All right, I have plumbed the depths of haram media and I have returned with some watchable stuff. Why, you ask? I don't really know. Just stumbled on to most of them, but, frankly, if something is well done, even if it's fucking woke as shit, at this point I'll take it. Most of the following are really just woke by coincidence, I don't think the media-makers actually set out to make something political, they just happen to be covering stuff that usually falls under that blanket, and usually sucks so bad it's unwatchable. Anyway.
Let's start with the semi-pooner, Gentleman Jack. This is a loosely historical HBO series starring (I'm convinced), secretly based Suranne Jones as some Victorian broad who wants to do man things (but not really BE a man...sort of). Season one is actually pretty great. There's a LOT going on, from her dealing with neighboring banker assholes mining her coal a la There Will Be Blood (the best part), to her dealing with her farmer tenants who range from Samwise Gamgee loyal to absolutely murderous, to her love life (trying to get over her old flame, and falling hard for the new hottie that moves in next door), and finally (and thankfully smallest) her being a woman, doing man things, omg. This last part isn't TOO much in your face, and it's at least judged mostly from the Victorian perspective, rather than a modern one. Honestly, for as melodramatically as these things are usually covered, the show is actually pretty light and bouncy. It's fun. Gemma Whelan is great in very small doses as a comedic foil, all the usual character actors are great. Even the new young girlfriend does a good job, even if her character is annoying.
Season 2 falls off the rails a bit. I'm not sure if they were told they weren't getting any more seasons and just fucking gave up, or they were planning on drawing out every story line to Game of Thrones lengths. In any case, basically every story line is just dropped or ignored except for her love life. It's still OK to watch, because the production is great and all the actors are great, but it SORELY lacks the fun that was in the first season. Also whoever made the decision to do Suranne Jones' eyebrows like that should be drawn and quartered.
On the feminist front, let's talk about Top of the Lake. This kind of opens like your typical murder mystery, but then it turns out it's not a murder, it's a rape (maybe). But mostly that's not really important, what's important is that this is Jane Campion feminism stream of consciousness, and not your average cop murder show. But the thing is, it somehow....well I'm not going to say it works, but I will say it's fucking entertaining. You know how everyone except consoomer faggots hate Mary Sues and flawless heroines? Well Jane Campion went the other way, because our heroine is NOTHING BUT flaws, terrible decisions, and lessons not learned. This is counter-balanced by the fact that literally everyone in the show is an absolutely horrible piece of shit. Jane Campion makes you fucking hate the 13 year old pregnant rape victim. The main cop's boyfriend that comes to her rescue? Piece of shit. The wise woman guru who moves into paradise to lead her flock? Piece of shit. Her wounded and broken flock of healing women? Idiot pieces of shit. There's literally not one decent person in the show. It's fucking hilarious. I mean yeah the actual mystery kind of doesn't work (I mean you have to believe that a group of normal/worldly teenagers (not sheltered Mormons or something) don't know what roofies are, and don't know how to set up their phones to record and stuff to make it work), but it's also not really that important. It's supposed to be dour and depressing and enlightening, but I watched it from a darkly comic mindset and enjoyed the shit out of it.
Season 2, however, pretty much sucks. She turns all the bad guys into arch-comic-book villains, and all the non-bad guys into verging-on-literal retards, and they're ALL hateable - but not in the fun way like season 1. Also, there's definitely a murder, and I can't remember if they actually solved it. I kind of had to force myself to finish watching it. The 'coincidences' are just too much, everyone is a caricature, Nicole Kidman is fucking annoying, and it's just dumb. Gwendolyn Christie is in it, though, and she's kind of fun to watch (although retarded like everyone else).
And finally, let's visit Animal Control with The Death of Dick Long. This one has ONE THING, but if you can get over it, it's a really enjoyable, and I'd almost say really good, movie. But that ONE THING is fucking tough. I almost didn't watch because of it, and I wasn't wrong, I honestly think the movie suffers because of this faggoty choice, but that being said, there's still something there to enjoy.
So this movie is basically the story of Mr. Hands. And the ONE THING that fucking sucks and irks me to no end, is that in fictionalizing it, they take it from the Pacific Northwest, and put it in the south, and turn the college educated communist faggots (and Chicago faggot trucker), and turn them into good old boys. I know right? Fucking annoying as shit.
But, that being said, they don't really play them being rednecks that much for laughs. They don't really try to score points off of them being like christian chuds or anything, I guess they just try and tell the story as if it was these guys instead of who it actually was. There are a lot of fucking laugh out loud moments in the movie, mostly with the doctors/cops/etc figuring out what's going on. Also, it's pretty poignant at the end, it's pretty decent at communicating how much of an impact it had on the main character's family and such. Anyway, if you can either get over the re-location/casting of the story, or don't give a shit about it like I did, this one is well worth a watch.
Well there's some shit I don't see mentioned very often -- probably for good reason, I mean none of it is GREAT, but it's all at least watchable, which is fucking high praise these days.
