Sixth Post!

[hoisinsauce]

"The thing about illegally breeding fire-breathing possums is that you gotta keep a bucket of water handy."

*Those fools! Fire-breathing possums are greasy; water will only feed the flames! Oh, if only I could tell them of my empire...*

(Context: https://secretfanspace.dreamwidth.org/1839.html?thread=2678831#cmt2678831)

Talk fandom! Making things! Reading, writing, drawing, whatever! Miscellaneous life chatter! Meme's happy to see you again!

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Comments

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

So, some of my thoughts on the original.

Susan going over to Love-interest Lawyer’s (who has been taking an interest in her) apartment is a bit weird, but safeguarding is actually addressed: her nurse can see them in the other flat, due to how the windows line up, so they’re always in view. On the other hand, there’s a really weird scene when Susan is in bed and it sort of looks like Kringle has hidden behind the door while (I think the nurse?) put Susan to bed, and then he comes out of the shadows to talk to her privately. While she’s in bed. Shut in her bedroom with her.

I really like that Susan isn’t sad or melodramatic about her lack of beliefs. Why would she be? This has been her entire life, and she’s been raised to see it as pragmatic and a good thing. She’s a bit sorry for adults trying to kindly lie to her, and other children, even if it puzzles her. And it actually comes down to her gaining the ability to pretend, and have some imagination, which is a perfectly fine thing. And her mother’s caution and attempt to keep her grounded in reality, in her education, and strong, make perfect sense given that as far as we can tell some guy wooed her away from her education and career, got her pregnant, then abandoned her in the 1940s. LL’s attempts to undermine this do come across as a violation. I’m not so keen on the whole now-we-kiss-and-marry ending.

I liked that the act of violence that gets Kringle in trouble is because of the company probably-not-a-certified-psychologist hurting a teenager by planting harmful ideas in his head, and that he was going to report all of it to the boss of the company, but he never brings it up at all in his defense or as an explanation because he is respecting the teenager’s privacy and dignity, and that’s never brought up.

Guy getting his wife drunk so she agrees to a lodger is all kinds of wrong.

When LL offers his room to Kringle, he’s literally offering to share his bedroom with him. He already has two beds side by side in there, so they can sleep next to each other. And they do.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

Also, it’s so deeply grounded in its post-WW2 setting. The little Dutch girl nearly made me cry: very well played.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

Also also! There’s the whole theme of people around him starting to shift to a different mode of capitalism, focusing more on giving and being seen to be good. And it’s all performative, but it’s still making people happier and the general atmosphere better, and helping people. The only real baddie is the company not-a-psychiatrist who is so caught up in his own issues that he tries to convince a teenager that enjoying making children happy means something is terribly wrong with him, because people only do good out of guilt.

Re: Films

[(Anonymous)]

I mainly bring that up because it’s such a contrast to the remake.