Orphan Black – Saving Your Summer

So far, this summer feels… well, empty. Empty of strong, relatable female characters; characters with dimension and depth.

Luckily this spring gave us something to hold us over.

Orphan Black is a BBC America show that is both mind-numbing and awe-inspiring in scope and realism. With the DVD/Blu Ray on sale in a few weeks, I dare you to just watch one episode at a time. It’s impossible to do, nearly as impossible as it is to talk about the show without giving anything away.

But I’ll try.

Orphan Black starts out as the story of a young mother/con artist, Sarah, trying to get her life together for her daughter and foster brother. Sarah sees an opportunity to put her plan into action, and throughout all the crazy twists and turns she holds on to that plan like a life vest.  While it’s never explored, it’s clear that Sarah is struggling to come out of the shadows. Despite her dark past, Sarah tries to do the right thing – for her daughter, her family and herself. Sarah is brave and smart enough to know that the right thing usually looks like the wrong thing on the surface, but she fights on, never giving up, even when the battle gets too murky to see.

Sarah is played by Tatiana Maslany, an actress whose range reaches out to infinity. Maslany plays several roles, each one to such perfection that you completely forget that it is the same woman behind each one. You find yourself hating her and loving her in the same scene, forgetting that Maslany is pretty much 80% of the show’s cast. Each character is fully formed and distinctive, even when they are impersonating one another (I told you, mind-numbing).

There are several amazing aspects of this show: its concept, tightly woven plot, exceptional acting and fast-paced action to name a few. But what really grips you is that the central characters, played by the same actress, are all female. They are mothers, daughters, scientists, police officers, housewives and damaged souls. But they are all strong women fighting against forces and circumstances beyond their control. They fight together for their own reasons, but they are all fighting against the same thing: to not be controlled and owned.

Orphan Black is a relentless thriller with a heart and soul. The only negative aspect of the show was that the season was only 10 episodes long. But those 10 episodes were more exciting and tighter than nearly any summer blockbuster.

Bitch (with substance) Please

Why do we hate people who have committed no crime, who have promoted no injustice or haven’t caused us any personal injury? There is no rational reason for it and yet we hate blindly and, often, with anger so venomous it ruins careers.

 

Sadly, that unfounded hate is usually directed at a woman. Women are such easy targets. We are supposed to be so many things – confident, humble, graceful, funny, stoic, powerful, pure, fun, smart, accomplished – the list goes on – and no one person can be them all, especially since a lot of those traits cancel out others. There is always something to latch on to; a defect to highlight and scorn.

This groundless hatred seems to come to a boiling point during the award season. Award shows – celebrations of others’ talent – bring out the worst in us when we should be reflecting on the best in others. Instead of recognizing a performance or talent as exceptional, we hold each celebrity up for inspection and figure out what is lacking. Forget their talent, which is the reason we know them in the first place, and let’s focus on the what we don’t really know about them. The things we guess at. Her speech is clear and concise; therefore, she must be full of herself. She didn’t smile when she lost; therefore, she’s bitter and ungrateful. She wasn’t funny enough, she wasn’t humble enough, she didn’t laugh when she should have. We read into all of these cues as if these women are fictional characters whose every subtle move is a reflection of their personality. Never treating them like real people; real people who, most likely, have 20 things going on in their mind, just like the rest of us, at any given moment.

If your average 9-5er were to be filmed at random moments throughout a day, what would it reveal? Would she look lazy if we caught her yawning (not knowing she has two sick children at home that kept her up all night?) Would she look unprofessional if we saw her on the phone crying (not knowing she just got bad news about a family member?) You can’t tell anything about anyone from just a glimpse. There’s too much going on in the moment to know the true story, and never any hint of a back story.

Yet that’s what so many have done the last few months; taken a moment, created a baseless personality out of it, and attached it to someone they’ve never met. The tragedy is there are people out there who have earned that hatred, that venomous anger. Right now the world is rife with killers, abusers and tyrants. And sadly, they not only do not get our attention, but they are allowed, because of our indifference, to continue.

So the next time that actress who never did anything to you or anyone you love (until that guy on your poster falls in love with you the moment he sees you in a crowd, he doesn’t count) stumbles, try not to care. You’ve only got so much energy you can put into this world, so make your anger worth something, and direct it towards something that deserves it.

Sword-Carrying Beauty In A Debutante Dress

I think that there is a reason why young girls are drawn toward fairy tales. It’s not the castles, the magical creatures, or the overabundance of pink. It’s that women are almost always the main characters: Cinderella, Snow White, The Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty. These characters are so pivotal to the plot that the story itself is named after them.

The problem though, is that while the protagonist may be strong of heart, she’s weak of body. Constantly needing rescuing from  evil, never able to free herself from the tower. (I mean, why didn’t Rapunzel just cut off her hair and use it as a rope?) While she may be the star of the show, she’s certainly not the hero. In the stories we were brought up with as children, heroism is reserved for the dashing young man with the sword. His strength and courage win the fight, save the girl and bring on the happily ever after.  In fact, the only women with any kind of power are the apple-carrying old crones whose vendetta is provoked by a mirror telling them they aren’t the hottest one around or, in the when-you-think-about-it-it’s-kind-of-weird case of Sleeping Beauty’s Maleficent, weren’t invited to the party.

But fairy tales are getting a much-needed re-write on ABC’s Once Upon A Time.

I will confess, I had my doubts about the show to start with. But then we saw how Snow White met her Prince, and instead of singing in a forest surrounded by woodland creatures she was brandishing a sword and robbing her future (so rich he won’t miss it) love. In simple terms, the delicate flower that has always been the picture of Snow White got some thorns. And she’s not the only one. Episode after episode, the ladies of make-believe get to choose their own path, save themselves and the ones they love, and (we hope) get the guy.

This isn’t to say that the men on the show don’t play a pivotal and often heartbreaking role. They do. Every Rumpelstiltskin storyline is a work of genius, and Jiminy Cricket’s back story was quietly profound, kind of like the character himself. But at the heart of every episode is a princess that kicks butt, an evil queen whose greed is so deep she could never be provoked by anything so shallow as her predecessors, and… a sheriff, who, as the storybook in the show promises us, is the hero of this story.

Perhaps even better than the concept of a sword-carrying beauty in a debutante dress is the idea that these women are not as perfect as they were once portrayed to be. They steal, they lie, they have unplanned babies and unplanned affairs. But that doesn’t make them any less heroic, it just makes them a little less make-believe and a lot more real.