Mockingjay and Costume Design: Real or not Real?

Previously: Capitol Couture in the Hunger Games, and Capitol Couture: Catching Fire.

In terms of costume design, first two Hunger Games movies never quite lived up to my expectations. It wasn't that the costumes were bad -- far from it -- but they seemed far too homogeneous. Given free rein to create the most outlandish designs imaginable, the Capitol fashjons were disappointingly conservative and homogeneous.

Mockingjay, Part 1 was another matter entirely. With no Hunger Games, Capitol makeovers, or District 12, the story focused on Panem's growing revolution, shown through the eyes of the propaganda war between the Capitol and District 13. Before the film even came out, YouTube propaganda clips began to illustrate the calculated nature of President Snow's public image.

Mockingjay flipped the cliché of dark and light, with the villainous President Snow surrounding himself with pure white to match his signature white roses. His brainwashed prisoners Peeta (dressed in an uncharacteristically stiff suit and a painful-looking white paper collar) and Johanna presented a united front, fitting in with Snow's clean, luxurious aesthetic. Meanwhile Katniss, daughter of coal miners, wears black body armour and fatigues.

In the earlier films, this kind of contrast was meant to highlight Katniss's salt-of-the-earth nature with Snow's obsessively controlled image, but this time it's more complex. Katniss may look more practical and less "styled" than Snow and his entourage, but that's because her District 13 stylists decided this was the best way to market her to the rebels. Her Mockingjay armor (in real life, modeled off a Japanese archery breastplate) was designed for her by Cinna, and continues the asymmetrical theme of previous outfits she wore to public appearances.

Each Hunger Games film has a different costume designer, which I'm beginning to think was a very smart idea. I found The Hunger Games (Judianna Makovsky) to be overly simplistic, but the filmmakers probably didn't want to take too many risks when first introducing the setting. The costumes of Catching Fire (Trish Summerville) were closer to what I'd hoped for, but they still had to adhere to the visual themes set up by the first film. But as Mockingjay branches out into the wider world of Panem, more avenues open up for interesting work by the new costume designers Kurt and Bart, who previously worked on the wonderful Stoker.

Visually, District 13 felt a lot more coherent than the Capitol ever did. My issue with Capitol fashion is that while the costumes were gorgeous, they all had an oddly similar aesthetic -- something that didn't make sense when you consider the furious competition between stylists. District 13, on the other hand, has a perfect excuse for everyone to look the same: It's a military bunker where citizens are given food, clothing and shelter by the state, and where luxury items are rationed. The end result is a utilitarian grey uniform that reflects the stern practicality of President Coin's leadership.

Uniforms and bland, drab costumes are an easy way to illustrate a certain type of dystopian setting. Given the right encouragement and/or legal obligation, most people probably would agree to wear the same uniform every day, especially if they think it's for the greater good. However, there's always someone who can't bear to look the same as everyone else, which is why I'm so fond of Effie Trinket's new costumes.

Dragged away from her life in the Capitol, Effie quickly begins to modify her District 13 fatigues until she's got a collection of grey turbans and capes. Even the way she wears her shirt is different from the neat and practical appearance of characters like Beetee and Plutarch. She simply cannot bear to not look her best.

Between Snow, Katniss, and District 13, we have a white/black/grey color scheme that contrasts beautifully with the rainbow of luxurious costumes we saw in the first two movies -- and each one of these design themes has a solid foundation in the film's worldbuilding. Katniss is dressed in black by Plutarch and Effie, in armor that was designed by Cinna to make her look like the perfect Mockinjay. President Snow is dressed in pure white to offset the filth of the Districts, and the people of District 13 are proud to give up their individuality in favor of wearing the uniform of the revolution, all working hard for what they believe to be a better tomorrow.

For me, the most satisfying aspect of Mockingjay's costumes was the constant theme of "real or not real." The first two movies were already obsessed with authenticity (Katniss and Peeta faking their relationship for the cameras; the sinister glamour of the Capitol's propaganda machine), but Mockingjay upped its game.

Along with Katniss, we begin to realize that nothing is "real." When Katniss sings the Hanging Tree song, that brief moment of genuine emotion is recorded, remixed, and broadcast to budding revolutionaries out in the Districts. Her image as the Mockingjay was designed by Cinna and propped up by clever camera work. Even the goal-oriented practicality of District 13 is arguably the result of propaganda. And so, while I love the costumes of Mockingjay in their own right, their greatest strength is their ability to make the audience think about why characters wear what they do. Instead of just being beautiful or helping build characterization, Mockingjay's costumes are a central aspect of the film's worldbuilding, and constantly demand our attention.

Previously: Capitol Couture in the Hunger Games, and Capitol Couture: Catching Fire.

Tweet

Read More

Posts from elsewhere: Captain America, Constantine, and Agents of SHIELD.

I hope to have enough time for another costume design post by the end of the year, but in the meantime, here are some other things you may enjoy!

End-of-year guest post at the Book Smugglers blog.

Each year the Book Smugglers invite various authors and bloggers to write guests posts during the holiday period, and this year I was one of them! Most people discuss and recommend books from the past year (it's a book blog, after all), but I decided to talk about a single movie: Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Obvs.

While CATWS wasn't the best film I saw in 2014 -- or even my "favorite," technically speaking -- it's certainly the one I wrote about the most. I love this movie and its fandom, and this post explains why (along with a bunch of fanfic and art recommendations).

Why NBC's Constantine failed to live up to its comic book origins

I haven't decided yet whether to continue writing about Constantine here. It doesn't feel particularly constructive to keep writing negative reviews of a mediocre show, so I may just leave it until the season finale. Constantine has improved a little over the past couple of episodes, but not enough that I actually care about it being renewed or not. Hellblazer is one of my favourite comics, and this show is just... disappointing.

"Previously on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." podcast

I co-host a weekly Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. podcast over at Film Divider! We're now up to season 2, episode 8. Catch up here!

A Hero at the End of the World, by Erin Claiborne

Reminder that this book is awesome and you ought to be reading it! Find out more here.

Read More

The three main problems with NBC's 'Constantine.'

Previously: Constantine, "Non Est Asylum" and "The Darkness Beneath."

After six episodes, Constantine has graduated past "unwatchably bad" and settled into a network TV formula. It's better than it was at the start, but it's definitely not good.

Aside from obvious issues like clunky dialogue, Constantine has three serious ongoing problems:

1. It's virtually indistinguishable from other genre shows of the same type, ie Supernatural.
2. Both of the supporting characters, Chas and Zed, are completely pointless.
3. It's often racist.

There's no better example of problem #1 than last week's episode, "Rage of Caliban." The plot was an unimaginative spin on "young child possessed by demons" horror movie tropes, practically begging for some kind of genre-savvy humor. It even takes place on Halloween, and the guest characters are a suburban family so bland they'd probably be rejected from a cereal commercial for being too generic.

Out of six episodes, only two have really felt individual to this show: "The Devil's Vinyl" (a reasonably interesting riff on the urban legend of a blues musician selling his soul to the devil) and "A Feast of Friends", which was adapted from Hellblazer #1 and had a satisfyingly unpleasant ending.

Every other episode is either painfully predictable, or reliant on familiar genre cliches. No wonder Constantine's ratings are dropping: It's just retreading the same ground that Supernatural has been covering for the past decade, along with a handful others like Grimm, Sleepy Hollow, and Teen Wolf. Constantine has failed to carve out a niche of its own.

Problem #2 is a weird one. I've seen plenty of shows where one or two characters felt superfluous, but this is so much worse. Chas and Zed are so unnecessary that several episodes have to write one of them out of the story. And when they are onscreen, they often have nothing substantial to do.

6 episodes in and we still don't know what Chas is doing in this show, except cooking for Constantine and being impervious to mortal wounds.
— Hello Tailor (@Hello_Tailor) November 30, 2014

Even more pointless than Chas and Zed is the angel character, whose only role is to show up and tell Constantine about "a darkness coming."
— Hello Tailor (@Hello_Tailor) November 30, 2014

Supposedly, Zed is following Constantine because he can teach her how to control her powers. In reality, her purpose is to fulfill the show's female character quota and give Constantine someone to talk to. Instead of being a fully developed character, she's more like Constantine's personal assistant -- a role that's already filled by Chas.

Chas shares Zed's exposition sidekick duties, which sometimes falls flat because unlike Zed, he isn't new to the supernatural/exorcist lifestyle. If he's already experienced in dealing with ghosts and monsters, then why have him ask Constantine to explain a simple concept like ley lines? (That wasn't even the clumsiest exposition scene in last week's episode, by the way. The worst was when Constantine literally explained what demonic possession is, implying that the writers think we've never heard a ghost story before.)

So bizarre for Constantine to basically be explaining the concept of a ghost to the mum in this episode. PEOPLE KNOW WHAT GHOSTS ARE!!
— Hello Tailor (@Hello_Tailor) November 30, 2014

Instead of having two full-time sidekicks, they'd be better off with Constantine as a solo protagonist backed up by recurring guest stars. You know, like the comic.

Problem #3 is already unsalvageable. Constantine has two white male showrunners, and for some reason they decided to make the primary antagonist a black man who is both a crime boss and a vodou priest. It's difficult for this not to have racist undertones, particularly given Hollywood's history of portraying vodou as alien, dangerous, and evil. Which is a pity, because Papa Midnite is the best character in the show. The actor has real screen presence, and adds a sense of power and charisma to a role that could easily have been a total trainwreck.

Combine the problematic depictions of vodou with Constantine's other moments of racist subtext, and the end result is disastrous. From the hideous "black gypsy magic" scene in episode 2 to the introduction of casually exoticized characters like the African shaman in "A Feast of Friends," they've already gone way past the racism limit for a tone-deaf US network TV show.

Constantine isn't the worst show I've ever seen, but I certainly wouldn't be watching it if I wasn't a Hellblazer fan with a morbid fascination for where the show is going. There are a few rays of hope now and then -- the convincing physicality of Matt Ryan's performance, and Papa Midnite's role as a not-quite-bad-guy antagonist -- but in general, it's depressingly lacklustre.

Tweet

Read More

READ THIS BOOK: A Hero at the End of the World

This is a bit of a departure from my usual topics, but today marks the publishing date of one of THE MOST EXCITING BOOKS of my entire life. It's called A Hero at the End of the World and it's written by Erin Claiborne -- a very talented author who has been writing fanfic for years, and is now branching out into original fiction for the first time. This book is absolutely laugh-out-loud funny, a kind of Douglas Adams-esque satire on young adult fantasy tropes: A story about a Chosen One character who fails to live up to expectations.

A Hero at the End of the World is published by Big Bang Press, a small press I helped launch last year. It's specifically dedicated to publishing original novels by fanfic writers, and Hero is the first. And it's getting SUCH GOOD REVIEWS, I'm so excited! Kirkus Reviews gave it a starred recommendation (which is notoriously unusual for a debut novel), and the Book Smugglers (a popular YA/fantasy book review blog) rated it "Excellent." Here's the plot summary:

"According to prophecy, 17-year-old Ewan Mao is destined to kill the evil tyrant who has been terrorizing Britain for as long as he can remember. But when Ewan chickens out and his best friend Oliver Abrams defeats the villain instead, Ewan’s bright future crumbles before his eyes. 

Five years later, Ewan is living at home and working in a coffee shop while Oliver has a job in the government’s Serious Magical Crimes Agency. They haven’t spoken since they were teenagers, but a routine investigation leads Oliver and his partner, Sophie Stewart, to uncover a powerful cult… one that has drawn Ewan into a plot to end the world."

You can read an excerpt here!

One of the best things about Big Bang Press is the amount of freedom we have. A Hero at the End of the World is a mainstream teen fantasy novel with a diverse cast including queer characters and people of colour in the lead roles. It's written by an author who is proud of her background as a fanfic writer, and published by people who love fandom and want to promote the work of creators who come from the fanfic and fanart communities. (And did I mention that this book was illustrated by fanartist Jade Liebes? Her art is amazing!)

I hope some of you guys decide to check this book out! Erin is a great writer, and we've put a lot of hard work into making this the best book it can be. For more info, please check out the Big Bang Press website, Tumblr or Twitter accounts! Or you can just can order a copy in paperback or ebook format right now. :D

Tweet

Read More

Interstellar, costume design, and the difficulties of "realistic" visual worldbuilding.

Interstellar is one of those movies where the costume design is almost invisible, which is part of what makes it so interesting. The simplest explanation is that the visual style is purposefully "realistic" and avoids any kind of futurism... which in itself is unrealistic. A conundrum, right? Technically, it doesn't make sense for people 50-100 years in the future to wear the same clothes as people in 2014. But from the perspective of a filmmaker who wants his apocalyptic sci-fi film to be taken seriously, this aesthetic decision makes perfect sense.

The earthbound setting of Interstellar is a classic American fantasy: a manly farmer hero, raising his kids in a bleak, rural landscape. Despite the film's image as a deep and thoughtful space epic, it still relies on the familiar old Hollywood scenario of a messianic white American dude being the one person who can save mankind. (And yes, I know his daughter does the actual saving, but this is very much a film about Cooper, not Murphy.) Underdog heroes NASA and Matthew McConaughey save humanity while the rest of the world is apparently helpless. Politically and socially, this is a tired old trope, but it aligns well with the kind of generic hero that can be inserted into a complex movie with minimal exposition. Cooper is the kind of guy who, for better or worse, is perceived as "universal." Luckily, McConaughey's performance was brilliant.

So here we have Coop and his kids, looking both relatable and realistic in their jeans and hoodies. This is the difference between a meticulously researched film that is actually realistic, and a film whose worldbuilding gives the appearance of realism, and therefore does not jolt viewers out of their comfort zone. On the whole, the appearance of realism tends to be the better choice. We're watching fiction, after all.

Decades in the future, the characters on Earth continue to wear clothes that look nondescript in the context of present-day fashions. We see Murph in her practical, neutral-toned outfits both at work and when visiting her brother at the farm. Judging by the clothes worn by Murph and her peers, fashion has stopped evolving altogether. 

As someone who follows fashion, I'm certain this level of sartorial stagnation could never happen in real life. Even within a dying civilization where fewer new clothes are commercially available, fashions would continue to change over time. But I understand why Christopher Nolan and his costume designer made this decision, because it grounds the film in a sense of reality -- or rather, what we think of as reality in 2014. The other option would be to dress Jessica Chastain in futuristic outfits to illustrate the passage of time, which would clash with Nolan's desire to distance himself from the popular visual tropes of the Hollywood sci-fi genre.

When we see Murph wearing nondescript shirts and jackets, we only think of the passage of time in relation to to her age and Cooper's journey, not in the general sense of what year it is for the rest of the world. We already know the film is set in the future, so there's no point in introducing the costume equivalent of a flying car.

The space suits are the only costumes that look like "costumes" in this film, so they're the only ones that really get discussed in promotional interviews. The earthbound costumes are designed to be absorbed passively without any kind of conscious thought, rather than reminding the audience that they're watching a work of fiction.

In this interview, Interstellar costume designer Mary Zophres says, “My first, gut instinct was that you should not anticipate what the future is going to look like. In fact, there is no attention paid to sartorial aspects at all. It’s unimportant.” She goes on to say that the space suits were meant to look like they'd been cobbled together from spare parts. Since most viewers' personal image of a space suit is still based on the astronauts of the late 20th century, that's what they went for in Interstellar. Any additions or changes were for purely practical purposes.

Costuming is always important to the way we consume a movie, but it's particularly important to Christopher Nolan's work as a writer and director of science fiction blockbusters. All of his best-known films are out-and-out fantasy (The Dark Knight, Inception, The Prestige), but their costumes and set design are intended to add a veneer of realism. 

Nolan movies are treated with an unusual amount of respect compared to other sci-fi and fantasy blockbusters, and I'm pretty sure his costume design choices are a major contributing factor to this attitude. With the unavoidable exception of Batman, all of his characters are dressed to look as normal and everyday as humanly possible, which distracts us from the fantastical concepts behind each movie. In Inception (perhaps my favourite costume design film of all time) Nolan is telling a story of pure fantasy, but it's illustrated in the visual language of a real-world drama.

Dreams are depicted as buildings and hotel rooms full of everyday humans, and the only fantasy elements are the stretching dimensions and timescales of the dream world. Even those are introduced to us by an architect who carefully explains the situation by scribbling a diagram on a piece of paper -- which, incidentally, is also how Nolan explains wormhole travel in Interstellar.

Because most of Inception takes place in this realistic urban landscape, and because all of the characters are dressed in staid, businesslike clothes, it feels more like a corporate espionage thriller than a successor to the worlds depicted in movies like Dark City, Paprika and The Matrix.

In the case of Interstellar, we're watching a movie that melds sci-fi ideas about relativity, apocalyptic climate change (more or less), and space travel. But we're also watching a Hollywood fairytale where NASA selects an American everyman farmer dude to lead a world-saving space mission, where five-dimensional beings help him transmit Morse Code messages to his daughter through time and space. Humanity is saved by a combination of the power of love and faith, and a message sent via books falling off a shelf and the ticking of a wristwatch. 

As a viewer, this combination of hard sci-fi and nonsensical Hollywood fantasy requires a herculean feat of suspending one's disbelief. We need all the serious and "realistic" trappings we can get. Hence why Interstellar was marketed with Google-sponsored lesson plans and interviews with the film's astrophysicist, and why Nolan spent so much time on the ground-level worldbuilding elements of Coop's farm, the NASA labs, and the overall aesthetic of Earth scenes taking place in a contemporary setting.

I usually tend to write about costume design from a characterization standpoint, but characterization is rarely an important aspect of a Nolan film. In Interstellar, the most personal costuming detail is Cooper's jacket -- which is later copied by Murphy as an adult, as she wears a jacket that looks very nearly identical to her father's. In amongst a cast of characters with no individual style whatsoever, this is a beautiful little personal touch; a subtle sign that Murph hasn't abandoned her father's memory quite as thoroughly as she likes to think. 

Further reading

• "Why won't Christopher Nolan just embrace sci-fi?"
• My response to people who object to Interstellar being described as a Hollywood fantasy.
• The costumes of Alien: Uniforms and characterization. 
• Space suits, retrofuturism, and Prometheus.
• Supercut of Christopher Nolan's favourite movie tropes.
• Q&A with Jeffrey Kurland, costume designer of Inception.
• Article discussing Interstellar's space suits.

Tweet

Read More

Constantine: "The Darkness Beneath"

Previously: Constantine, "Non Est Asylum"

If you're still on the fence about watching this week's Constantine, here's a line that tells you everything you need to know: "There's nothing blacker than gypsy magic."

Yes, this episode hinged on the kind of racist stereotype that I'm surprised is even allowed on TV in 2014. Friends, this was not a pleasant hour of television.

I think Constantine is going to save this mining town by blowing up the mine where everyone works.
— Hello Tailor (@Hello_Tailor) November 2, 2014

In order to introduce the new female lead Zed, episode 2 saw Constantine visit a Pennsylvania mining town without his regular (and so far pointless) sidekick Chas. This town had a problem with vengeful spirits killing off local miners, and because Constantine is indistinguishable from Supernatural, our hero traveled across America to solve their problem by interrogating a bunch of angry men and befriending a sexy yet mysterious lady. That's Zed, by the way. We still don't know much about her except that she was probably described as "tempestuous" in the casting call.

The victim in the pre-credits scene was a mean drunk husband who burned to death in the shower. After various unimaginative demonic shenanigans, we learn that his wife is the one who brought the mine monsters into town, and Constantine's solution is to... bring her (implicitly) abusive husband back to drag her down to Hell. Oh, and she's a "Romani girl," hence the godawful "gypsy magic" line I quoted above. To make matters worse, this tired old stereotype was completely unnecessary to the situation at hand, and could've been removed without making any difference to the plot.

The most frustrating thing with this episode was how easily they could've made it better. It was written by the creator of Farscape, a delightfully weird show with its fair share of interesting female characters. But this episode wasn't just poorly written, it was a paint-by-numbers example of generic supernatural/mystery TV. What makes this all the more baffling is that it's adapted from a comic that actually does have some personality, and both of the showrunners are supposedly Hellblazer fans. I'm yet to see much evidence that anyone in this show has gone beyond reading the Hellblazer Wikipedia page, though.


Last week I mentioned that one of Constantine's biggest problems will be differentiating itself from similar genre shows. Well, that issue is already making itself known. This episode was even more like Supernatural than last week: Constantine saves a small town from undead spirits, and the unimaginative monster-of-the-week storyline was marred by sexist and racist subtext. At least Supernatural is capable of genuine menace and horror, and its dud episodes are elevated by the compelling relationships between its lead characters. Unfortunately, it looks like Constantine is only emulating Supernatural's bad points.

The whole "Pennsylvania mining town" concept could have been used to transfer themes from Hellblazer to a contemporary American setting. But there the resemblance ends. What we got was a story where a woman is clearly intimidated by her husband (who is implied to be abusive), and uses her magic powers to warp some protective spirits into attacking miners as revenge. This is a totally solid fairytale idea, and could have ended on the very Hellblazer-ish note of Constantine having to "defeat" an enemy who isn't really a villain, but is just a normal person who has been pushed to the limit.

Instead we got an episode that fails to explore the emotional context of the setting, and culminates in the wife character being depicted as a one-note villain who is punished by being dragged to hell by the spirit of her husband. And let's not forget that Constantine just blew up the local coal mine, thus ruining the economy of the entire town. I feel like they should've made a bigger deal out of that??

There are two explanations here: Either the writers are simply misinterpreting the way the Hellblazer comics told this kind of morally ambiguous story, OR they're purposefully writing this kind of simple, cliched episode because they think it's the best way to stay on air.

I have no idea how many women are on the production staff at Constantine, but I'm guessing not many. So far Zed is slightly less cardboardy than Liv, the female lead who was written out of the pilot episode. That doesn't mean Zed behaves like an actual human woman, though. The relationship between her and Constantine is very muddled, lurching from unconvincing sexual tension to an intrinsically unpleasant dynamic where she is ~drawn to him~ while he orders her around and acts like a douche.

The thing is, the Hellblazer version of Constantine is by no means a feminist character, or even a nice guy. He tries to do the right thing, but he screws up a lot. But the comics tend to be critical of this, and we also benefit from seeing his internal monologue all the time. Ideally, Constantine would show his struggle to be a good man, but balance this with storylines where he fucks up or is forced to make bad choices. He also needs to be backed up by a well-written female character, which Zed is not. She's meant to be a foil to Constantine, but their relationship is unbalanced from Day 1. She needs his help with her powers, while he uses those powers for his own ends. On top of that, she has to persuade him to let her join him. We're also told that she's in her mid-20s -- an inexplicable decision because Angélica Celaya is 32, only one year younger than Matt Ryan.

With Zed now thrown into the mix, we're left with an entire cast of characters whose motivations are frustratingly unclear -- and not in a good way. Constantine appears to be motivated by sheer altruism to follow Liv's map and fight a bunch of monsters. Chas may or may not be some kind of traveling demon hunter as well. And Zed's reasons for teaming up with Constantine are partly because she needs his help, and partly because... she dreams about him? How convenient.

As it stands, Constantine can only go downhill if it continues on in this vein. The similarities with Supernatural are too pronounced, and so far Constantine's characterization is disappointingly weak.

I'm hoping that they do a character-focused episode soon, so we can learn more about Constantine's backstory and get a better idea of his motivation. Right now he feels like an extremely watered-down interpretation of the character we see in Hellblazer, to the point where he's only recognisable thanks to superficial traits like his accent and costume. A costume which, by the way, is already beginning to look a little awkward. He wears that brand-new trenchcoat and undone red tie all the time, and it's making him look like a poseur. Why not just take the tie off, or at least tie it properly for part of the episode? Most viewers have little or no knowledge of the comics, so callbacks like this are immaterial. They should lay off the meaningless details (Britishisms like "blighter," really?) and focus more on the actual substance of the show -- such as it is.
Tweet

Read More

NBC Constantine: "Non Est Asylum"

I'm a big Hellblazer fan, so I've been looking forward to NBC's Constantine with trepidation. Is it going to be any good? Well, no. Hellblazer is not well suited to the formulas and restrictions of US network television. But I'm a glutton for punishment, so I'm going to keep watching.

Predictably, I wasn't exactly blown away by the pilot episode's combination of stilted exposition and occult horror cliches. That being said, a pilot is a pilot is a pilot. It's entirely possible that this show will improve later on. In the meantime, I'm gonna do one of the worst things a TV critic can do: over-analyse a show based on its inevitably simplistic first episode.

We begin with an origin story that will be familiar to Hellblazer fans: John Constantine in a mental hospital. He allowed a young girl to be killed and dragged to Hell by a demon, so now he feels bad. And for whatever reason, that leads to electric shock treatment. Everything else in the episode will feel familiar even to new viewers, thanks to its solid basis in cliché. Daddy issues, a Dark Past, and a young woman (Liv) who needs the protagonist's help -- it's all there, and it all progresses more or less as expected.

"You do that a lot, you know," says Liv. "Deflect emotions with humour. Like the morally ambiguous male lead of a TV show." #Constantine
— Hell Tailor (@Hello_Tailor) October 25, 2014

Having saved the girl and confronted his literal/figurative demons, Constantine ends the episode with an embarrassing voiceover monologue while wandering the city at night. So noir. "I'm the one who steps from the shadows, all trenchcoat and arrogance," he says, like a 14-year-old boy trying to sound cool. Not exactly Shakespeare, but it adheres to my expectations for mainstream US drama pilots, which generally consist of characters explaining things to each other in very plain terms.

The biggest disappointment was that they hired the excellent Neil Marshall (Dog Soldiers, Doomsday) to direct an episode that could never be much above mediocre. I hope he comes back later in the series, to work on something a little more interesting. He's a perfect choice for this show, and honestly they need all the help they can get.

I've never subscribed to the idea that TV/movie adaptations need to be "accurate" in order to be good. Some things just can't be directly adapted for the screen -- for example Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which relies a lot on footnotes and a very precise literary style.

In the case of comicbook adaptations like Constantine, the original was written by multiple people over a period of decades. In this context the most important thing is to replicate the tone and characterization of the comics, and I'm not confident they're going to manage it. Most of John Constantine's most recognizable personality traits (kind of a screwup; bad at relationships; sometimes only does the right thing when pushed) are already stereotypical for morally ambiguous TV antiheroes. The problem is, Constantine is more than the sum of his parts.

There are a zillion other unshaven douchebag antiheroes on TV, most of them with their own selection of addictions, dead parents and dark pasts. At the moment, the only thing distinguishing this show from the shortlived Dresden Files adaptation is the protagonist's accent, and Constantine already shares way too many similarities with Supernatural.

The thing that should be setting Constantine apart is his status as a counterculture icon. But since this type of show is petrified of making any kind of political statement, I'm not holding out much hope.

When Constantine was first announced, the showrunners were careful to reassure fans that Constantine would be blond and that they'd try to dodge NBC's anti-smoking rules. This was to counteract the backlash against the Keanu Reeves Constantine movie, which basically took a dump on Hellblazer canon. Still, I wasn't reassured. Constantine's smoking is important to a storyline in the comics where he gets lung cancer, but making him a non-smoker would be a relatively superficial change compared to some.

More than anything else, the reason why Hellblazer has enjoyed such longevity is its social relevance. I'm all for picking apart Captain America for its political subtext, but Hellblazer is another matter entirely. This ain't subtext. Half of the classic 1980s comics read like hatemail to Margaret Thatcher, and Constantine is very much a product of his upbringing and experiences in late 20th century Britain.

In the NBC show, Constantine is presumably in his 30s, meaning he was born sometime around 1980. John Constantine, Hellblazer edition, was born in 1953 and aged in real time throughout the comics. Now, I do understand why NBC decided to set Constantine in the present day, because an occult-themed show set in 1980s Britain would be kind of a hard sell. But you've got to admit that being born in the '80s creates a very different origin story for this character.

Somewhere in the USA, a teen boy just decided to start using the word "squire" because he decided it sounded cool & British in #Constantine.
— Hell Tailor (@Hello_Tailor) October 25, 2014

One detail that rubbed me up the wrong way was a scene where Constantine argues with a bartender over who is the "most" influential band, the Sex Pistols or the Ramones. Huh? Why would someone born in 1980 have a stake in the Sex Pistols, a band that were only really relevant to the zeitgeist of 1977? Evidently this is meant as a callback to the canon backstory of him being in a punk band in the '70s, but NBC's version of Constantine was a teenager during the height of Britpop. If they wind up including flashbacks to him touring with Mucous Membrane in the late '90s, he's gonna seem like a pop-culture relic.

Realistically speaking, I know Constantine is never going to have the same political weight as the comics. That doesn't mean I can't hold out hope for improvement in other areas, though. First, they need to carve out a tone that sets the show apart from its many competitors, particularly Supernatural. Unfortunately one of the showrunners is David S. Goyer (the "S" stands for sexist), so it's unlikely to outstrip Supernatural in the feminism department.

Otherwise, I'm hoping they stop relying on demonic horror cliches and try to do something interesting with Hellblazer's occult background. That, and hopefully make it clear that this isn't a show about Constantine's heroic quest to defeat the forces of darkness. All the best Hellblazer storylines either begin with Constantine trying to avoid helping someone, or with him being blackmailed or cajoled into helping an old friend, only to fuck up horribly when the time comes.

In other words, the best way to replicate the personality of Hellblazer is to end most of this show's episodes on a downbeat, anticlimactic note. Good luck with that.

Tweet

Next: "The Darkness Beneath"

Read More

Schedule for Seattle Geek Girl Con this weekend

I’m in Seattle for Geek Girl Con this weekend! I’m doing two panels and a talk about superhero costumes — please come along! :D Here’s my schedule. (The superhero costume design talk is probably the most relevant to people who read this blog: 3pm on Sunday in room LL2.)

SATURDAY

3pm: “21st Century Boys: Slash in the Mainstream”

“Today, male/male slash is the predominant form of ‘shipping in online fandom. Growth of slash and femslash has spawned new problems: exploitation of ‘shipping by media; the push to make fanfic “publishable”; and the ongoing struggle to translate fandom’s feminism, diversity, and push for queer pairings into increased media representation.”

5pm: “Fandom and the Media”

This panel is basically me and several other fandom/geek culture journalists (Lauren Orsini, Aja Romano, Versha Sharma, Lisa Granshaw and Amanda Brennan) discussing our experiences in the field, and talking about what it’s like to report on fandom news when you yourself are a fan.

SUNDAY

3pm: “Evolution of the Superhero Movie Costume”

I’m doing a 45-minute talk about how superhero movie costumes have developed over the years, and why. If you like my blog posts about superhero movies, hopefully you’ll enjoy this! 

Read More

Filmoria podcast on Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I recently recorded a podcast about Captain America: The Winter Soldier for Filmoria, along with Rebecca Pahle of the Mary Sue, and Grace Duffy and Lesley Coffin, both of Filmoria. Regular HelloTailor readers may already have read quite enough about this movie, but on the off-chance that you're still interested, you can listen to the podcast here on Soundcloud! I'm still fascinated by this movie, and we all had a great time discussing it at length. :D

Read More

Costuming and Design in Captain America: The Winter Soldier -- Nick Fury, Black Widow, and S.H.I.E.L.D.

Part 1: "Trust No One" -- How Captain America became the gritty superhero we never knew we wanted.
Part 2: HYDRA, Sitwell, and diversity in the Marvel universe.
Part 3: Black Widow and Falcon. 
Part 4: The Tragedy of Bucky Barnes.
Part 5: Worldbuilding in the MCU. 
Part 6: Costuming and design: Steve & Bucky.

People love to namecheck spandex when talking about superhero costumes, but as far as I recall there's no spandex to be seen anywhere in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With Cap's costume toned down to a subtle navy blue for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the most comicbook-looking character we see is Nick Fury.

With each new appearance, I've grown to love Nick Fury's costumes more and more. Not just because they look cool, but because of the internal logic of why he dresses like that. To understand what I'm getting at here, take a moment to think about S.H.I.E.L.D. itself, and Fury's role within the organization.



In The Avengers, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and other Marvel movies, S.H.I.E.L.D. is portrayed as a quasi-governmental Men in Black organization. It's populated by military types, agents like Coulson, jumpsuit-wearing Helicarrier personnel, and a smattering of individuals like Black Widow and Hawkeye. Fury is in charge, with Maria Hill as the deputy director and Alexander Pierce as his immediate superior, a kind of liaison between S.H.I.E.L.D. and various world governments.

Up until now Fury was the authority figure, a character who swoops in and solves problems or tells the heroes what to do. He was basically a trigger-happy, morally ambiguous Gandalf figure.

CATWS brought in a much-needed new dimension of fallibility to Nick Fury, as well as showing him inside S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters for the first time. Alexander Pierce, in his old-fashioned but stylish three-piece suits, both fits in with those surroundings and represents the political establishment. Meanwhile Fury, with his ostentatious black leather outfits, does not exactly seem like he belongs in a grey office building.

There's a certain internal consistency to the costumes at S.H.I.E.L.D., with Maria Hill and most of the Helicarrier personnel wearing navy blue uniforms (the same shade as Cap's new uniform and his nylon biker jacket in this movie, incidentally), and characters like Coulson and Agent 13 wearing subdued businesswear.

Nick Fury does not fall into either category. He's sure as hell not wearing normal clothes that could blend into his surroundings, and I highly doubt that his outfits adhere to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s official uniform. Instead, I can only describe his favourite costume as some kind of supervillain-themed black leather cosplay outfit.

Yes, Nick Fury is a goth.

GIF by harlequinnade

Black leather trenchcoats have a long and storied history in the sci-fi/action movie genre, and it's one that I'll go into in more detail if I ever write about The Matrix. Suffice it to say that there's no practical reason why Nick Fury, a man in his sixties, would choose to wear an ankle-length leather coat every day.

This decision was surely based on style and style alone. And since we've definitely seen him wearing several different coats, I can only imagine what the inside of his wardrobe might look like.

In The Avengers

Fury has two basic costumes throughout the Marvel franchise: a black turtleneck/black trousers outfit, usually coupled with a long black leather coat, and the black "uniform" suit we see in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Aside from being totally goth, Fury's outfits have one major thing in common: they're menacing. The softest, most casual thing we ever see him wear is a dark grey cardigan when he's hospitalized after faking his death, and even then he's wearing it with some sort of bespoke leather sling that looks like a holster.

His black body armour/leather coat outfits are a blatant visual signal for badassery, while the high-collared, uniform-inspired suit he wears in CATWS is particularly interesting in that it has a lot in common with classic villain costumes. That "uniform" jacket is reminiscent of the officer's uniforms on the Death Star. Fury has the potential to "look evil," whereas Alexander Pierce looks perfectly neutral at all times. Rich and neutral, much like Guy Pearce's supervillain character in Iron Man 3, in fact.

Nick Fury's badass black outfits make him into a visually iconic figure, even within the movie itself. This has the effect of a kind of reverse disguise because as soon as Nick Fury takes off his signature costume, it's very easy for him to disappear. When people are expecting a big, imposing figure in a sweeping black coat and eyepatch, they're not going to be looking for an elderly man in a hoodie and sunglasses. I absolutely loved this costume changeover at the end, not just because of the way it utilizes Samuel L. Jackson's age but because of the link it provides with Black Widow.

I'm not overly familiar with Black Widow comics, but my impression is that she's often portrayed as a rather vampy character. Her most famous visual characteristics are her vibrant red hair and shiny black catsuit, which is generally drawn to be sexier than the version we see in the movies. I'm happy with the MCU's interpretation of her appearance, partly because it allowed me to develop a pet theory about her hair.

The movies obviously had to keep Back Widow's red hair, but instead of going for a natural shade like Pepper Potts, they went for a bright red tone that could only come from a bottle. That's where my comparison with Nick Fury comes in. I think that Black Widow purposefully dyes her hair such a noticeable shade because it then becomes her defining feature. The result? As soon as she changes her hair colour to something else, she can easily slip under the radar. Another reverse disguise, just like Nick Fury's carefully constructed image as a leather-wearing badass.

I'm ambivalent over whether we ever see Black Widow's own "real" dress sense. Perhaps she doesn't even have one. In Iron Man 2 she wears tight, expensive businesswear while undercover as Tony Stark's new P.A., while in The Avengers we see her wearing a similar costume to the jeans and leather jacket she wears for a few scenes in CATWS. The dark leather blazer she wears in the graveyard scene looks far closer to the kind of thing we might expect from the comics (although I also think it looks about 15 years out of style, despite being a $2,400 Burberry design).

Black Widow is meant to be a very enigmatic character, and her ability to change and utilize her appearance means that her costumes are understandably difficult to pin down.

When you see Steve and Natasha together they both appear to be wearing generic, nondescript clothes, but they chose them for very different reasons. Steve probably doesn't know how to shop and may just have picked out the plainest thing possible, whereas Natasha has the capacity to put a great deal of thought and analysis into what image she wants to present to the world.

For me, the most important aspect of Black Widow's costuming in CATWS is that it's yet another volley against the idiots who think Scarlett Johansson is only onscreen to look pretty. Even in a general sense CATWS is the most sexless movie in the entire franchise, and the most sexualised Black Widow situation is perhaps a split-second shot of her butt in the catsuit in an early scene. (Incidentally, Guardians of the Galaxy was pretty awful in this regard.)

When she's wearing what we assume are her own clothes, she wears skinny jeans and casual jackets, and when she's in disguise she wears a baggy grey hoodie and sneakers. Her t-shirts for each outfit are so similar that they might as well have come from a multipack. In other words, a selection of incredibly normal, neutral-coloured outfits designed to blend in with thousands of other women in their twenties. Perfect for an accomplished spy, and perfect for the realistic tone of the movie as a whole.

Tweet

Previously: The costumes and characters of The Avengers, Part 1: SHIELD and Part 4: Black Widow & Hawkeye.

Part 1: "Trust No One" -- How Captain America became the gritty superhero we never knew we wanted.
Part 2: HYDRA, Sitwell, and diversity in the Marvel universe.
Part 3: Black Widow and Falcon. 
Part 4: The Tragedy of Bucky Barnes.
Part 5: Worldbuilding in the MCU. 
Part 6: Costuming and design: Steve & Bucky.

Read More

Doctor Who: The Doctor's new outfit, and some thoughts on female companions and costume design.

The unveiling of a new Doctor Who costume is a lot like a superhero rebranding -- or a new collection by an established fashion label. It's a combined attempt to get people excited about innovation, while reassuring everyone that not too much has changed. And so, the BBC announced Capaldi's new costume by talking about how it blends elements of old and new -- for example, the visual callback to John Pertwee's costume.

Thanks to the age gap between Capaldi and Matt Smith, the whole "old vs. new" thing is specifically relevant to this regeneration. Smith was dressed in an almost grandfatherly way (tweed, bow tie and braces), but that had the side-effect of making him look like a hipster. This was problematic because the Doctor's costume should never resemble a current fashion trend.

If you can look at the Doctor and say, "That guy looks like he should be hanging out in a vintage shoe shop in 21st century Hackney," then it detracts from his image as an alien -- although of course, if you make him look too alien then you can't take him seriously. Capaldi's costume sidesteps this issue by being extremely simple and pared-down, which I enjoy a great deal (not least because I want to wear the entire outfit myself).

Looking at Clara and the Doctor in the first episode of season 8, the similarities between their two outfits are obvious. He's wearing a white shirt with a prominent collar and no tie, in a more severe version of Clara's lace collar. Then there's the black/white/red color palette, and the fact that he's wearing a cardigan rather than a waistcoat underneath his jacket. If you wanted, you could probably even stretch to linking Clara's tartan skirt to the fact that Twelve has a Scottish accent.

To me, this link between the Doctor and Clara's clothes is a clear sign that intentionally or otherwise, he imprinted on her after regenerating. (Although if you look at Clara's cardigan, you'll see that it's patterned with bow ties -- a callback to Eleven's signature accessory. She's still looking back to the Doctor's previous incarnation, whereas the new Doctor is calling out for her attention.

I no longer have much trust in Steven Moffat as showrunner, but I enjoyed the way the new Doctor was introduced as being rather emotionally vulnerable. He isn't just desperate for attention (which would be typical for the Doctor) but is needy for support from Clara. When he puts on his new costume for the first time, he immediately looks to Clara for reassurance.

Intriguingly, there's a third person in this regeneration costume club: "Missy." This character is almost certainly a villain, and seems to be collecting people who die as a result of the Doctor's actions.

Missy wears a female version of the Doctor's costume: A stiff white collar with no tie, and a black coat with short lapels. Missy is also clearly linked to the Doctor in some way -- although the less said about that, the better. I don't trust Steven Moffat to introduce a female antagonist who refers to the Doctor as her "boyfriend."

Regarding Doctor Who's increasingly dubious relationship with its female characters, I have mixed feelings about Clara's tenure on the show. Her characterization last season was practically nonexistent, but season 8 seems far more promising. Unfortunately, I do have some problems with this new running "joke" where the Doctor makes fun of Clara's appearance, because it's just so... pointless and mean? Moffat is weirdly obsessed with the attractiveness of his female characters, and this often carries over into episodes by other writers.

Moffat may not write every episode, but he's in charge of the overall story arc and tone of the show, which often means editing or adding to other people's scripts. For example, I find it difficult to believe that last season, Neil Gaiman wrote the Doctor describing Clara as “a mystery wrapped in an enigma, squeezed into a skirt that’s a little too tight." This line obviously annoyed me due to Moffat's history with female characters, but also because Clara's skirt was not actually tight during this scene. If you're gonna insert creepy, sexist comments into the show, then at least make sure they're relevant.


When you combine this with the way Moffat talks about women in real life, all those comments about Clara's appearance are far more distracting. In two episodes, the Doctor has called her "short and mannish," mocked her (supposed) vanity, said that she was "built like a man," and commented that she looked tired and it was good that she was "still making an effort."

The thing is, all these jokes seem to have come out of nowhere. In "Deep Breath," the Doctor says Clara is egocentric and obsessed with her appearance, but we've never seen much evidence of that. Not unless you count the fact that she always has nice hair and clothes, which you could equally have said about Martha back in season 3. Then there's all the unrelated comments about her appearance from characters like Strax, which are apparently just included for laughs.

If this dynamic only existed between Twelve and Clara, then I might accept it as a quirk of their relationship. However, we've already seen plenty of Moffat-era episodes that include things like River advising Amy, "Never let the Doctor see you age." Moffat has a creepy fixation with gender roles and women's looks, and this is inadvertently ruining a characterization detail he introduced in "Deep Breath": Clara's vanity.

I really enjoy the idea of Clara being a little vain about her looks, because it's very rare to see this trait in a "good" female character. It also explains why Clara always looks so pretty all the time, because otherwise we'd have to assume that it's simply because she's a young woman on TV. Sadly, this characteristic is completely undermined if we only ever hear about it in the context of male characters mocking and belittling her for it.

Modern Doctor Who has been very good at providing realistic costumes for its female leads. Rose's hair, makeup and fashion sense all looked appropriate for a 19-year-old girl who grew up in a London council estate. Donna wore clothes that implied she shopped in bog-standard department stores, while Martha, a doctor from a more middle-class family, looked a bit more put-together. Then once we reach the Moffat era, both of Amy's jobs ("kissogram" and fashion model) were based on her attractiveness, so her casual-but-beautiful appearance made sense. But Clara's fashion sense was always a lot harder to pin down, partly because the show failed to tell us much about her as a person.

Compared to the family backstory for Rose or Donna, Clara's background is virtually nonexistent, which didn't help when combined with her shaky characterization in season 7. In her first episode, "Clara Oswald" is actually Oswin the Dalek, who is portrayed by Jenna Coleman in a sexy red dress, perfect makeup and an apron (because she loves to bake). Clara's "real" appearance is a little more toned-down, but is still very pretty and feminine.

In the second episode of the new season, one character remarks that Clara looks like a schoolteacher -- which she is. However, those schoolteacher outfits (patterned dresses, cardigans and cute accessories) alway look very fashionable, which is why I like the idea of Clara taking a lot of pride in her appearance. It explains why she always has such perfect makeup, shiny hair, and great outfits, and I like the idea of a female character who can be heroic and nice, but also kind of vain.

It's just too bad that these traits are accompanied by the Doctor making cracks about her appearance, since this show already includes way too much gender-based humour.

Tweet

Read More