osprey_archer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer) wrote2019-02-07 12:34 pm
osprey_archer) wrote2019-02-07 12:34 pm
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Derry Girls
I watched Derry Girls partly because it was six half-hour episodes long and I am easily swayed by the lure of short shows - but also because I was intrigued by its premise. A high school comedy set in Northern Ireland in the 1980s, during the Troubles? That’s certainly sounded different.
And different it is, and often a delight. The show focuses on ordinary people, not fighters, whose main reaction to the war is irritation when the main bridge is closed for a bomb threat yet again, which will double the time in their commute.
This persistent ordinariness is one of the show’s most deliciously comic aspects: there’s a great sequence where Erin’s proverbially boring uncle manages to bore his audience with a story in which the IRA steals his van and ties him to his radiator. But it’s also slyly subversive of war story cliches - even anti-war story cliches - in that it relentlessly undercuts the importance of the war. It’s not grand or heroic, or even brutal and tragic (I think filmmakers - storytellers of all kinds - underestimate the attractive power of tragedy); it’s annoying and absurd.
Absurd and irritating - and inescapable. The Troubles are only occasionally part of the main plot of the episode, but they are persistently present background radiation in the characters’ lives - in the heavily armed guards whom the girls walk past on the way to school, in their hope of getting free chips from the local chippie after their boring uncle is featured on the news (no luck; the girls accidentally ruin their chances by setting the shop owner’s curtains on fire), in wannabe writer Erin’s hifalutin musings in her journal about how she’s a ~child of the conflict - “You didn’t have to memorize it!” Erin howls at her cousin Orla, who has been reciting these musings as a cap to the first episode. They are, after all, the appropriate cliches to end the first episode of a show set in a war zone.
But there are also moments of real pathos, like the last moments of the season finale. The last episode in general is excellent, in fact: I think it really expanded the show’s emotional range and offered lots of interesting possibilities for future seasons.
If there’s one complaint I’d make, it’s that before that final episode, the show starts to feel like - not quite a one-trick pony, but nonetheless a pony with a limited repertoire of tricks, some of which begin to wear out their welcome even by the end of this very short season. Erin’s grandfather relentlessly undermines her father, whom he has never liked. In the first episode it’s funny. By episode five, it’s getting predictable - and tiresome.
In general, the characters are a little meaner - more unkind and petty - than I usually like from a TV show. So far they’ve stayed on the right side of sympathetic - or maybe not sympathetic but interesting? And with enough good in them that there’s clearly possibility for growth - but that’s very much a matter of personal taste; I suspect they’ll put some people right off.
I also got annoyed by the relentless gay-bashing of Michelle’s English-born cousin. But the last episode of the show went a fair way toward redeeming this for me, when Erin’s friend Claire comes out to her as a lesbian, because the show takes that seriously (I mean, it’s a funny scene, but in a very painful way) - and that takes away from the feeling that the show is using “but it’s historically accurate!” as an excuse to make gay jokes to its heart’s content. There’s an intent to engage with queerness as a real thing instead of treating it as a joke.
Also, Sister Michael, the girls’ headmistress who has no fucks left to give, is a joy and a delight.
And different it is, and often a delight. The show focuses on ordinary people, not fighters, whose main reaction to the war is irritation when the main bridge is closed for a bomb threat yet again, which will double the time in their commute.
This persistent ordinariness is one of the show’s most deliciously comic aspects: there’s a great sequence where Erin’s proverbially boring uncle manages to bore his audience with a story in which the IRA steals his van and ties him to his radiator. But it’s also slyly subversive of war story cliches - even anti-war story cliches - in that it relentlessly undercuts the importance of the war. It’s not grand or heroic, or even brutal and tragic (I think filmmakers - storytellers of all kinds - underestimate the attractive power of tragedy); it’s annoying and absurd.
Absurd and irritating - and inescapable. The Troubles are only occasionally part of the main plot of the episode, but they are persistently present background radiation in the characters’ lives - in the heavily armed guards whom the girls walk past on the way to school, in their hope of getting free chips from the local chippie after their boring uncle is featured on the news (no luck; the girls accidentally ruin their chances by setting the shop owner’s curtains on fire), in wannabe writer Erin’s hifalutin musings in her journal about how she’s a ~child of the conflict - “You didn’t have to memorize it!” Erin howls at her cousin Orla, who has been reciting these musings as a cap to the first episode. They are, after all, the appropriate cliches to end the first episode of a show set in a war zone.
But there are also moments of real pathos, like the last moments of the season finale. The last episode in general is excellent, in fact: I think it really expanded the show’s emotional range and offered lots of interesting possibilities for future seasons.
If there’s one complaint I’d make, it’s that before that final episode, the show starts to feel like - not quite a one-trick pony, but nonetheless a pony with a limited repertoire of tricks, some of which begin to wear out their welcome even by the end of this very short season. Erin’s grandfather relentlessly undermines her father, whom he has never liked. In the first episode it’s funny. By episode five, it’s getting predictable - and tiresome.
In general, the characters are a little meaner - more unkind and petty - than I usually like from a TV show. So far they’ve stayed on the right side of sympathetic - or maybe not sympathetic but interesting? And with enough good in them that there’s clearly possibility for growth - but that’s very much a matter of personal taste; I suspect they’ll put some people right off.
I also got annoyed by the relentless gay-bashing of Michelle’s English-born cousin. But the last episode of the show went a fair way toward redeeming this for me, when Erin’s friend Claire comes out to her as a lesbian, because the show takes that seriously (I mean, it’s a funny scene, but in a very painful way) - and that takes away from the feeling that the show is using “but it’s historically accurate!” as an excuse to make gay jokes to its heart’s content. There’s an intent to engage with queerness as a real thing instead of treating it as a joke.
Also, Sister Michael, the girls’ headmistress who has no fucks left to give, is a joy and a delight.
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The problem, for me, was that it felt like a gay joke from an 80s movie, where the character everyone calls "gay" isn't actually gay and in fact there will be no gay people at all in the story. Of course, the show is set in the eighties, so in one way that's fair enough, but on the other hand this is something I find annoying in eighties movies so of course I find it annoying here.
But when Claire turns out to be a lesbian, that changes the feel of it for me.
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Sister Michael is amazing and I love her so, so much. Also, Erin's dad! I almost like the scenes with Erin's family, especially her dad and grandpa sniping at each other ("Why don't you leave my Mary alone?" "Because we've been married for 17 years!") more than the ones with the main 4 girls (and James.)
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Oh Erin. I too have been STABBED THROUGH THE HEART by the realization that someone wasn't reading my beautiful letters. A lot of her terribleness is so relatable. This is true for all of them, really, like that moment when Claire confesses everything and tries to blame it on the others and Sister Michael's just like, "Well, I think we all lost a bit of respect for you there, Claire."
Sister Michael is my favorite. Every time she's on screen you know she's going to say something in this totally I-have-no-time-for-this deadpan and so every time she showed up I was practically bouncing in my seat waiting for the zingers.
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And it's the same with Orla: exasperating though Erin finds her, Orla's still one of the gang. And I suspect that if Erin's grandfather ever actually succeeded in pushing her dad out, he'd probably be horrified (though he'd hate to admit it).