Oh, RaceFail... I'm a couple of days behind on following rydra_wong's links, but I'll be catching up soon. What good I can say that's come out of all that horrible fail is the new writing and fandom and publishing projects by POC like verb_noire. As a woman of color, I'm disheartened yet unsurprised about what's gone on with the fandom steel cage match; Summer Glau (who plays Cameron on T:SCC) is non-POC, to my knowledge. I remember back when I was becoming disillusioned with Firefly I looked her up, but there's hardly one Asian actor who has lines in English in either the TV series or the film. I'm so glad for people like you and nextian who are pushing back against the long tide of Everybody Loves the White Guys Best. Which inspired me to think about my favorite character of color, Detective Meldrick Lewis... and since I love him so much, I ended up writing more than I originally meant to. If you're still up for icon-making, I would love textless iconery of Lewis. I have a selection of images here (http://pics.livejournal.com/ticketsonmyself/gallery/000046qw). ScrapBook is goofy sometimes, so if the gallery or any images don't appear, just hit reload a few times until they do. It really does work!
(This was originally supposed to be a comment to nextian's meme, so I've mostly tried to avoid spoilers; I didn't finish it for the other characters I wanted to write about, though I may yet do so...)
The TV series of my heart is Homicide: Life on the Street (David Simon's stint with television prior to The Wire) through about season 4, episode 18 or 19. (I, uh, take most episodes in the later seasons as my painkiller-induced fever dream or something.) I love the early seasons, before everything started coming down and while the show has more of an ensemble feel—though that's more true of seasons 1 and 2—I totally love the first season finale, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." By ensemble I mean the overall sense of a cranky family-like group with believable tensions related to race, class, and gender running through it, but which works on a daily basis and which, almost despite themselves, can inspire individual members to exceed themselves, to really DO BETTER. As Frank Pembleton says far more eloquently in season 4, and convinces Tim Bayliss to stay because of it! That type of ensemble feel is one possible gold standard of what I look for in a cast of characters.
I love Meldrick Lewis and his partnership with Mike Kellerman (even though I couldn't find any good pictures of them together!): their sometimes-grumpy but mostly good-natured banter in season 4; the great sense of initial awkwardness and the sharp edges that end up jostling together and clicking in a way that works; the tensions between them that the show keeps sparking; the almost easy, casual, real closeness they achieve despite those tensions, before the end of the season. I'm really fond of their chemistry. Whether it's comfortable, bluntly challenging, or volatile, actors Clark Johnson and Reed Diamond sell it. I like that Kellerman really, really wants to be partners—however you want to define that, and I'd totally push that limit, just like Kellerman keeps pushing it!—and Lewis isn't immune to that. There's a lot that goes unspoken, but that's a lot that's still real.
rant for the win! (part 1)
(This was originally supposed to be a comment to
The TV series of my heart is Homicide: Life on the Street (David Simon's stint with television prior to The Wire) through about season 4, episode 18 or 19. (I, uh, take most episodes in the later seasons as my painkiller-induced fever dream or something.) I love the early seasons, before everything started coming down and while the show has more of an ensemble feel—though that's more true of seasons 1 and 2—I totally love the first season finale, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes." By ensemble I mean the overall sense of a cranky family-like group with believable tensions related to race, class, and gender running through it, but which works on a daily basis and which, almost despite themselves, can inspire individual members to exceed themselves, to really DO BETTER. As Frank Pembleton says far more eloquently in season 4, and convinces Tim Bayliss to stay because of it! That type of ensemble feel is one possible gold standard of what I look for in a cast of characters.
I love Meldrick Lewis and his partnership with Mike Kellerman (even though I couldn't find any good pictures of them together!): their sometimes-grumpy but mostly good-natured banter in season 4; the great sense of initial awkwardness and the sharp edges that end up jostling together and clicking in a way that works; the tensions between them that the show keeps sparking; the almost easy, casual, real closeness they achieve despite those tensions, before the end of the season. I'm really fond of their chemistry. Whether it's comfortable, bluntly challenging, or volatile, actors Clark Johnson and Reed Diamond sell it. I like that Kellerman really, really wants to be partners—however you want to define that, and I'd totally push that limit, just like Kellerman keeps pushing it!—and Lewis isn't immune to that. There's a lot that goes unspoken, but that's a lot that's still real.