It matters why Daenerys is “crazy”

My thoughts about last night’s episode of Game of Thrones are many and a jumble, so I’m going to do my best to sort through them with the limited spoons I have on hand.

Firstly, I’m not going to talk about whether or not Mad Queen Dany is OOC. I feel like that’s kind of beyond the point. It’s not about whether this turn for her character makes sense or has been supported by the narrative so far; it’s about the very different way this narrative has been treating Daenerys Targaryen as opposed to her male counterparts.

Jon Snow losing his sh*t at having his baby brother murdered in front of him and charging recklessly into the Bolton forces, throwing his army into disarray, and resulting in the deaths of thousands is framed by the narrative as justified. He even gets bailed out of his unsound tactical decision by the last minute arrival of his sister’s cavalry.

They storm the castle of Winterfell, their ancestral home, and Jon in a wild-eyed rage pummels Ramsay Bolton senseless. He stops just short of killing Ramsay…so that later Sansa can feed Ramsay (alive and fully conscious) to his own hounds.

This is framed as a victory for the Good Guys. We, the audience, are not meant to condemn Jon in the slightest. Ramsay is a tyrant after all, he’s done terrible things, and the North needs to be saved from his tyranny at all costs. (And those costs are HIGH, even though the narrative completely glosses over them.)

But something funny happens when Daenerys Targaryen is on a quest to free the land of a tyrant and take back her ancestral home at all costs. The narrative turns on her so fast it gets whiplash.

Dany reaching her rage breaking point after watching the brutal deaths of two of her children, her most trusted advisor dying in her arms, and her best friend being murdered in front of her is framed as insanity. Dany is not justified in her rage; she is condemned for it. (I’m not arguing over moral authority here, or whether or not she should be condemned. I’m pointing out the double standard in how the narrative handles male and female rage.)

Dany storming King’s Landing and plowing through thousands of extras to reach Cersei in order to kill this tyrant at whatever cost is framed as horrific (which it is, but again I’m not concerning myself with moral arguments; I’m focusing exclusively on uneven narrative framing). Suddenly we’re very concerned with the nameless extras on the ground getting crushed and burned alive. Where was this concern when it was guys doing this, though?

And sure, Dany deciding to destroy the city before destroying the Red Keep, instead of just flying straight to the Red Keep, is horrific.

But so was the sack of King’s Landing during Robert’s Rebellion and yet Robert, who was a terrible king, bankrupt the realm, abused his wife, was complicit in the murder of the Targaryen children (or at least did nothing about it), and started a rebellion that got thousands killed ‘cause he was too much of a manbaby to accept that the girl he wanted didn’t want him back, does not receive the kind of villain framing that Dany is getting. In fact, Robert is framed as tragically sympathetic.

What worries me is that GoT is showing male rage and violence as justified, whereas it frames female rage and violence as insanity. This is just another in a long line of narratives opining that women having emotional responses to things, and especially if they also wield more power than men (that distinction is important for understanding why the narrative isn’t currently doing this to Yara and Sansa, whose powers are comparatively small), are hysterical, unfit to rule, and must be put down. Because make no mistake, we are building toward Jon “mercy killing” Dany, which is gross on more levels than I have time for.

(I would also point out that the sack of King’s Landing during Robert’s Rebellion, the murder of the Targ children, and all the other horror from that conflict was not used as a moral imperative to compel Ned to murder his best friend. And yet that is exactly what we’re seeing with Jon and Dany. Gosh, what could be the difference here?)

I’ve maintained for years now that whether or not Dany is framed as a villain by the narrative is beyond the point. What concerns me is why the narrative is framing her this way. And would that framing remain if, say, the story had been about Viserys Targaryen being abused by his sister and sold to a warlord, struggling to gain power for himself, and finally returning home to take back his kingdom at whatever the cost? Food for thought.

Why is Dany framed as innately susceptible to the “crazy” in her Targ blood, like she just can’t help but go batsh*t insane, whereas Jon is strangely immune? Even though they’re both Targs? I am reminded strongly of the Dune Chronicles framing Alia, and women specifically, as more susceptible to abomination than men because…vaginas??

The thing is, Dune was originally published in 1965. Game of Thrones S8x05 “The Bells” was released in 2019. In 54 years the portrayal of women in storytelling has progressed by 0% apparently.

Well, if Daenerys Targaryen must join the ranks of Alia Atreides and all the other fictional women condemned as crazy for having power and the wrong genitalia, then at least she is keeping good company.

I still think Moana deserved an Oscar for this part

To me, the moral of Moana is that only women can help other women heal from male violence. 

The movie starts with the idea that the male god who wronged Te Fiti must be the one to heal her. This seems to make a certain sort of intuitive sense in that I think we all believe that if you do something wrong you should try to make it right. But how does he try to right it? Through more violence. Of course that failed. 

It was only when another woman, Moana, saw past the “demon of earth and fire” that the traumatized Te Fiti had become (what a good metaphor for trauma, right?) and met her with love instead of violence that she was able to heal. Note that they do the forehead press before Moana restores the heart, while Te Fiti is still Te Kā. Moana doesn’t wait for her beautiful island goddess to appear in all her green splendor before greeting and treating her as someone deserving of love.

Moana is only able to restore the heart because Te Kā reveals her vulnerability and allows Moana to touch her there. Maui and his male violence could only ever have resulted in more ruin.

…this is exactly what I was trying to say and you put it beautifully. @i-want-cheese This is why the scene makes me tear up every damn time. Women’s honest, ugly reaction to trauma is almost never even depicted in films, let alone honored the way it is in Moana. Te Fiti doesn’t have to “rise above” being violated before she’s allowed to heal. Moana sees her and says

I know your name They have stolen the heart from inside you But this does not define you

She utterly accepts Te Fiti’s rage, her fear, her lashing out at anyone who comes near the remains of her ravaged body island. Female ugliness isn’t punished, it’s mourned and loved. What an indescribably comforting moment.

When the current story unfolds, I assure you, it’s going to get around all on it’s own.

Interviewer: You’ve got this rage within you. Where does it come from?

Charlize Theron: Uh…surprise. Women have that. I’m not the only one. (x)

I kept thinking about what I wanted to add to this post, about women and rage, and how rarely women are allowed to be both angry and powerful on screen.

This is one of those shots that goes by in a split second, like almost every shot in Mad Max: Fury Road, but I had to pause here to screen cap and gasp. Because…her fucking face, man. Her face is amazing. It kind of reminds me of the sandstorm, actually. It’s terrifying and awe-inspiring, and also darkly beautiful in its own way.

This is Furiosa aiming a head shot at Joe from behind Angharad’s pregnant-body human shield. This is the first time in years she’s come face to face with Joe and hasn’t had to hide how she feels about him. And she is ready to KILL that motherfucker.

This is seven thousand days’ worth of concentrated rage.

I think this is one of the shots where you can see most clearly that, whatever we might interpret about the balance of Furiosa’s motivations, Charlize Theron was playing this as a story about vengeance. She’s said so quite explicitly in interviews:

“This idea that she’s kind of saving these women just didn’t feel as interesting to me as…they belong to a man who hurt her incredibly, and she’s just had enough. And she’s just gonna take these women with her. And she’s gonna take what matters to him the most. She’s gonna take the most valuable thing away from him, because he took the most valuable thing away from her. So it’s…it really is the ultimate story of revenge.” (x)

She’s not saving them–she’s stealing them. And she would have been content just to steal what’s most valuable to Joe, but this is an action movie, so of course he chases after her and forces a confrontation, to the point where we know she will have to kill him for this to be over.

Why do I think this is this important?

Women don’t get to express rage on film a lot, but if there’s one form of socially acceptable female rage, it’s motherly, protective rage. “Mama lioness defending her cubs”–that’s something we have a pre-packaged understanding of.

And what I love about Furiosa’s rage is that it is not that–or, it’s not only that. She protects plenty of people over the course of the movie. She throws her body over Cheedo when the Bullet Farmer’s gunfire reaches them. She saves Max about fifty times in the final fight alone. You can see the terror on her face when Toast gets grabbed out of the Rig. She is protective of the people she cares about, or comes to care about.

But the root of her rage is what happened to her.

Her anger is about her own oppression. It is presented as entirely justified and valid, and she is allowed to fully feel it, express it, and act on it on screen, up to and including a moment of violent catharsis. 

And her anger is powerful. By the time Furiosa climbs out of the War Rig and onto Joe’s car, she is running on fumes of 100% nitro-boosted rage, and it’s powerful enough to keep her going when she’s in pain, bleeding, struggling to breathe.

“Sooner or later, somebody pushes back,” Miss Giddy says to Joe. His downfall is the downfall of tyrants everywhere–eventually, someone snaps and fights back, even if the risks are great and the chance of success is small.

We know that in real life, there are many situations in which violence is not a useful or desirable response to a problem. But movies are fantasy spaces. They are there for us to emotionally play with things we wouldn’t ever do or want to experience in real life, including fantasies of violent revenge in response to oppression.

But that’s not the only thing that’s going on here. One of the many brilliant things about Fury Road is the way it welds the characters’ individual emotional needs to the greater mission. While it would probably be satisfying watching Furiosa rip Joe’s face off in any context, she ends up doing it in a context that advances the plot. Joe is an obstacle they need to get out of the way before they reach the pass, so they can execute their plan of trapping the rest of his army on the other side and ensure the safety of the group as a whole. (Furiosa says, “I’ll get him out of our way,” but it’s the third act so we know this can only mean killing him.) 

So Furiosa’s individual need for violent catharsis gets subsumed by, and fulfilled through, the mission of the group–in the same way that Nux’s need to break with the ideology of the Citadel gets fulfilled when he flips the Rig to protect the group, and Max’s need to connect to another human being gets fulfilled through saving Furiosa’s life. These are all functional plot/action beats, but they are also the culminations of each character’s story arc. (And they happen one right after the other, boom boom boom, like fucking clockwork.)

It’s individual emotional needs that drive the characters–but it’s collective struggle, camaraderie and resistance that fulfill them.

I put forth that women probably have MORE rage than men, because men are allowed to express it more in ways that are considered socially acceptable. Women aren’t SUPPOSED TO be angry.

That’s it that’s the show

I’m purely in this for myself and you know this.

though she be but little, she is fierce.

“Welcome! What is your name?” “Oliver.”

Elementary 1.04 → “Rat Race”

Matt Damon, Here’s What You Should Know About Diversity In Hollywood

Matt Damon has some strong opinions about diversity in Hollywood. Unfortunately, judging from the most recent episode of HBO’s “Project Greenlight,” they seem to be pretty damn misguided. 

The actor apologized, but here’s what he’s still missing.

When someone is talking crap about Steve Rogers