C-dramas: Can we all just agree to leave Wang Yibo alone?

Image of Wang Yibo from a photoshoot. Copyright of YeHua Entertainment.

Hi! It’s Annie!

Many of you will recognize the man above and many of you won’t, which is completely fine! That is Wang Yibo, an actor who is becoming more and more popular mostly for his portrayal of the character Lan Wangji in ‘The Untamed’. If you’ve read some of my other posts, you might also recognize him from my review of the Chinese e-sports drama ‘Gank Your Heart’. Wherever you’ve seen him before, we need to talk about some of the things that have happened to him and why we need to stop stuff like this from happening to him and literally any celebrity ever again. Wang Yibo has been known for being treated poorly by fans and haters alike. Many of his fans feel that they are exempted from human boundaries while haters feel that he’s entitled because of how sassy he is in interviews. I don’t know the guy in real life. I’m not going to assume what he’s like. But even if he was a not-so-great person; nothing, and I mean nothing, gives you the right to do any of these things.

The Car Incident:

Wang Yibo was sleeping in a car when he was found by fans and his vehicle was immediately surrounded. Many of the people around the car were doing more than screaming and were instead attempting to break the windows and get to him. That sounds absolutely insane and beyond scary. He’s not like BTS where he travels around with masses of security. Especially at the time of this happening, which was before his popularity blew up to quite where it is now. It grieves me to think that this isn’t common sense and that I have to say this; but you are not entitled to the privacy of a celebrity. If you see a celebrity who doesn’t look like they want to be bothered, especially if they are sleeping, absolutely stay away. Obviously, attempting to break into that person’s private property is even worse. Wang Yibo as well as other idols are constantly busy. He probably really needed that sleep you just ruined. Also, if you want to make a good impression on your favorite idol, making them fear for their lives is probably not such a good strategy.

The Fanfiction Incident:

Now, this affected Xiao Zhan more than it effected Wang Yibo; but it still did harm to them both. After starring opposite each other in ‘The Untamed’, many people started shipping the two stars in real life. I’m just going to say right now, I have never understood and probably never will understand shipping real people together. Not only can you strain a relationship by doing this, but those are real people, not fictional characters. It is not your business to try and find proof that they’re dating who you want. But anyways, a fairly explicit fanfiction of the two blew up in China causing them both to lose fans and people to boycott their products. Gay relationships and fanfiction are definitely not as tolerated in China as they are in the United States, which sucks. The incident got pinned on Xiao Zhan’s fans, which is why he took the fall for what happened. But if you were one of those people boycotting them for something that they didn’t even do, leave them alone! They didn’t do anything and shouldn’t be held responsible for every single one of their fans. That’s just ridiuclous.

The Phone Number Incident:

Somehow someone got a hold of Wang Yibo’s phone number and started selling it to fans. Wang Yibo began receiving dozens of phone calls a day, much of which he answered in the hopes of convincing fans that buying his number was wrong. This invasion of privacy only continued to the point where Wang Yibo had to switch his personal phone number and his company, YeHua Entertainment, issued a statement that they might take legal action against any fan who called him. Once again, there will never be a good reason for you to possess the number of a celebrity unless they are a close personal friend. That is, once again, an invasion of their privacy. Do some research about boundaries and then get back to me.

The Crime Incident:

This is the most recent thing that Wang Yibo went through and is essentially the problem that prompted me to write this. An anonymous person called the police and reported Wang Yibo for a crime that must have been serious as he was thoroughly investigated because of this prank. Eventually they realized that, as I said before, it was a false prank on Yibo. This guy has really been through too much at this point. Getting reported for a crime you didn’t commit would be absolutely horrifying. I do not understand this constant targeting of Yibo, but all I want is for people to just leave him alone.

Wang Yibo is a talented actor, and whether or not he’s a good person, he does not deserve this constant breach of his safety and privacy. Yibo has been targeted more recently than most. Somebody choosing for their career path to be in the public eye is not an invitation for you to do whatever you want to this person. I’ve heard a lot of people say that if a celebrity didn’t want a breach of privacy than they shouldn’t have become a celebrity. As if it comes with the job. First of all, that seems to put becoming a celebrity in a light that makes it sound easy. Or always predictable. Which it is never either of those things. Secondly, if you think that anything will ever entitle you to any person’s privacy I would ask that you re-evaluate. Yes, they are actors and many of them are rich but that doesn’t make them cardboard cutouts. They are real people with real emotions who can experience real fear. Stay out of their business and leave them alone.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Marvel: ‘WandaVision’ Review

Screenshot of Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany in ‘Wandavision’. Copyright goes to Marvel Studios and Disney,

Hey! Hallie here!

‘WandaVision’s finally here! I’ve talked a bit about the female representation in Marvel before, but I’ve never quite gotten to speak about how much I love Wanda Maximoff. She has definitely been one of the bright points in Marvel’s messy on-screen female representation history. She’s the most powerful superhero they’ve introduced so far, and she’s allowed to be without sacrificing her emotions or overall personality. Wanda is a confused woman who struggles a lot with self love and depression, but all she really wants is to do some good and live her life. When Vision dies, the life she was setting up for herself after her brother and hometown were ripped away from her, once again gets pulled out from under her. And while she’s able to show how powerful she really is against Thanos in an act of retaliation, that in no way fixes the problem. She’s in a pretty dark place when we leave her. Which is what makes the premise of ‘WandaVision’ so interesting. Somehow Vision is back and they’re living a married life in a completely different timeline that is obviously not real. This show balances sitcoms from various timelines with the mystery behind who created the entire reality and why Wanda is stuck in it. Let’s go over what it does best so far. SPOILERS ahead.

The Good:

The Sitcom. The first episode mimics a 50’s black-and-white sitcom with a pretty basic storyline. Vision and Wanda see a heart on their calendar but can’t remember what it is. After talking with a neighbor Wanda thinks that it likely marks the couple’s anniversary, but at work Vision realizes its marks the night his boss, Mr. Hart, is coming over for dinner. The story has been done many times, but Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany make it fun. Both of them are having a lot of fun with all of the old fashioned elements and it’s infectious. Both of their acting choices perfectly mimic the acting in shows from that time period. They also have a lot of on-screen chemistry which often saves moments that could be more boring with the cute romance between Wanda and Vision. When they move on to the 60’s in an episode that very clearly uses ‘Bewitched’ as it’s main inspiration, everything is tweaked perfectly. They move from wide shots and a live studio audience to more closeups and different camera angles to give it a new feel. This episode, Wanda and Vision are tasked with putting on a magic show for their community, but Vision accidentally eats some gum. Seeing Paul Bettany act Vision as basically a drunk was hilarious and this episode gave a lot more of the side cast a larger spotlight. Once again it’s a pretty simple premise, but it leaves room for the actors to shine and the mysterious moments to seem more out of place.

The Mystery. There’s a lot of intrigue in this show and it’s the perfect amount of chilling. In the very first episode Wanda and Vision are pretty clearly confused about nearly everything. It’s not simply that there’s a mark on their calendar they don’t remember. While talking with her neighbor, Wanda realizes she doesn’t have a wedding ring, the couple don’t have a song, and they also don’t have an anniversary. Vision doesn’t know what the company he works for even does or why he’s working there. All of these strange gaps in memory come to a head when Wanda and Vision finally sit down for dinner with Mr. Hart and his wife. Mr. Hart asks Wanda and Vision what their story is, becoming more loud and angry that the pair don’t even remember when they moved in. Then he starts choking to death at the table. Wanda becomes both dazed and horrified, which only increases when Mrs. Hart begins to say “Stop it” over and over, partly as if she’s joking and partly as if she’s pleading. Wanda eventually tells Vision to save Mr. Hart, having lost the light tone she’d been talking in for the entire episode, and then the laugh track comes in as if nothing happened. The episode also ends with someone watching the show through a screen with a notebook with a mysterious sword emblem on it.

The second episode begins with a strange banging noise that startles both Vision and Wanda, but they find nothing but trees when they open their window. Later on, Wanda finds a toy plane with the same sword emblem as earlier, and it’s red despite the black-and-white look of the episode. Then Wanda attends a community meeting with the rest of the women of the neighborhood. When she stays to help the group leader clean up, the radio begins to pick up a feed of a man asking Wanda who has done “this” to her. The group leader suddenly becomes frightened and asks Wanda who she is, becoming so agitated that she breaks the glass in her hand and draws red blood. When Wanda finally snaps out of her horror to clean the wound, the woman acts as if nothing happened. As if that wasn’t enough, when the episode is about to end and Wanda suddenly finds herself pregnant, Vision and Wanda hear the same banging as earlier in the episode. They rush outside to find a man in bee-keeping gear, sporting the sword emblem, climbing out of a manhole. Wanda sees him and says “No”, which rewinds the episode to before she and Vision heard the sound so it can end happily. So far the hints are pretty light, but they definitely leave an impression.

The Bad:

The Pacing. While I appreciate the show’s slow unveiling of hints, there are only seven episodes of this series left. With episodes that are only ranging from thirty to forty minutes long, I definitely think the amount of hints, and overall pacing, has to speed up very quickly for the final climax to make any sort of sense. I’ve already read plenty of reviews from Marvel fans who didn’t like the show because they thought there wasn’t enough intrigue, and while several of them did miss major puzzle pieces, I do understand the frustration of not receiving more in the first two episodes of a nine episode long show.

The Characters. While it’s nice to see Wanda and Vision again, they aren’t really themselves. While that does serve the story, for now at least, it’s important that we get glimpses of who they are in the future. Especially with this show tackling Wanda’s mental health. This show seems to imply that Wanda’s reality altering powers are in effect, which leads many to believe that the writers are going to at least create a variation of the ‘House of M’ storyline from the comics. This storyline hinges on Wanda’s mental health and it was very obviously taken much too far in the comics. Instead of dealing with her problems, the comics basically called her crazy and left it at that. Wanda has struggled with her mental health in the MCU, and regardless of what the writers choose to do, they’re headed towards another scenario where Wanda’s mental health is a major focus. Wanda needs to be able to deal with it realistically. They can’t do that if they leave the characters to simply be sitcom parodies the whole way through.

Obviously, I like the show so far. I think it’s both cute and interesting. Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen have done an incredible job with it so far. I love the direction the show is heading in and I’m excited to see more. Most of my gripes are contingent on whether or not the show is going to continue with the same pace and caricatures as the first two episodes. Because if this show is going to reach it’s full potential, it needs to get to a point where Wanda can be Wanda before we even reach episode nine.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Disney: The Descendants Characters

Promotional image for Disney Channel’s ‘Descendants’ starring (from left) Cameron Boyce, Sofia Carson, Dove Cameron, and Booboo Stewart taken at Disney World. Copyright goes to Disney Parks and the Disney Company.

Hi! It’s Annie!

Because I have absolutely nothing better to do, I recently returned to the ‘Descendants’ series. When this came out it immediately interested me due to the connection with other Disney stories without attempting to force a retell onto audiences. Instead it focused on the lives of four kids who have the misfortune of having villains for parents; Evie the daughter of the Evil Queen, Carlos the son of Creulla DeVille, Mal the daughter of Maleficent, and Jay the son of Jafar. Though I watched the first one and did somewhat enjoy it, I was also getting pretty tired of Disney Channel and didn’t watch any of the other movies. Despite this, I had people from my college talking about how good these movies were, even if they are made for kids. Now that I actually had time to go back, I definitely wanted to share some of my thoughts, especially when it comes to characterization. There are so many characters that they did well, and others that I thought they did pretty badly. Overall, I enjoyed this series more than I thought I would, but I want to go over which characters I fell in love with and the ones that need a little more work. SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Happily Ever After:

Evie: I loved Evie from the beginning, especially with the lesson they attempted to teach through her during the first movie. Evie has been told her entire life by her mother that the most important thing for a woman to be is pretty. When she gets to Auradon, that’s what we see from her. She tries to find a prince because her mother has told her that she needs a guy to be happy and she pretends to be dumb. In the end, she comes to the realization that she would much rather be smart than be purely focused on her looks. In a world where women are often reduced to being love interests or objects due to their looks, Evie tackles the subject of what women can be and are single-handedly. In the following movies, Evie was one of the only people actually campaigning for the other Villain Kids from the Isle of the Lost to be given the same chance she and her friends now had. Evie is consistently shown to be smart and incredibly kind. Also, the arc of realizing that beauty isn’t all there is being given to the child of the Evil Queen really was clever. Her relationship with Doug is beyond adorable as well.

Carlos: Not only is he an absolute expert at dancing, he’s also one of the characters that you feel for the most. From what Carlos talks about when it comes to his mother, it is obvious that he’s been the most abused of the core four. He is afraid of a lot of things, but dogs and his mother are on the top of the list. When Carlos goes over to Auradon he realizes that he has a love for dogs and uses that to get over his fear of his mother. In other words; she doesn’t scare him and no evil thing will. It’s cheesy, but it’s another clever arc to put the child of Cruella through. Though Carlos is often sidelined in other movies, he always is a comforting and supportive presence for the other characters. He even stands up to Evie and Mal by declaring that he wants to also be a part of girl talk. His character is nothing short of adorable and the sarcasm to go along with it absolutely makes it. I think we all can agree when I say we all miss Cameron Boyce every day.

Uma: Uma almost feels like a plot point that we needed in the first film. She has been abandoned on the Isle, but instead of having a promising life on the Isle before she came over; she has always felt like a prisoner. In the first movie we barely get anything of Mal talking to Ben about what it’s actually like to be trapped on the Isle. Ben and Uma actually get that conversation in the second installment of this franchise. Uma eventually becomes one of the most sarcastic and relatable characters in the cast. Not only that, but her pirate crew is nothing short of badass. In the second movie I was always having the most fun when the pirates were on screen. Uma having a very real reaction to what being trapped on a prison island is like, is something we needed from the beginning. She added a much needed element to the story.

Harry: So, he doesn’t get too much time in until the third movie. He works for Uma and that’s the most of what he does. But he is such a fun character to watch. Harry is a loyal friend for Uma, but he’s also unsettling and always has so much fun playing with his prey. When he’s on screen it’s really difficult to tear your eyes away. He looks absolutely insane but in the best way. Every scene with him in it is interesting.

Doug: Dopey’s son and Evie’s love interest. Doug is one of the only people that believes in Evie from the beginning. Their relationship ends up being one of the cutest and healthiest relationships I’ve seen in anything like this. There’s very little drama here, just pure acceptance. By the third movie it is clear that he and Evie have become best friends as well as true loves, and that’s always my favorite type of depiction of any couple. He also gets a bit of his own arc where he learns to be braver and more confident during the movies, which is a cute arc for Dopey’s son.

Rotten:

Mal: I know people are not going to like me at all for saying this, but Mal is only good in the first movie and even then she needs work. Mal learns what love is in the first film, which is a good arc for her character. The end of her arc has another quick love fix, much like Elsa in ‘Frozen’, so that isn’t that great. But Mal’s character never really expands beyond herself. After the first movie, the other characters end up with arcs that expand to helping other characters. Mal remains focused only on herself and her relationship with Ben. She makes several selfish decisions and is only ever convinced to do the right thing when she realizes her friends are disappointed in her. Because Mal only ever is given arcs that focus on herself, she comes out of the entire series looking incredibly selfish.

Jay: Jay has very little time and personality in comparison to the other core four. While the other three get arcs in the first movie that have to do with their lives back in the Isle and who their parents were, Jay gets virtually nothing. He goes from stealing to liking sports and that’s about it. It doesn’t really have anything to do with Jafar and doesn’t show us a lot of his personality as a character. In the next two movies he is very sidelined. I will say that in the second movie he gets some great moments where he makes Lonnie, Mulan’s daughter, the captain of the fencing team. That entire storyline was amazing simply for tackling the issue of women not being allowed in men’s sports. He also, in a sweet moment, tells Mal that he will drive her back to the Isle himself is she is still unhappy. We just don’t get enough of this. We don’t get enough of him. I feel like, by the end of the series, we barely got to know him.

Ben: Every single time he came on the screen I couldn’t help but cringe. This actor isn’t exactly the best by any means, but what Ben is given is just as bad. Though Ben is often one of the only people other than Evie to campaign for the freedom of the VKs, he always feels very out of place. He is kind but has some of the worst dialogue and it’s really confusing that he’s being crowned King at the age of sixteen. He also has very little in personality outside of being a nice guy. The best I’ve seen of Ben was when he felt guilty after his talk with Uma.

Audrey: She’s just not that great. She doesn’t appear at all in the second film and in the first film she’s written to be a generic mean popular girl. There’s really not a whole lot that’s special about her. In the third movie they attempt to give her characterization, but she’s not an intimidating villain. In the first few films there was a sense of urgency because the other villains were trying to take down the barrier. She just feels like a nuisance. Which is the way her character feels in all the movies.

Jane: None of Jane’s arcs ever feel really deserved except for when she grabs the wand in the first movie. Her and Carlos never have any chemistry before they force the romance between them. She just doesn’t seem like she has much of a character beyond being insecure. I almost wish Disney would have done what fans were calling them to do, which was make Carlos and Jay gay. Jane did not deserve the arcs that she was given.

Lonnie: I just want more of her! Just like Jay, we didn’t get enough time with her and she wasn’t very good in the first movie. There was nothing in her personality that ever even hinted at her being the daughter of Mulan and she acted just like every other girl. In the second movie they actually gave her something. She kicked ass and became the captain of the guys team. But I just wish they had shown her more like that and had given her more.

I actually liked ‘Descendants’ more than I thought I would! It’s really well done for being a Disney Channel movie and the acting as a whole was better than I thought. If you are interested in this storyline but don’t want to watch it because it was made for kids; go watch it anyways! It’s not perfect, but you’re bound to get some enjoyment out of it!

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Disney: Top 5 Male Love Interests

Screenshot of David and Nani from ‘Lilo and Stitch’. Copyright goes to Walt Disney Pictures.

Hey! Hallie here!

I grew up with Disney movies and fell for most of the Disney princes. I’ve been a romantic ever since I was a kid and I could appreciate most of them for the love and devotion they showed the female leads. Going back to some of these movies, though, there are a lot of love interests I gave too much credit. Many of them lack a personality or show more devotion than they do actual support. Similarly, there are so many love interests I completely ignored as a kid that deserve so much more love. This list is a mix of characters I loved from the first time I saw the movie and characters I needed to be a bit older to truly appreciate. I’m also keeping this list to male characters who aren’t the main character. Considering the fact that women are often portrayed as love interests rather than the main character, I definitely think it’s more important to call to attention the Disney movies that flip the script. Let’s get into it!

5. Flynn Rider. Or Eugene Fitzherbert depending on which you prefer. Eugene is at the top of most people’s lists, so allow me to defend why I put him at the bottom of this list. Eugene doesn’t really get the time to demonstrate what kind of significant other he will be to Rapunzel by the end of the movie. When the movie ends we never really get to see whether or not Eugene is supportive of Rapunzel. Him “supporting” her dream is an obligation for most of the movie that only changes when the adventure is already almost over. That doesn’t ultimately change much that he had said he would do in the first place except he also buys her a few souvenirs. We know he cares about her. He did surprise her with her own lantern which I guess could be a sign of support if you read into the symbolism of that. But that isn’t enough to put him higher on the list. What I will say is that his character arc does put him leagues above many of Disney’s other princes. He goes from caring only about himself to giving his life to protect someone he loves. Even before he dies for Rapunzel, he refuses to take the crown she’s been using as leverage over him to show her that he no longer cares for only himself. There are also cute moments where he pushes her hair away from her face while he’s talking to her, the opposite of Mother Gothel who strokes Rapunzel’s hair as an indication that it’s all she truly cares about. Their relationship is continued in the television series, but let’s be honest, Eugene isn’t exactly the same character in that series.

4. Li Shang. Here’s another enemies to lovers relationship. There are actually quite a lot on this list. The issue with this format is it often devotes too much time to the first stage of the characters relationship which often ends in their romance being explored a bit less than it could have been. Li Shang has one major benefit in this area, though. He knows Mulan for much longer than a few days before he decides to pursue a relationship with her. He’s been training with the Chinese army for months before the climax of the movie. Similar to Eugene, he initially shows support to Mulan because of outside forces rather than because he wants to help her. He’s a General and it’s his job to train all of the soldiers, including Mulan. He does become invested, however, when she begins to prove herself more capable than he expected the entire army to be. Afterwards, he very obviously develops feelings for Mulan. When he still thinks she’s a man. I am absolutely part of the team of people who believe Li Shang is a Bisexual. Anyway. Li Shang feels betrayed when it’s revealed Mulan’s a woman, but her gender doesn’t change his feelings for her. And though he refuses to listen to her at first, once he realizes she is no longer attempting to trick him he is extremely helpful and supportive during her entire plan to protect the emperor. Not only that, but their relationship isn’t forced. He goes after Mulan when she returns home, and the movie ends with her asking him to dinner. Nothing about their relationship is rushed and there’s a very obvious healthy foundation for their relationship in the future.

3. Prince Naveen. Naveen, not unlike most of the other people on this list, doesn’t get along with Tiana at first. He flirts with her as soon as he meets her, but his version of flirting happens to be talking about how great he is. Which isn’t necessarily attractive, especially as a frog. The movie brings up how much of a ladies man he is pretty frequently in the first half of the movie. He talks about how he doesn’t want to settle down because he enjoys partying and leaving broken hearts in his wake. In other words, he isn’t ready for a relationship. At all. That is, until Tiana doesn’t return his affections. He’s willing to brush it off at first, but it actually begins to frustrate him. He starts to pick fights with her for not being his idea of fun, and she immediately retorts with how lazy and careless he can be. Naveen meets his match, and over time he begins to respect Tiana. That respect turns to love when Mama Odie points out how important Tiana is to him. Immediately he decides he can’t marry for money despite the fact that he’s broke. He also decides that he’s going to get a job, or two, or three, to support Tiana’s dream of owning her own restaurant. And then ultimately decides against all of it to get Tiana the money she needs in time for her to afford her restaurant location, essentially dooming himself to a loveless marriage. Naveen goes through a similar character arc as Eugene. He goes from caring only about himself to realizing how important other people can be. But Naveen gets more of a chance to prove that he cares about Tiana’s ambitions just as much as he cares about her well-being, and that is an important distinction.

2. Kristoff. This one is surprising for me because I didn’t like ‘Frozen’ for a long time and I didn’t really enjoy ‘Frozen 2’ when I watched it recently. But I underestimated Kristoff. Kristoff is there to be the cynical voice of reason for the first half of ‘Frozen’. He doesn’t approve of most of Anna’s decisions because he thinks she’s very naïve. He helps her because it’s beneficial to himself just as much as it is to her. However, he forms a genuine friendship with her over time and is concerned for her when her hair begins to turn white. Obviously, everyone can tell that he has feelings for Anna by the time he delivers her to the trolls in the hope that they’ll have a cure for her frozen heart (I won’t mention the song that happened here because it’s not good). But when he hears that her cure is an act of true love, he delivers her to Hans. Despite the fact that he has feelings for Anna. Despite the fact that he doesn’t believe she and Hans can truly be in love because they’ve known each other for a day. He does it because Anna wants him to and he supports her decision. And, once again, their relationship isn’t rushed. While he does rush back to help Anna when he begins to have a bad feeling about the entire situation, she ends up saving herself as an act of sisterly love. Afterwards, they start a slow relationship where they share a very bashful first kiss only at the very end of the movie. Even in ‘Frozen 2’, when Kristoff keeps messing up his proposal and worries that Anna doesn’t care about him anymore, he always offers her his help when she needs it. When she provokes the earth elementals into chasing her he asks what she needs him to do without even knowing what’s going on. He would be in first if there wasn’t a more perfect character here.

1. David. David’s grown in popularity recently and it’s because he deserves it. He’s very obviously interested in Nani from the first scene we see him in. He’s known her for a long time and has been close friends with her, but he’s also very obviously been trying to set up a date with her. However, she’s incredibly busy and over-stressed. She’s only nineteen and she just lost her parents, but she has very little time to worry about that when she’s currently trying to keep custody of Lilo. She’s thrown into a very adult position where she has to find a stable job, do housework, and parent Lilo. Which only becomes a bigger problem when Stitch comes along. David isn’t offended when Nani turns him down. He understand that she’s busy, and he remains encouraged that Nani likes his butt and fancy hair thanks to Lilo. He doesn’t pressure Nani to date him at any point in the movie. He takes Nani and Lilo surfing when he sees that they’re sad and goes to save Stitch’s life despite the fact that he’s barely been acquainted with him. He continues to job search for Nani when she loses her job and eventually finds her one that can help fix her situation. He’s also very good at looking after Lilo. He’s the perfect support for Nani at such a stressful point of her life and he doesn’t expect anything in return. He’s the perfect guy.

That’s my list! As you can see, I definitely favor the guys who care about the female leads dreams and desires just as much as they care about their well being. It’s easy to have a hero who’s willing to put someone’s life above his own. But the guys who focus on a woman’s thoughts and beliefs are absolutely the most impressive to me. I’m definitely looking into doing another list with my least favorite male Disney love interests soon. There are so many bad ones. But, for now, let’s enjoy looking at these good ones and wishing they were real.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Twins in Media: Twitches vs. Annalise and Erika

Promotional image from ‘Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper’. Copyright of Mattel Entertainment and Lions Gate Home Entertainment.

Hi! It’s Annie!

We’re getting close to the end of this branch of twins in media, and this time I’m going to pit a couple of the sets of twins from my childhood against each other. I definitely grew up with Annalise and Erika and Twitches was something I heard about from friends rather than watching it myself. Still, returning to both of these depictions of twins was absolutely insane to me as they are both depicted in vastly different ways from what I remember. Anyways, let’s get into it!

Tropes:

Twitches: These two had all of the tropes that I was expecting them to have from the description of the movie. We have the separated at birth trope, obviously because it’s fun for writers to decide that it’s too dangerous for the twins to stay together so that they can have a big reveal. Obviously, most twins in real life are not separated at birth, so I am a bit confused with how much this trope is used. But these two also suffer from being opposites and this includes their supernatural powers. You have one of them who is based off of the sun and the other who is based off of the moon. Their father split his powers in between both of them which means that their powers work better together and don’t have as much strength individually. This isn’t my favorite because it definitely doesn’t promote twins being viewed as individuals by the public. They have all of what you can expect here.

Barbies: They are also separated at birth, though that’s because they technically aren’t siblings. They are instead written to be like siblings or twins, which is why we include them here. Though because they are technically not siblings, the fact that they are separated at birth is not as much of an issue for me, but it’s still worth mentioning. They are opposites who find each other living the exact opposite lives and wanting what the other one has. They also have the age-old plot that applies to twins, which is the switching places role. No one notices the difference except for the people who are in the know. Which is pretty absurd to me as most twins have some differences that would be really obvious after a while. They also end up having a pretty weird double wedding, which sounds like an absolute nightmare to me.

Winner: I have to give it to the Barbies here. They in general have less tropes to apply to them and because they have different parents, some of these tropes don’t apply to them at all. Or at least not with the same degree.

Differences and Similarities:

Twitches: As I’ve already pointed out, they are exact opposites. One of them is a practical night owl while the other is a more emotional early riser. It all has to do with the connection of their powers, but that doesn’t excuse this from being there. Generally when the story calls for one of them to have a specific stance, the other adopts the exact opposite stance. They are opposites in every possible way, which means that the writers prevented them from having a healthy amount of similarities. They both have powers and that’s about it.

Barbies: They suffer from the exact same lack of similarities. They, like the original story, are created for the purpose of being opposite. They live the exact opposite lives and desire the exact opposite things, which is why it’s so convenient for them to switch places in the first place (even though kidnapping was involved). Because of this they don’t actually have a lot of healthy similarities, despite them singing that they are “a girl like you” to each other. Their only similarity is that they are dissatisfied with their lives.

Winner: Tie. I can’t say that one does it better than the other because they both do the exact same thing. They present two people who the plot tells you are similar but who were created with the express purpose to be opposites.

Relationship:

Twitches: Though these two don’t get along at first, this rapidly changes as the movie continues. They still don’t know a whole lot about each other by the time it ends, and them declaring that they love each other does feel unearned, but they at least develop some sort of friendship and trust. They learn to rely on each other despite their bickering and they view each other as potential best friends at the end of the movie (I really don’t see that sisterly bond quite yet). Though I don’t like all the fighting, in the end it seems like this is the beginning of a supportive sibling relationship.

Barbies: What relationship? Beyond their initial meeting and their having to swap, they spend the movie completely away from each other. Their plots are completely different and involve completely different people. Seeing them interact in this movie is rare. By the end of their movie they feel like friendly acquaintances.

Winner: Has to be Twitches. They have a relationship, unlike the Barbies, and even though it isn’t completely fleshed out, it is the beginnings of a supportive sibling relationship. This is a situation of an actual depiction of a relationship versus the complete lack of one.

Plot:

Twitches: They spend most of the movie together, but they still have their separate plots. Obviously, because the movie focuses on them as characters, we don’t have to deal with any sidelining of either of them. They spend some of the movie getting to know each other, but we also see them each with their families and friends. We see their separate relationships they have formed over the years and the different ways they were brought up. They don’t have a similar relationship with any one character and they are each fleshed out as individuals. I especially liked seeing their friendships and how much of a difference there was in their friends support of them and how they each relate to their friends.

Barbies: They do have individual plotlines. They have different relationships with their boyfriends or the other people in their lives. There’s nothing the same about the way they relate to each character. It is a bit messed up that Annalise’s family did not notice a switch at all, because the Queen should have at least noticed something. But they spend none of the movie together. So, at least the movie focuses somewhat on their individuality. But after a while it does feel like Erika isn’t really doing much in the castle while Annalise is having all the adventure.

Winner: Twitches. They have a plot line that not only focuses on themselves, but also at least attempts to focus on their relationship as sisters. There is no instance where the plot sidelines one or the other. Even when one sister isn’t present, the absence of the other character is felt. But not in a way that diminishes the other sister or her individual story.

Final result:

Twitches takes this. To be completely honest, neither of these depictions are very good. But Twitches actually feels like a story about sisters and a healthy depiction of siblings. Even if Annalise and Erika were siblings, which they aren’t, there is no relationship between them in their movie. Or at least very little of a relationship. Tia and Tamera are actually twins in real life, so it’s difficult to not sense a sisterly chemistry throughout the movie as well. Though Twitches wasn’t my favorite and still has a plethora of tropes I wish would go away, they at least try to make a movie that feels empowering to sisters. That is not at all the point of the Barbie movie. There is something to be said about the Twitches movie actually promoting bonding with your sibling. In comparison to Annalise and Erika, I think these two have made a much more promising fight for twins in general.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

K-Pop and K-Dramas: Common Misconceptions About BTS Part 2

Photo of Park Jimin during an interview event. Copyright goes to Big Hit Entertainment and BTS.

Hey! Hallie here!

The last time I wrote one of these I promised it would be a series, so here’s the second one! The first post in this series was a bit more serious. I talked mostly about the more negative assumptions made about the boys, or negative thoughts people assume most ARMY’s have before they enter the fandom and find out what it’s like for themselves. With all of that out of the way, I want to talk about a few of the lighter misconceptions people have about the members of BTS. A lot of this is coming from my own experience. My sister was an ARMY several months before I became one, which led to me hearing a lot about them without knowing enough to draw the right conclusions. Some of this is also coming from assumptions a lot of new ARMY’s, or people on the cusp of becoming ARMY’s, make that I’ve heard about recently. Whether or not you’ve believed these things before, hopefully you learn something from this list!

Jimin’s Style is Androgynous: Let me break down what androgynous means in this context. Jimin stylistically is often paired with pastel colors, flowers, and either more flowy or tighter fitting clothing than the rest of the members of BTS. In general, a lot of his style is pinned to be a cross between feminine and masculine styles, and a bit more feminine than the rest of BTS. This isn’t an unfounded assumption either. Jimin has worn clothing on stage and in photo shoots that has reflected this. I think the biggest misconception here is that the looks every member of BTS choose for their stage presences are exactly the style they prefer off-stage. Just like most artists, their stage presences look and feel a bit different from who the BTS boys really are and what they really enjoy. If you look at photos taken of Jimin outside of photo shoots and stage appearances, he likes a lot of black and white. He likes a good leather jacket. He is often found wearing black skinny jeans and some cool sunglasses. Sometimes he likes showing off his tattoos. There are even accounts of himself and Yoongi accidentally wearing outfits that are very similar and having a good laugh about it. While I don’t doubt Jimin likes some nice pastels and some fun flowers, it shouldn’t be mistaken for his entire style preference.

J-Hope isn’t Serious: I see a lot of people assuming J-Hope is the jokester of the group based off of how he interacts with others in interviews. He’s always energetic, willing to get up and dance in front of people when the conversation lulls, and is always ready with a loud response for a lighthearted question. But his energetic and enthusiastic attitude doesn’t mean he can’t be a serious guy. J-Hope is the dance leader for BTS and often contributes to and helps teach the choreography. All of the members of BTS have talked about how serious and sometimes scary Hoseok can be when he’s teaching. Sometimes they’ll even recall messing up a piece of the choreography during a live performance and looking up in time to make eye contact with him. He notices almost every mess up, but he’s also helpful and willing to go through choreography with the members only minutes before performance. Hoseok is also known for checking in with the other members frequently. He does this so often, in fact, that Namjoon has said that he is the honorary second leader. He is known to be one of the most responsible and caring members of the group despite his love of laughter.

Jungkook is Naive: This is a misconception that is mostly given to Jungkook because he’s the youngest member. Some people enjoy babying him, but others genuinely believe that he doesn’t know much or is immature. This idea only circulated more when ‘BTS in the Soop’ showed Taehyung and Jungkook ensuring their relationship wasn’t growing apart after Taehyung expressed how he felt he was changing and maturing. This seemed to make some believe that Jungkook was still immature, and the fact that he and Jin, the oldest member, are said to squabble the most of the group didn’t help the situation. However, Namjoon has spoken about how wise and mature Jungkook can be. Some of the members have even said that he has felt like an older brother to them at times despite the fact that he’s younger than all of them. While Jungkook sometimes likes to act cute and innocent, as many of the members do when they’re joking around, that isn’t his entire personality. He’s shown his wisdom multiple times to fans during interviews, and there are many personality traits he hasn’t shown to fans at all. We shouldn’t assume they aren’t there simply because we can’t see them.

All the Members are Dating/Not Dating: This is actually a pretty hot topic. There’s a lot of back and forth between people who believe the members of BTS are in relationships and the people who are very adamant that they are not. The true answer is we don’t know. All the members of BTS have said that they have no time for relationships, which given how much they do isn’t hard to believe, but they also aren’t allowed to reveal a lot of their personal lives to the public. Big Hit Entertainment is still in charge of their public image, which often benefits from all of them appearing single. That still doesn’t mean that they can’t date or that it’s impossible for them to date. But it’s also incorrect to assume that any one of them is absolutely in a relationship. The simple answer is, anyone who takes any side in this argument is just as in the dark as everyone else. No one has an answer and no one should assume that they have one. This is also personal information BTS doesn’t owe the general public, so it’s best to simply let the topic go.

I’m not done with this series yet, but I’ll leave this post for now. This one is a bit lighter than my last post, but there’s still a lot I hope any ARMY of any type can take from it. The most important take away from this post is simply that we should stop assuming we know everything about these boys. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that we aren’t personally close with them considering how devoted they are to the fans and how much behind the scenes content we get. But none of us truly know them personally. We know the personalities they show the world, but not the traits they keep for the people in their personal lives. They are human beings with multiple facets to their personalities that only their loved ones can completely appreciate. ARMY’s can, however, support them for the kind people they are and appreciate the heartfelt work they put out into the world. Every member of BTS is amazing and they deserve to be appreciated for their complexities just as much as the amazing traits they show to their fans.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Disney: The Rise of Elizabeth Swann

Screenshot of Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Swann in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End’. Copyright goes to Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.

Hi! It’s Annie!

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! YE BE WARNED. I don’t think I’ve quite made it clear yet how much I have an absolute love for Elizabeth Swann from the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise. Not only is Keira Knightley one of my favorite actors all of time, but there were few characters as formative to me as Elizabeth Swann was. She was in an action movie and she kicked ass without being shoved to the sidelines or stuck with a lot of tropes. She was a relatable character and a character I dressed up as and pretended to be so many times growing up it’s probably somewhat embarrassing. Then the second movie came out, and though I didn’t actually see the final two until years later, Elizabeth Swann only seemed to be getting better. They actually gave her several stunts in the subsequent movies as well as many sword fighting scenes. Not to mention that they made her Pirate King in the final movie, something that pleasantly shocked me so much I came to actually find a liking for that movie, which was definitely a bit of a mess. And then they made several blunders to her character at the very end of the franchise. The story had ended and I was certain that they had done this character well, and then they messed quite a few things up at the very last minute. And as these blunders somehow continued, the respect for Elizabeth Swann and the demand that she get something better skyrocketed from the female fans.

The Blunders (Fir-ah!):

In the final movie of the original trilogy movies in this franchise, Will Turner dies. Many clever fans have even spotted that he was killed with his own sword, which is actually pretty poetic. This sucks in general, but also for Elizabeth who had just finally been married to Will by a very exasperated Barbossa. Though it seems like all hope is lost, Jack Sparrow saves Will by having him stab the heart of Davy Jones thus making Will the captain of the Flying Dutchman. The problem? Will can only step on land once every ten years. Yep! Ten years! Elizabeth and Will have one day as a married couple before he has to leave and then Elizabeth just…stays on the island. Elizabeth had been made Pirate King not too long before this and now can technically command an entire fleet of ships but they wrote that she just stays on the little island Will leaves her on. Even though Elizabeth has dreamt of adventure all her life and Will only comes to shore once every ten years so it’s not like staying on the island all the time is because he could come back at any second. Instead of doing the right thing, which would have been to give Elizabeth a ship and crew of her own, they left her stranded on an island. Maybe they should have at least given her a pistol with one shot with which to get revenge on the writers.

The Response:

When the last movie in the trilogy came out, most people just accepted that it was bad. And many of them did admit that Elizabeth’s ending was also bad, but it was just as focused on as all the other plot holes and weirdness in the movie. As the movies gained traction again because of announcements of sequels and now the reboot (or more like a different story in the same world) as well, people went back to watch the movies and Elizabeth Swann gained more of a fan-following than she ever has before. Naturally, many of these fans were women who were grateful to see her brand of representation. The revisit of ‘At World’s End’ caused the outcry regarding her ending to become even louder than it ever was. People demanded to know what happened to her, some even found comfort in the idea that maybe she did find a crew and they just didn’t show it.

Pirates 5:

All of the comfort on this part completely ended when Elizabeth Swann was shown in the most recent movie. Her involvement in the movie was announced pretty last minute in comparison to everyone else’s and Keira Knightley wasn’t all that interested in returning to the role. We all knew that all we could expect was a cameo. But there was still this hope that this cameo would be the confirmation of the story everyone wanted. Instead, we saw the confirmation that Elizabeth did actually spend all her time on that island raising her son. She had seen no Pirate adventures since. And she still remained there even after her son grew up and then waited for both her husband and son to get back. Wonderful. I was really hoping for a shot where a giant ship would come into view and all the characters would turn to see Elizabeth at the helm of it, but instead we find her right where we left her. The Pirate King who loved the sea spent the rest of her life waiting for the men in her life to come back.

The Reboot-ish Movie:

When the reboot was first announced and we were told that these movies would no longer focus on Jack Sparrow, I was really skeptical. Johnny Depp is not a great person in the least and the character of Jack Sparrow has lost most of his wit and personality throughout the years; but it’s still difficult to imagine the franchise without Captain Jack Sparrow. There was a giant group of people calling on Disney to put a woman at the helm of the next movies and many of them were even calling for them to make a movie based off of Elizabeth Swann and her adventures while Will was away. Though we haven’t gotten that exactly, we know that the next movies will feature a female pirate played by Margot Robbie. That actually puts me at ease, even though I am tired of reboots. Margot Robbie is another one of my favorite actors of all time and now I’m pretty excited to see what they’ll do, especially because it isn’t a complete reboot. But I’m not sure this would have happened if it wasn’t for the uproar Elizabeth Swann caused about her unfair ending. If Elizabeth Swann hadn’t inspired us all so much, I’m not sure we would be looking at a female lead for the next movies.

Elizabeth Swann deserved so much better, but it looks like the legacy of her character will carry on to do much more good. I, for one, am really excited to finally get a pirate movie focused on a female pirate. But, of course, I am eternally grateful for the Pirate King that shaped me so much growing up and continues to inspire me and so many others. Long may she reign.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Video Games: Final Fantasy VII’s Female Characters Then and Now

Screenshot of Aerith Gainsborough from ‘Final Fantasy VII Remake’. Copyright goes to Square Enix.

Hey! Hallie here!

I’ve been thinking a lot about Square Enix and their female representation recently. Earlier this week I made a post about how disappointed I was when I returned to ‘Kingdom Hearts’ after a few years of not playing it. One of the reasons I was so disappointed was because of the female characters. None of them are good. The ‘Final Fantasy’ games haven’t fared much better. While you’ll get a good female character on occasion, the most recent ‘Final Fantasy’ game, ‘Final Fantasy XV’, had four awful female characters that demonstrated just how far Square Enix still has to go. Of the four characters, Lunafreya dies halfway through the game to further the main character’s plot, Cindy is a scantily clad mechanic meant to be eye candy, Iris is a largely useless character who spends every battle healing the main characters (All are male), and Aranea is dressed in armor that is clearly not very functional. When the ‘Final Fantasy VII’ remake was announced, I was kind of on the fence about it. I didn’t have high hopes that Square Enix would change some of the more problematic things that were included in the characterization of the female characters in the first game, nor did I believe Square Enix was going to make any sort of progress on their female characters in general. But I ended up really liking the female characters in this game. Let’s go through the characters and what changed to make them so good.

Tifa:

Let’s get the most glaring thing out of the way first. In the first game, and multiple appearances of the character afterwards, Tifa had a comically large bust. Her entire outfit was also ridiculously designed to call attention to her exaggerated features. She wore a small white crop top, and a black miniskirt to call attention to her long legs. Considering that Tifa is a close combat fighter who’s specialty is boxing, it isn’t hard to realize how absurd her entire outfit is. Her new outfit isn’t completely better, they still wanted to stay true to the original design, but there are significant improvements. Her crop top is given a black underlayer that prevents it from being too thin or showing off her bust. Her bust size has also been made more reasonable. Though the miniskirt is still present, she’s also given long black socks that give her a little more coverage. It isn’t bad considering everything they wanted to do to keep the outfit recognizable. As for Tifa herself, there are definitely some changes. In the first game Tifa stays behind from Avalanche missions for reasons that are pretty unknown. She’s shown as a motherly figure to Marlene who stays behind to watch her. Her entire motivation to leave and join Cloud is more about her affection for Cloud than anything else. In the remake, Tifa stays behind from Avalanche missions because she’s conflicted about the destruction they cause. But she still wholeheartedly believes in what they do and remains ready to fight to protect them and their beliefs. Tifa’s connection to Cloud is still present, but she has other motivations she’s willing to fight for. She also doesn’t bring up his childhood promise to protect her nearly as often, which is a nice change.

Aerith:

Aerith has no major design issues. She does, however, fall neatly into a pretty large stereotype in the first game. While she does fight, she’s pretty clearly the sweet, helpless girl who needs protection. While she playfully gives Cloud the position of her bodyguard in both games, it’s pretty clear that she needs one in the first game. In fact, she mentions to Cloud on multiple occasions how grateful she is to have someone there who will make sure nothing harms her. Aerith also dies to further Cloud’s story. She dies while Cloud has pretty obvious feelings for her so that Cloud can be all angsty about it. In the new game there’s an interaction that you can randomly get before entering a battle that sums up Cloud and Aerith’s relationship pretty well. Cloud says, “I’ll protect you”. Aerith responds with “I’m pretty good at protecting myself, you know”. She doesn’t need the help but she knows that Cloud’s help couldn’t hurt, and that Cloud is pretty messed up and needs someone to understand him. She encourages him to interact with the people of her village, and employs him herself, because she knows that he needs the interaction. She’s pretty badass too. The entire fight between Cloud and Reno she stays on the sidelines, but only to yell at them about how they’re trampling her flowers. She later fights with Cloud against Rude and refuses to let him give her directions. She also competes with Cloud in the arena in Wall Market, a scenario that doesn’t happen in the first game, and is just as highly praised as Cloud. There are even portions of the game where Tifa and Aerith go off on their own, in which case the player takes control of Aerith. On top of all that, it seems her premature death will be completely avoidable in this new continuity.

Jessie:

There isn’t much to say about Jessie in the original game. Jessie’s just one of the members of Avalanche. She has a cool design, and it’s nice that another woman is involved in Avalanche, but she’s given mostly nothing. She’s given the background that she was once an actress and then she dies in the early stages of the game, eliminating one of the only female characters. Jessie is given a personality in the remake. She flirts with Cloud because it’s fun, but she’s pretty clear that it’s mostly playful banter. There’s an entire mission added into the story where you learn about her parents, visit her house, and help her come up with plans for her next bombs. She also struggles with guilt over how much her last bomb destroyed despite her calculations, and claims full responsibility for the entire situation though she isn’t completely at fault. Her death is also implied to be fixable in the new continuity, which would give the series yet another major female character. The remake gave us an entire personality for Jessie that I hope we’ll be able to continue to explore in the future.

Square Enix made some major strides with these characters, especially compared to some of their recent releases. The remake is taking the entire story much more slowly, so it’s pretty natural that the characters are receiving a bit more personality than they had before. But they took care to avoid and contradict some of the harmful aspects of these characters that were present from the first game. I’m excited to see what they do with the other female characters we haven’t seen yet. Particularly Yuffie, who’s considered one of the most annoying video game characters of all time. I’m not completely convinced that Square Enix has changed or that we won’t see more setbacks from them in the future. But I can’t deny how much I appreciate the steps forward they took in ‘Final Fantasy VII Remake’.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Disney: What Was With Frozen 2?

Promotional image for ‘Frozen 2’. Copyright goes to Walt Disney Studios.

Hi! It’s Annie!

I just watched ‘Frozen 2’ a couple days ago, yes I know I’m late, and I have a lot of thoughts. I’m going to be completely honest here and say now that I wasn’t the biggest fan of the first ‘Frozen’ film. Sure, I didn’t hate it. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen. But I didn’t really connect to Elsa and how much she was pushing others away, nor did I like the idea that love just fixed everything at the end. And yes, I also was one of the people who could not stand ‘Let it Go’. Maybe I would have liked it better if it wasn’t played as much? In the end I really couldn’t understand why this movie gained so much popularity in comparison to movies like ‘Tangled’. Over the past few years I’ve revisited the movie and was able to understand the movie and it’s popularity a bit more. Elsa doesn’t realize what she’s doing is selfish because she’s so much in her own head and in her own depression at that point. How many children’s movies do you see that actually try to tackle mental illness? Though the “love will thaw” thing at the end promotes a pretty bad understanding of mental illness (it’s a process not a sudden epiphany), but at least they did try to tackle it. Also, though this isn’t the only Disney princess film to focus on promoting strong female characters, this is one of the only ones to focus mostly on two strong female characters along with ‘Brave’. Yay for passing the Bechdel test! But this recent movie is a mess, to put it lightly. I saw a lot of people saying that they liked it better than the first one, and really I don’t understand. I appreciate that they went for an original story in the age of reboots and recreating the original, but there were so many things about this movie that were so bad my jaw was literally on the floor in disbelief. So what made this movie so bad? WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS!!!

Elsa:

Just in case you’re worried, I’m not saying that Elsa was bad in this film. In fact, she was one of the only characters with a semi-good and complete feeling story. That doesn’t mean that her part of the story was completely good. When Elsa starts out the movie she hears a voice calling to her that she doesn’t seem to know exactly what it is. This bit in general feels like Disney responding to how bad the “love will thaw” epiphany was and them trying to retcon it, but I digress. When Anna later asks Elsa what happened, Elsa for some reason knows immediately that she woke up the spirits of the forest. She and Anna promise each other that they will stay by each other’s sides during this adventure, which I actually really liked. I thought, at the beginning of this movie, Elsa and Anna’s bond was one of the best and most healthy depictions of a sibling bond I have seen in a long time. But then Elsa pushes Anna and Olaf away again towards the middle of the movie. Isn’t this the lesson we learned in the last movie? Not to push people away? Apparently Elsa hasn’t learned anything! But she’s immediately forgiven when she rejoins the group and, though both Anna and Olaf are angry at her betrayal initially, this note is never touched on again. Pushing people away and finding your own way in the world are not the same thing, and this movie acknowledges that and then treats those two things like they’re exactly the same.

Anna:

What the heck happened to Anna in this movie? She barely has any character growth of her own! In the first movie Anna is caring, brave, and adorable. She’s an endearing character that teaches an important lesson about trusting people too quickly while her sister teaches the opposite lesson of what happens if you don’t trust anyone at all. Anna has none of that here. Her entire character is based around helping Elsa. In the beginning of the movie there’s an entire song about how Anna doesn’t want anything to change, and though it’s a cliché, I though this would be Anna’s lesson throughout the movie. To be accepting of change. Instead this is pretty much never addressed again and Olaf seems to mention the change thing even more than Anna. In fact, a lot of this movie felt like it was struggling to find things for any character but Elsa to do. Also, why the hell was Anna blowing up on Kristoff all the time? I thought that they might be trying to show that Anna now had trauma from the betrayal of Hans, but the movie never touches on it and definitely doesn’t even try to fix the problem. You start wondering if Anna and Kristoff should even be together. Kristoff is supportive of her the entire time and all she ever does in this movie is try to find reasons why Kristoff doesn’t want to be with her. She is not at all the character she is in the first movie, and that might have been fine if they had actually taken a couple seconds to focus on her growth.

Olaf:

I have always liked Olaf and he was one of the only things that remained consistent for me as my opinions on the first movie changed. I liked him even when I thought the movie was bad. Olaf has a few good scenes in this movie and he got a few laughs from me, but it really felt as though the writers were trying too hard to make Olaf funny. So many of his jokes felt forced. Not only that, but it seemed like they were setting up Olaf to have this entire journey in trying to deal with change and growing up. But they only mentioned this a couple times, killed him off, and then brought him back pretty similarly to what happened in the first movie. He never gets to have his own storyline, just like Anna, and he’s really not important to the main plot at all. He’s there to be…well…there. Josh Gad is always amazing, but I couldn’t help but note how much better Olaf was in his own shorts than in this movie.

Kristoff:

Poor Kristoff. They literally leave without him part way through the movie. Throughout this entire movie it feels like Anna doesn’t even care about him. The writers really just didn’t know what the hell to do with his character. Most of the time he’s on screen they do this running joke where he keeps trying to propose to Anna. There really isn’t a good time for this in the movie considering that they’re trying to save several groups of people. Because of Anna leaving him and blowing up on him he has the realization that Anna might be growing apart from him and might not want to be with him. Which, considering her reactions to him, I really don’t blame him for having this thought. And then he appears suddenly at the end of this movie to be his usual supportive self and (say it with me, folks) they never touch on this plotline again. They set up so much in this movie just for them to never use it.

The Music:

It’s not great. It’s really not memorable. I can’t recall half of the songs in the movie. I will say that there are two songs that I like. “Show Yourself’ as well as the lullaby that goes with it are beautiful, though I’m part of the small margin who doesn’t usually enjoy Idina Menzel’s (Adele Dazeem’s) voice, I actually really enjoyed this song. I thought it was beautiful for Elsa’s character and it taught an amazing lesson about becoming the person you are waiting for and expressing yourself. Then the other song that I liked was ‘Lost in the Woods’, a song that does not match with the rest of the movie in the least. Though I love Jonathan Groff’s voice and I thought the rock ballad was hilarious, it didn’t match with the plot or the tone of the movie. I appreciate that they really went for it here, but it just didn’t fit. Though I didn’t like some of the music from the original, I can admit that (barring “Fixer Upper” which was truly terrible) the music was catchy and memorable. This movie has no such luck.

The Ending:

The plot of this entire movie is convoluted and a giant mess with all of it’s loose threads. But nothing made me so mad as the ending of this film. Anna realizes that the only way to break the curse is to break the dam, effectively drowning all of Arendelle. It is evacuated at that point, but it’s a pretty ballsy thing for a Disney movie to do. It’s also pretty clear; they have to get rid of the life that they made by the slaughter of an entire group of people. And they…don’t do it. Elsa saves the day and you’re left wondering how they could have missed the point when a literal tsunami was coming right at them. You are also left wondering what the point of the entire plot was in the first place.

Like I said, I have more of a respect for the original film now. I don’t think it was as bad as I originally thought and Elsa has become much more of an understandable and relatable character in my eyes. There’s a beauty to it, even though it’s not the best Disney film ever created and you still can’t make me like ‘Let it Go’. How did they mess everything and everyone up so badly here except for maybe Elsa? It almost makes you wonder if they actually wanted to make an Elsa movie and then thought that they had to add all of the other characters in. Just like the first film, this should have been split more equally between the characters and really it should have been more concisely written. I wanted to like this movie, I really did. Now I’m just hoping they’ll leave all of the characters alone and not try to bank in a Frozen 3.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

K-Pop and K-Dramas: A Breakdown of the BT21 Characters

Poster art of the BT21 characters as created by BTS. Copyright goes to LINE FRIENDS and Big Hit Entertainment.

Hey! Hallie here!

If you’re a BTS fan you’ve probably seen the cute characters from the photo above. If you don’t know who they are, however, these characters are the BT21 line BTS and LINE FRIENDS collaborated on. Each character was created by a member of BTS with the help of some very talented LINE FRIENDS artists. A good chunk of BTS’s merchandise, especially before the Tiny Tan line dropped, have been based on these guys. Even the band members themselves own pillows, pajamas, and plushies of the characters they created. The members of BTS also sat down to decide on the stories for each character, and the collective storyline for all the characters together. With their ideas in mind, LINE FIRENDS have been releasing shorts depicting all of the things the group discussed. We’ll be heading into more major story arcs for the BT21 characters soon, so, in honor of new content incoming, here’s a master list of all the characters, the members who created them, and their story so far.

Tata:

Tata is an alien who’s head resembles a very large heart. Tata was created by Kim Taehyung, or V. Taehyung prefers unique designs when it comes to character creation. In creating Tata he incorporated stretching limbs and various different contrasting shapes in order to make him extremely different from anything seen anywhere else. Tata’s the leader of BT21. He’s a prince from the planet BT, but dislikes the uncaring ways that his family uses magic. In order to prove that his caring and loving approach is more important, Tata left the planet to spread love on Earth. After seeing a BTS music video, he decides the best way to reach people and spread love is to create a music group. He finds the other members of BT21 is order to complete the music group and attempts to put his plan into action. Unfortunately, his brother doesn’t understand his methods and attempts to thwart his efforts in order to bring him home. Tata’s story is only just starting to get interesting with the introduction AT21, the rival group Tata’s brother joined.

RJ:

RJ is a large, fluffy, alpaca with a scarf. Kim Seokjin is the creator of RJ. Jin’s main goal in creating RJ was to create something fluffy and adorable. He also knew pretty early on that he wanted to create an alpaca because he is sometimes told that he looks like one (Why?). RJ grew up on a small hillside where his family, and all the other alpacas who lived there, would shave themselves and sell their fur for money. On one occasion, when the entire hillside was set to shave their fur, RJ left. He left partly because he didn’t want to shave his fur and partly because he wanted to hide his alter ego. Evidently when RJ gets dirty, he turns into Rolo, an evil version of himself. Rolo himself is in AT21, but RJ hasn’t shown this alternate side to BT21 yet. In fact, he’s so passionate about their cause that he decides to shave his fur and sell it as clothing in order to help their struggling finances. RJ’s story is so ridiculously hilarious, only Jin could come up with it.

Mang:

Mang is a purple horse wearing a blue mask. His creator is Jung Hoseok, or J-Hope. J-Hope was told for most of his school life that he resembled a horse (Once again, why?), and while most of these comments were mean-spirited, he obviously took it in stride. His main idea for his character was a horse in honor of these comments, but most of his initial designs weren’t the adorable style that the rest of the group was going for. With some tweaking by designers, an adorable horse character with a lot of the uniqueness J-Hope wanted was created. Mang is a dancer who finds his joy in competing. While he isn’t confident about his true identity, he feels comfort in wearing a mask that resembles his former teacher. Mang is recruited by Tata for his dancing skills and he uses them to win competitions and cash prizes to help BT21’s finances. Unfortunately, the rival dancer he’s been competing against is part of AT21, and he’s not above cheating in order to win.

Cooky:

Cooky is a pink bunny who’s strangely muscular. He was created by Jeon Jungkook, the resident artist of BTS. Jungkook decided to sketch a bunny almost immediately, and it didn’t take much tweaking to settle on the design we see today. Jungkook also sketched him with a giant body-builder-like body, which the designers incorporated later on as a joke, and created a small best friend for him that was actually a cookie. We’ll get back to the cookie later. Cooky is a boxer who spent most of his time with his boxing friends. Until one of his friends brutally injured the other during a boxing match and then disappeared. Cooky was looking for his absent friend when Tata found him. Cooky uses his boxing abilities to win competitions for money, much like Mang. However, Cooky finally locates his friend at one of the boxing matches and, of course, he’s part of AT21.

Shooky:

Shooky is a small brown cookie with a generally mischievous expression. Shooky was created by Min Yoongi, or Suga. Suga wanted to create a dog character based off of his own dog, but Jimin’s dog design ended up preventing his original designs from being completely accepted. Fortunately, Suga’s sketches were mostly faces with various expressions he related to his dog. Designers took Jungkook’s cookie character and added a face based off of Suga’s design to create Shooky. Shooky is one of many cookie children. He was sent to find a replacement baker to take the place of his grandfather when his grandfather became sick, but hoped to find a cure in the meantime. Around this time was when Tata recruited him. Shooky became fast friends with Cooky and spends most of his time playing pranks on the other members of BT21. But Shooky left behind a cookie sibling who was left burnt and forgotten at the bottom of the oven, and he naturally joined AT21.

Chimmy:

Chimmy is a dog wearing a yellow onesie. Chimmy was created by Park Jimin. Jimin was one of the members who wanted to create something obviously cute, and a puppy was one of the first things that came to mind. He created various different outfits for his dog character, but the designers eventually decided to portray him in the onesie Jimin created for him. Chimmy is a lonely dog who was left behind after various puppies were left in a box for sale on the side of the street. He attempted to create friends out of random objects he found in the street, but none of these attempts ever went well. His only comfort was playing his harmonica. Until Tata found him and brought him into BT21. Chimmy busks for money, and sometimes he’ll take all of the members of BT21 out to play music with him as practice for their future careers. However, he’s unaware that another lonely dog was watching him and had just got up the courage to talk to him when Tata found him. Feeling betrayed, the other dog joined AT21.

Koya:

Koya is a blue koala often showed sleeping. He was created by Kim Namjoon or RM. RM created a few designs. He created both a koala and a crow-tit, unsure which would be a better design. The design team encouraged him to go with the koala, and RM focused his attentions on sketching a koala character. Koya was just a normal koala who’s kindness inspired most of the creatures of the forest. He spent most of his time sleeping, but his abnormally high intelligence earned the attention of Tata, who decided to recruit him. Koya is the only reason why BT21 knows who AT21 is. He managed to track them after the group received a sketchy email. He also now knows about the equally intelligent koala who is responsible for AT21’s formation.

VAN:

VAN is a white and gray robot who’s much larger than the other members of BT21. He was created by the design team as a surprise for BTS. VAN acts as BT21’s bodyguard, and as a representations of ARMY. VAN initially belonged to Tata and is the reason why Tata was able to get to Earth in the first place. He helped Tata locate every member of BT21 and he protects the entire group. Most recently AT21 crashed into him, causing him to break. The repair part he needed was then thrown into a large jug of milk. Shooky jumped into the jug of milk to retrieve it, potentially causing his death. This story has yet to be continued, but obviously Shooky will remain unscathed. Suga was distressed enough when the other boys began considering killing his character off. Hopefully we’ll get a continuation of the crazy plots BTS comes up with soon!

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie