White Christmas and Love Actually

[osprey_archer]

I’ve been on a Christmas movie binge: first White Christmas, lovelier than ever. Betty and Bob are still ridiculous - really, Betty, if you just told someone your suspicions about Bob’s evil schemes, it could have all been cleared up in a heartbeat! Also, if Bob really was an evil schemer, I’m sure Judy would have been more than happy to help you foil him.

Judy = my favorite. I love how she’s so winsomely scheming: she does have an angle, as Bob says, but the movie never punishes her for it. She and Phil are an excellent match (their dance on the deck behind the Flamingo is probably my favorite scene in the movie): who knows what messes they’ll get the four of them into next?

Then I watched Love Actually last night, which did not hold up nearly as well. I’d forgotten (if indeed I noticed the first time I saw it) by being really gratuitously fatphobic all over the place. It’s not just background radiation, it’s positively a theme, so pervasive that it rather spoiled the movie for me.

Aurelia’s sister is a joke because she’s fat; Billy Mack makes fat jokes about his manager constantly, and remarks with horror that it turns out that the person he loves most in the world is a “chubby employee”; and there’s a constant drumbeat about how Natalie, the prime minister’s eventual paramour, is plump.

Natalie is apparently the movie’s attempt to tell us that “Fat people can be loved, too!” I submit that this would be far more heart-warming were Natalie actually overweight, rather than a buxom and well-proportioned young woman.

***

In other news, would anyone like to beta read my Yuletide fic, a fractured fairy-talish thing in a fandom with which you are likely unfamiliar? *puppy dog eyes* I don't quite have a draft yet, but I'm hoping to change that tomorrow.

Comments

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Love Actually has a lot of other issues, too (romanticized stalking, male boss/female employee, slut-shaming....). I am really torn, because it's like a parade of my favorite British actors, and fun if I completely turn my brain off, but any critical examination and I start going REALLY?! I'm thinking it may be time to get rid of my copy, but I do love the cut romance...the only queer one, even if it was tragic.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Wait, there is a queer romance in Love Actually? How did I not notice this?

...oh wait you said it was a cut scene. Well then.

There are three, count 'em, three male boss/female employee romances in Love Actually - although Natalie and Aurelia are no longer working for the bosses in question by the time they get together, which presumably mitigates things.

Which one is the romanticized stalker?

[carmarthen.livejournal.com]

The principal's partner has cancer, and dies somewhere in the middle of the movie; I think they removed all but the most oblique references to it. It was the kind of storyline that I thought was well-done and moving on its own, but had they left it in as the sole representation of queerness...well, maybe it's good they cut it.

(The Aurelia storyline still squicks me intensely for many reasons.)

I thought the Kiera Knightley storyline was pretty stalkery. I read a great review recently unpacking the movie in general, but I can't find it now, argh.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I'm not seeing the Keira Knightley storyline as stalkery. I can see how Mark's wedding video that focuses on her and only her might seem creepy, but otherwise Mark has been avoiding her so assiduously that she actually thinks he dislikes her.

It's not very grown-up (is he actually incapable of being around her without blurting out "I'M SO IN LOVE WITH YOU?") but it's also the opposite of stalkery.

[enemyfrigate.livejournal.com]

I am saving White Christmas to watch after I put up a Christmas tree. Maybe I can get around to that Bob/Betty/Phil idea I had last year. (I have to admit I'm not a big fan of Judy).

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I am in favor of all the White Christmas OT3s!

[bogwitch64.livejournal.com]

My favorite Christmas movies are pretty raunchy. I do love Scrooged, A Christmas Story, and Trapped in Paradise (if you've not seen the last tone, DO! Hilarious and sweet.) But my other two faves are Bad Santa (which I actually find really heartwarming in a very dark way) and Harold and Kumar's 3D Christmas. Seriously, for Neil Patrick Harris, even if I hated the movie, I'd watch it over and over anyway.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I have A Christmas Story coming from Netflix!

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I'd like to read the Yuletide fic! I wouldn't be able to give feedback until the weekend, but I'd love to, if you'll have me.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Sure! I may not even get it sent to you till the weekend (though I'm really hoping to finish it before then), so don't fret about that.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I have sent it to you! Now I can relax and devote my energies entirely to preparing for tomorrow's Redwall feast!

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I'm happy to beta-read fic for my lj-friends in fandoms I don't know, provided it's relatively short. (Like, under 4000 words). isiscolo@gmail.com.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I don't know exactly how long it will be - its 2500 words now - but I feel pretty safe saying it will be less than 4000 words, because if it is more, I will collapse into a wibbling heap.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I've shared the file with you: it's coming from jw.scarlette@gmail.com.

It's a bit longer than I thought it would be, but it does squeak in under 4,000 words!

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

I'm about to go to bed now, but I'll look at it tomorrow or Saturday.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

No hurry! I'll be busy both Friday and Saturday, so it'll be Sunday before I can do anything further with it.