the thing about the mummy movies is that you really spend most of the time thinking "wow brendan fraser's character is so cool" or "man oded fehr is so mysterious and heroic" when the fact of the matter is that these two

are the absolute most batshit insane heroes in the entire franchise

these two are intellectual loner siblings with archeology backgrounds who read and speak ancient egyptian, hire a dude directly out of prison to take them to a lost city of gold, and fight mummies literally with their bare hands. twice.

no one in these movies stands a chance against the carnahans. frankly they're lethal in how willing they are to make the absolute and most undeniably deranged decisions. jonathan pickpockets a dude on fire. evy's resurrected from the dead and immediately remembers how to use sai. they're racking shotguns from a cliff in this scene and then proceed to blow away half the antagonists.

rick and ardeth should be so lucky

I appreciate the last line's implication that Jonathan and Ardeth are a couple a la Evy and Rick. Honestly, Ardeth SHOULD be so lucky.

the more I rewatch the mummy (1999 & 2001 movies) the more solid good stuff I see and among that stuff is the way Ardeth isn't your typical spiritually powered character. yes he's a believer of an ancient religion with mighty gods and powerful spells that still affect this earth. yes he's a person of tradition and a part of an ancient secret society etc etc. yes he's a mighty warrior. but he's mighty not because he's of that religion and spirituality. they coulda given him some supernatural kung pow like fighting style or make him deflect bullets and blades with a sword or the power of thought. they didn't have to make him realistic. the movie's goal isn't to be realistic. it's a story about a mummy coming alive and you can light a match on a guy's beard in it, but still you have bits of brilliancy and accuracy and relatability in the whole mash. he is as realistic as the movie lets him be. his favourite weapon? a Tommy gun. it's funny and it's perfect and it's very refreshing

Just watching the Mummy and having moments

Like, was SJM inspired by the Pharoah's mistress when she painted Feyre Under the Mountain (so everyone would know if anyone touched her, aka Tamllin)?

Like, how Evie and Rick make a good team as soon as they're on the same side: she's watching his back, pulling him out of gunfire without asking or needing to be asked, he's watching hers, recognizing what the wet footprints *might* mean and checking on her immediately.

Like, how Evie says "if he turns me into a mummy you're the first one I'm coming after" but what she means is "I love you" and he GETS IT immediately. They've well established that Imotep has been obsessed with reconnecting with his beloved despite being a mummy. Evie is telling Rick, you're beloved to me, and he hears her even though they've spent so little time together.

Like, how Jonathan is constantly avoiding conflict but NEVER backs down when it happens. He is the last to drop his gun when they visit the museum in Cairo for answers.

Like, how they so subtly compare Jonathan and the prison warden. Both pick up the blue gold scarabs. The warden is driven by greed, he is giggling, he keeps saying "one more" until a scarab breaks loose to eat him. But Jonathan is curious. "Hey gents, have a look at this" he says as he grabs one to show Rick and Ardeth. When it inevitably breaks loose to eat him, Rick and Ardeth are able to save him. Jonathan is greedy, yes, but it is not his primary motivation. And that saves his life.

Like, how Brendan Fraser's eyes have not changed at ALL. Now that he's back in public view, I watch this and go, "oh, there you are Brendan! We missed you buddy"

Like how Evie is a damsel, and she is in distress, but she can handle it. Give her an inch to defend herself and she f*cking WILL.

Like how the entire finale is an absolute PERFECT balance of humor and serious action. We are absolutely worried for their lives, but when Rick screams at the mummies we laugh, bc bro what are you doing lol.

Like how what secures their victory isn't violence or brute strength, it's knowledge. *Evie's* knowledge. She helps Jonathan translate a dead language to save Rick, then she translates it again (under EXTREME pressure) to make Imotep mortal.

Just, ugh. The feels. What a masterpiece.

Ah. I know. You’re wondering… what is a place like me doing in a girl like this?

The Mummy (1999) dir. Stephen Sommers

Will always reblog. :)

…Always. :)

I just love The Mummy (1999) so much like I've always felt it was a masterpiece, I was never able to pinpoint the exact reason but I think I got it in my last rewatch: every single character is extremely competent in a very concrete, punctual and once-in-a-lifetime helpful skillset, and then they're ABSOLUTE DISASTERS on literally EVERY OTHER ASPECT of their lives. Evy can read and Sherlock her way through literally any egyptian riddle like she was born for it, but PLEASE, DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, leave ANY sharp objects, unstable structures or even-remotely inflamable objects ANYWHERE near her she WILL find a way to unleash HELL IN HER SLEEP. Rick can smash-parkour-swordfight his way out of any scenario but he has to have ALL neurons completely focused on the ONE (1) task at hand and if he gets out-DudeBroed he loses all his hit points his health meter goes red and he surprise-resets like a forced Windows update (see following scene for reference)

And don't even get me STARTED on Jonathan. This absolute gem of a man really is willing to let his sister drag him to hell and back with only mild complaining and will stop her human sacrifice ritual while the priest is mid-swing with an "hey Evy look we found the book!" with the same energy as if he was proudly announcing he found his long-lost car keys behind the couch but we DON'T blame him because he correctly spent his one braincell on THIS scene that changed the history of cinema forever:

In conclusion everyone is so very capable and so very pathetic at the same time and thus we have no choice but to stan

“Death is only the beginning”

In celebration of The Mummy’s 25th anniversary (🫠) i wanted to draw this after seeing the rerelease in theatres!

ART META

Please reblog for greater sample size!

THE MUMMY 1999 — dir. Stephen Sommers

The Mummy (1999) dir. Stephen Sommers

Things I didn't know I needed to know

I came across this on fb

© ranranico on Twitter.

The Mummy (1999) dir. Stephen Sommers

Things I didn't know I needed to know

on another note, watched The Mummy (1999) the other day and I couldn’t help  feel like the O’Connells and the Addams (Addams Family Values (1993) would get on really well ya know? The O’Connells are basically the pastel adventure version of the Addams, surely they would just be vibin’ over tea and crumpets in an extremely haunted mansion having a ball of a time

Morticia: “So what is it you do for a living my dear?”

Evelyn: “We dig up dead people who often have monstrous curses placed on them!”

Morticia: “fascinating”

Gomez: *leaping out from behind a pillar which is encrusted with ominous looking runes* en garde!

Rick: *grabs sword from equally ominous looking wall full of weapons one of which seems to be glowing* fantastic I was getting a bit rusty

Gomez: *nearly in tears* oh he’s screaming nonsensically, what spirit! what reslove!

*Rick and Gomez, still frantically sword fighting*

Rick: Have I mentioned how wonderful my wife is yet, I really feel like I haven’t really expanded enough on how wonderful she is

Gomez: do go on, I would be delighted to hear about how wonderful your wife is, I strongly encourge all men to extoll the virtues of their wives with rapturous praise, however I should perhaps mention my wife is in fact better

*sword fighting intensifies as both men rapturously extoll the virtues of their wives*

Jonathan and Fester and Cousin Itt watch from the bar, where Lurch and Thing are making the drinks.

Jonathan and Thing knew one another from The War; each thought the other to be dead

Their reunion is highly emotional

Rick, whilst swordfighting:  My wife resurrected an ancient evil that brought about the plagues.

Gomez: What. A. Woman.

Meanwhile, Alex has run off with Wednesday and Pugsley and the Addams children are teaching him the finer points of dynamite usage, and he translates the inscription on the mummy sarcophagus in their playroom (and inadvertently wakes up the mummy inside, but they all have fun dealing with it) and no one bats an eye at the explosions coming from upstairs.

@deadcatwithaflamethrower I’m pretty sure you’ve seen this already, but on the offchance you haven’t….

I’ve seen it but I still need it every time I see it.

THE MUMMY (1999) + letterboxd reviews ↳ insp. & insp.

Images are of this twitter thread from Archer Kasai, depicting beats in the 1999 film The Mummy as moments in a tabletop RPG.

It just kills me when writers create franchises where like 95% of the speaking roles are male, then get morally offended that all of the popular ships are gay. It’s like, what did they expect?

#friendly reminder that I once put my statistics degree to good use and did some calculations about ship ratios#and yes considering the gender ratios of characters#the prevalence of gay ships is completely predictable (via sarahtonin42)

I feel this is something that does often get overlooked in slash shipping, especially in articles that try to ‘explain’ the phenomena. No matter the show, movie or book, people are going to ship. When everyone is a dude and the well written relationships are all dudes, of course we’re gonna go for romance among the dudes because we have no other options.

Totally.

A lot of analyses propose that the overwhelming predominance of male/male ships over female/female and female/male ships in fandom reflects an unhealthy fetishisation of male homosexuality and a deep-seated self-hatred on the part of women in fandom. While it’s true that many fandoms certainly have issues gender-wise, that sort of analysis willfully overlooks a rather more obvious culprit.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we have a hypothetical media franchise with twelve recurring speaking roles, nine of which are male and three of which are female.

(Note that this is actually a bit better than average representaton-wise - female representation in popular media franchises is typicaly well below the 25% contemplated here.)

Assuming that any character can be shipped with any other without regard for age, gender, social position or prior relationship - and for simplicity excluding cloning, time travel and other “selfcest”-enabling scenarios - this yields the following (non-polyamorous) possibilities:

Possible F/F ships: 3 Possible F/M ships: 27 Possible M/M ships: 36

TOTAL POSSIBLE SHIPS: 66

Thus, assuming - again, for the sake of simplicity - that every possible ship is about equally likely to appeal to any given fan, we’d reasonably expect about (36/66) = 55% of all shipping-related media to feature M/M pairings. No particular prejudice in favour of male characters and/or against female characters is necessary for us to get there.

The point is this: before we can conclude that representation in shipping is being skewed by fan prejudice, we have to ask how skewed it would be even in the absence of any particular prejudice on the part of the fans. Or, to put it another way, we have to ask ourselves: are we criticising women in fandom - and let’s be honest here, this type of criticism is almost exclusively directed at women - for creating a representation problem, or are we merely criticising them for failing to correct an existing one?

YES YES YES HOLY SHIT YES FUCKING THANK YOU!

Also food for thought: the obvious correction to a lack of non-male representation in a story is to add more non-males. Female Original Characters are often decried as self-insertion or Mary Sues, particular if romance or sex is a primary focus.

I really appreciate when tumblr commentary is of the quality I might see at an academic conference. No joke.

This doesn’t even account  for the disparity in the amount of screen time/dialogue male characters to get in comparison to female characters, and how much time other characters spend talking about male characters even when they aren’t onscreen. This all leads to male characters ending up more fully developed, and more nuanced than female characters. The more an audience feels like they know a character, the more likely an audience is to care about a character. More network television writers are men. Male writers tend to understand men better than women, statistically speaking. Female characters are more likely to be written by men who don’t understand women vary well. 

But it’s easier to blame the collateral damage than solve the root problem.

Yay, mathy arguments. :)

This is certainly one large factor in the amount of M/M slash out there, and the first reason that occurred to me when I first got into fandom (I don’t think it’s the sole reason, but I think it’s a bigger one than some people in the Why So Much Slash debate give our credit for). And nice point about adding female OCs.

In some of my shipping-related stats, I found that shows with more major female characters lead to more femslash (also more het).  (e.g. femslash in female-heavy media; femslash deep dive) I’ve never actually tried to do an analysis to pin down how much of fandom’s M/M preference is explained by the predominance of male characters in the source media, but I’m periodically tempted to try to do so.

All great points. Another thing I notice is that many shows are built around the idea that the team or the partner is the most important thing in the universe. Watch any buddy cop show, and half of the episodes have a character on a date that is inevitably interrupted because The Job comes first… except “The Job” actually means “My Partner”.

When it’s a male-female buddy show, all of the failed relationships are usually, canonically, because the leads belong together. (Look at early Bones: she dates that guy who is his old friend and clearly a stand-in for him. They break up because *coughcoughhandwave*. That stuff happens constantly.) Male-male buddy shows write the central relationship the exact same way except that they expect us to read it as platonic.

Long before it becomes canon, the potential ship of Mulder/Scully or Booth/Bones or whatever lead male/female couple consumes the fandom. It’s not about the genders involved. Rizzoli/Isles was like this too.

If canon tells us that no other relationship has ever measured up to this one, why should we keep them apart? Don’t like slash of your shows, prissy writers? Then stop writing all of your leads locked in epic One True Love romance novel relationships with their same-sex coworkers. Give them warm, funny, interesting love interests, not cardboard cutouts…

And then we will ship an OT3.

I’m going to bring up (invent?) the concept of subjectification.

As in, people gravitate to the characters given the most depth, complexity, and satisfying interactions for their shipping needs, because those characters are most human, and we want the realest characters to play with.

In a lot of media, the most depth gets handed to male characters.

And, oftentimes, even when the screentime and depth and interactions are granted equally well to female characters, there can be a level of, for lack of a better word, dis-authenticity to those female characters: they are pared down, washed out, or otherwise made slightly less themselves than they could be, in the interest of making them decorative, or likeable, or “good,” or keeping them from upstaging or emasculating their male companions, or just that the writer whose job it is to write them doesn’t know how to write women the way they write men.

And you get the characterization equivalent of that comparison chart where so many animated female characters have the same facial features because the animators and designers are so worried about not letting them be ugly.

When you have a group that’s allowed to be themselves, warts and all, and another group that has to be decorative at all costs, the impression given on some level is that the decorative quality is making up for a shortcoming. That they wouldn’t be enough in their own right.

And sometimes that cost is authenticity. The interesting, striking, awe-inspiring, bold and glorious unapologetic selfhood that draws the viewer most particularly to those characters who are unapologetic in their particular existence, standing clear of the generic and bland and unchallenging “safe” appearances.

It is authenticity, not beauty, which powers subjectification. The love for a character, not because they are perfect, but because they are them.

They can be pretty, sure. They can be sweet. But being pretty and sweet is not a replacement, and too many female characters have been written by writers who think it is, while the interest—in appearance, in personality, in interactions, in plot development—goes to the men.

And when that happens, well. Surprise, surprise, that’s where the shipping goes.

Yeah I don’t really ship but I do write a fair amount of fanfic, and in most franchises working with the female characters is a chore.

You have to do so much of the work yourself, because the canon left them unfinished, with huge gaps or unexplored contradictions that you have to somehow resolve. Every female character you decide to integrate into your fanwork in some major role constitutes an undertaking in her own right as you patch together an understanding of her sufficient to model a consistent set of reactions and priorities &c.

The dudes just get handed to you. Even the ones whose canon is a mess have properly developed character cores.

That you don’t have to unearth and piece together like some sort of volunteer archeologist coming up with theories way more complex than the available artifacts truly support.

Guys read this this is an amazing breakdown of it

I love this

Also SO TRUE AND HONESTLY IRRITATING BECAUSE THERE HAVE BEEN TIMES WHEN I WANTED TO IMAGINE MYSELF AS THE LOVE INTEREST FOR A CHARACTER BUT I’M A GIRL AND MY OTPS ARE MOSTLY M/M BECAUSE GODDAMIT THE FEMALES ARE EITHER FLAWLESS OR DECORATIONS AND I. DON’T. LIKE IT.

I’m gonna put this into an individual perspective.

As a lesbian, I have MAYBE 1 or 2 F/F ships. Ironically, they’re both canon or contain canon lesbians/bi women.

All my other ships are M/M and ONE M/F. Ever. In the 10 years that I’ve been involved in fandom.

Clearly, I’m not in this to fetishize men. Or to get off on it. Or whatever stupid argument someone has. I love interesting relationships regardless of gender, but paid writers who want to appeal to general audiences refuse to write any but male.

God, and if that isn’t true about writing for women in fanfiction.

Out off all my dozens of WIPS - excluding gender swaps - I have written a woman’s POV once. ONCE. And it’s a damn pain, because I have to make up depth and characterization and wants and needs on the spot.

In the current story I have up for HP? I tried to make exactly 50% of the main cast female. I purposely made an active effort to do this for plot-related reasons, and I ran into a brick wall after like 4 or 5 characters. “Hm, do I pick THIS barely-developed side character, or THIS boring side character that would drag the story? How about one of the two or three adult women with any personality, even if they don’t fit at all? Decisions, decisions.”

And you know what? HP is not the series I would EVER shit on for writing too few female characters. It’s not even close to the level of homogeny in almost everything else. There ARE plenty of female characters… just not as many developed ones as the guys.

Just look up any favorite character poll in any fandom and see who the favorites are. The Main Girl and token female villian take two, maybe one older leader woman instead, and that’s it. Every. Time.