creating a list of my top five Indigo Girls songs, but I think that would be prohibitively challenging: there are just too many of them! Instead, here are my favorite tracks from their first five albums – the ones that helped to form the soundtrack of my childhood.

1. “Strange Fire” (Strange Fire, 1987)

I first heard this song on the concert album 1200 Curfews. I remember reading somewhere – maybe in the liner notes for that CD, maybe from a fan – that Amy wrote this song about her relationship with the Christian Church, but I don’t think that interpretation is necessary in order to appreciate the powerful lyrics, the melody, or the way that the harmonies build throughout.

2. “Secure Yourself” (Indigo Girls, 1989)

I think that this is one of the songs that I learned from Older Sister before I heard the recorded version. The final line, “Now we all are chosen ones,” resonated deeply with me as a young, socially awkward reader and storyteller who had tired very quickly of Chosen One stories. (“Closer to Fine,” which opens the same album, is probably more well-known, definitely more fun to sing, and I love that one, too. I just don’t love it in the same way.)

3. “Hand Me Downs” (Nomads Indians Saints, 1990)

No question about this one. The urgency and background drumbeat that kicks in on “...and you’ve become the saint somehow” makes me catch my breath every time.

4. “Ghost” (Rites of Passage, 1992)

Or, as my mom calls it almost every time she brings it up, “that one about the Mississippi being mighty.” (“Galileo” and “Love Will “Come To You” are also strong contenders from the same album.)

5. “Dead Man’s Hill” (Swamp Ophelia, 1994)

Swamp Ophelia has such a strong concentration of songs that I absolutely adore, that my choice is almost random, based on what I’ve been listening to the most recently.

If you’re an Indigo Girls fan, what are some of your favorites? Whether you are or not, do you recall any songs that captured your heart or imagination before you knew who originally performed them? What are they?

I shared what I once imagined to be a stereotypical hero/villain confrontation, which involved mind control because of course it did.

In which Nevanna overthinks children’s cartoons, in ways that probably won’t make sense unless you’ve watched the Craig of the Creek prequel movie.

( Go forth, following dreams! )

Pride Month has begun, so I’m here to share some of my favorite queer characters from (live action) television.

1. Tara Maclay (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Although it’s easy to dismiss Tara as “only” a love interest for Willow (who is also a great character!), there’s a lot to love and admire about her in her own right: she’s brave and wise and compassionate, and her story beautifully demonstrates the show’s enduring theme of found family. I am one of many, many fans who wish that she’d survived the series, and I was thrilled to recognize both the deliberate use of her name and a cameo appearance by Amber Benson in the recent horror movie I Saw The TV Glow. Tara was also the focus of a tie-in prequel that was published a couple of years ago, although I haven’t read it.

2. Jack Harkness (Doctor Who/Torchwood)

I was delighted by Jack from the very first time that I saw him in “The Empty Child.”

andrastewhite once pointed out, in a LiveJournal/Dreamwidth post that I can no longer find, that although charming rogues with hearts of gold have never been a rarity in science fiction, Jack stood out as a Doctor Who companion in particular because of his previous experience traveling the universe, and, of course, his uninhibited sexuality. I adored his relationships with the Doctor and Rose. And although the writing on Torchwood was often extremely uneven and sometimes seemed to be coasting on the memorable elements of other shows, Jack’s protective love for his team was always a joy to watch, and the devotion between him and Ianto was a noteworthy step forward for sci-fi action media (even if, like Willow and Tara’s story, it ended tragically).

3. Miranda Callendar (Jekyll)

Steven Moffat has (and deserves) a dubious track record when it comes to writing female characters, but I think he did a decent job with the ladies of Jekyll. Miranda – a private detective who becomes entangled in the drama between the modern-day Jekyll and Hyde – is smart and stubborn and resourceful and funny, and her bond with her wife and business partner, Min, is clear in every scene. I would watch an entire show about the two of them as supernatural investigators.

4. Eric Effiong (Sex Education)

Eric is one of the most lovable characters in a varied and engaging cast. He could have been nothing more than a fabulous accessory to his (sometimes insufferable) straight white best friend’s storyline, but increasingly layered writing and Ncuti Gatwa’s remarkable performance allow him to transcend that stereotype magnificently. I like that Eric is mostly secure in his identity and aesthetic when the story starts, but – like any teenager – he’s on a journey to figure out who he wants and what kind of person he wants to be, and his sexuality and religion and family and friendships all play significant and interconnected parts in that journey.

5. Theodora Crain (The Haunting of Hill House)

I have yet to read Shirley Jackson’s original novel, but when I watched Mike Flanagan’s screen adaptation (which I understand is very different from the source material), I remarked to a couple of my friends, “of course the damaged psychic lady is my favorite.” I love Theo’s snark, the contrast between her accomplished professional identity and her messy personal issues, her determination to help children who have been harmed, and the way that she both fears and yearns for intimacy. I was so happy for her at the end of the series.

Honorable mentions: Nomi Marks and Amanita Caplan (Sense8), Anissa Pierce (Black Lightning), Sara Lance (Legends of Tomorrow)

I haven't finished watching any of those shows yet but I love these characters based on what I've seen!

This probably won't be a weekly feature, but I'll try to revisit it from time to time.

pastrylikewolf and I recently finished watching the first season of Cobra Kai, the sequel to/spinoff from the Karate Kid franchise, which I’d seen before but she hadn’t. Our other housemate introduced me to the show a few years ago, and our goal is to catch up to the last season so that all three of us can watch it together. The series finds Johnny Lawrence – the antagonist from the original movies – adrift in middle age, estranged from his teenage son, struggling to hold a job, and drowning his self-doubt in alcohol and misanthropy. When he rescues his young neighbor from bullies, he decides to bring back the karate dojo that gave him meaning in his youth, and also crosses paths with his former rival, Daniel LaRusso, who’s achieved financial success and a loving nuclear family but still has his own ties to their shared past.

I went into the show with no particular expectations, and certainly didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. I hadn’t seen The Karate Kid in many years and have yet to watch the sequels, I never had any particular interest in martial arts films overall, and my attachment to “plucky underdog learns to do a sport real good” narratives had faded long ago. (I was a Mighty Ducks girl, in case anybody was wondering.) I also don’t have a lot of patience for the current pop culture trend of nostalgic reboots and remakes. But Cobra Kai is one of the rare examples that really works for me, possibly because it is clearly made with a lot of love for the original franchise but also tries to tell a new story… or several new stories, really, since Johnny’s and Daniel’s journeys unfold alongside the story of a new generation of karate students. High school drama — dating, shifting social dynamics, and some horrifyingly authentic depictions of bullying — takes up a significant amount of narrative space. Although the star-crossed romance between Sam, Daniel’s daughter, and Miguel, Johnny’s first student, is a throughline throughout the first season, I was much more invested in the dynamic between Sam and her childhood friend Aisha, whose friendship fractured when Sam started hanging out with the popular crowd, and was further tested when Aisha started learning karate from Johnny. Although the girls share a moment in the season finale that seems to point to a reconciliation — and Sam owns up to some of her mistakes — it’s unclear whether they’ll find their way back to each other.

I think I realized that the show was doing something interesting when it refused to portray the resurrected Cobra Kai as either the straightforward villains that they were in the movies, or purely misunderstood underdogs. Arguably, The Real Villain is Toxic Masculinity, and central to Johnny’s arc in the first season is his slow understanding of which lessons from his teenage years will be helpful to him and his students, and which ones really, really won’t. Among a talented cast of new and returning actors alike, William Zabka sells every emotional beat perfectly, inviting audiences to sympathize with this character even when it’s very difficult to like him. (“Goddamnit, Johnny” is a frequent refrain from us as viewers.)

That said, despite those sincerely dramatic twists and turns, and genuinely compelling performances, Cobra Kai is fundamentally about an increasingly complicated and intense competition between rival sports teams, and if you can’t buy into that, you probably won’t have a good time with this show. I bought into it more easily than I expected, and I’ve been having a great time with this rewatch so far.

Which shows have you found yourself liking more than you expected? What was it that surprised you?

A few years ago, I found myself reminiscing on social media, with some of my former classmates, about an elaborate game of make believe that they created in elementary school. They called themselves the “Magic Rock Club”; the large rock in question stood at the edge of our school playground, and was either their headquarters or an object of worship, or both. My friend recalls that I was part of the club, too, but I just remember desperately wanting to be, both because of their enticing shared mythology – which involved trips to another dimension and a wizard who served as their guide – and because I hated the idea of being excluded from the Cool Thing that my friends were doing together. (Often, among kids of that age, the point of forming clubs is to exclude others, but I don’t recall any specific instances in which they were cruel in that way.) I also have more isolated memories of other classmates “assigning” me to chase certain boys around the playground, as part of a system that was probably as elaborate as seven-year-olds could manage.

At Cartoon Night, we’re currently watching Craig of the Creek, which mostly consists of slice-of-life episodes about a diverse group of kids having adventures in the woods. I’ve told several people that the tone and attitude remind me a lot of Hey Arnold! which was one of my favorite shows from the 90s. Craig and his friends have built their own miniature society, largely without adult intervention, with its own rules and customs and hierarchies. For them, being tagged as “it,” winning a card game, tracking down the missing book in one’s favorite series, or being insufficiently horse-like to hang out with the Horse Girls, have the highest imaginable stakes, because sometimes, that’s just what being a kid is like. I also really enjoy the fact that, thus far (and I have no spoilers), the show hasn’t entirely committed to being realistic or speculative fiction. Viewers might conclude that Craig’s home-schooled pen pal is probably not writing to him from another dimension, but he readily believes that she is, and the episode doesn’t end with a “reality check” that informs him otherwise. The “anything is possible” outlook is part of the show’s charm.

Most of the episodes stand on their own, but there is an emerging arc about a “king” who leads a separate group of kids and has targeted Craig as a key part of his tyrannical plans. When I saw the social dynamics between this character and his “subjects,” two things occurred to me: firstly, that I wouldn’t be surprised if the show’s creators had researched cults before writing those episodes, and secondly, anybody who doesn’t think that the social dynamics of childhood playtime can be spectacularly cult-like has had a very different experience of childhood playtime than my peers and I did.