cassie ainsworth & redemption rejection

this is just some Skins gibbering, mostly character- and not plot-based, which I think is interesting in terms of ideas of covering (or "disability redemption").



me: that was me being a bitch like oh wow but fuck you style
have I mentioned that's like my favorite line ever?
Joshua: haha, it's a good moment. I dunno Jal is being kind of patronising, and though she never deserved to be the target of evil Cassie, you can see why that would hit Cassie's angry spot!
me: like, it sort of reminds me of having to act really cute to make up for being disabled
Joshua: nice interpretation
me: that's what "oh wow but fuck you" means to me.
Joshua: and like.. even more charitable to S2 Cassie than I usually am.. which is very charitable.
me: oh I mean, I don't necessarily mean that's what she means. it's just sort of what it means to me. Like, I think she just says oh wow because she always says it, and then she gets to the actual content of what she's saying, which is fuck you. But to me like oh wow is a very important line, even though people act like it's stupid and annoying, it means something really important.
me: I remember once telling Ari that I liked working with severely disabled people because lots of the people I worked with hugged everyone they met, and for some reason I'd observed this was more common in adults than kids with similar disabilities
Joshua: like they feel they have to be like that?
me: and Ari suggested that some people are very isolated and it's like "oh wow a person! I never get to interact with a person!" He said something like, "I hope the next generation of pwds can decide that they're not particularly interested in someone or they don't like them"
I think this is interesting in terms of how Cassie is introduced in the first episode. I haven't seen it in a while, but I think she hugs tony, possibly hugs sid, and then hugs abigail--"YOU'RE SO LOVELY!!!"
the plot thickens!
then obviously throughout the season there's the constant "oh wow" and manic pixie dream girl reactions to everything--coupled with starving, suicide attempts which often seem in her cases to be engineered to hurt people or cause as much trouble as possible, and occasional moments of being pretty mean or pissed off.
me: I am sort of getting this from you because I remembered when you said that Cassie doesn't really change from s1-s2, not in a deep way.
Joshua: No she really doesn't.
me: yeah so in conclusion, the line "Oh wow, but fuck you" line means a lot to me because it's almost like Cassie sort of rejecting the things that she previously did to try to "earn" people's friendship and support.
Joshua: Cassie would not mean nearly as much to me without s2 as much as I love S1 Cassie. If she'd been left at that without the contrast of S2 she'd be a standard Manic Pixie Dream and a fairly borderline offensive idealised picture of mental illness.

Joshua: I was wondering, do you see anything disabled metaphory about Prisioner of Azkaban?
me: about who?
I mean, Lupin duh, do you mean other people?
Joshua: cos my favourite part of the book was hearing about how James, Sirius and Peter turn themselves into animagi to understand and help Lupin with his "condition" I thought it was really touching and poetic. But like, is that like magical crip drag or just magical.. being willing to see the world from a disabled persons perspective rather than trying to make them "normal"?
me: that's always been my favorite chapter in any of the books, I used to read it over and over when I was a kid
like, I think James and Sirius are kind of like Freddie and Cook
well, you won't get to this for a while
but I feel like Remus is often characterized as feeling like he doesn't have a right to his own opinions because he owes them so much
Joshua: ooohh I love that analogy
the Freddie/Cook/JJ one
me: well, I think given stuff Remus says later, it makes a lot of sense.
um...yeah
I wouldn't call it crip drag or anything like that
I think I wouldn't exactly call it goodness or kindness, totally--but maybe that's what Remus needed
Joshua: no, I didn't think it was, but I thought i'd speculate that possibility!
me: like, they were doing it for fun, partly. I think they didn't totally get it
Joshua: were James and Sirius kind of dicks when they were young? I haven't read to this bit but I've had some naughty wiki glancing
me: I may be projecting/imagining, but I feel like James and Sirius probably didn't understand how much Remus didn't think turning into an animal was fun
Joshua: weren't*
me: so, hm, maybe we will call it crip drag
yup!
and Remus was afraid to say anything
me: JK Rowling also said this: "Lupin’s failing is he likes to be liked. That’s where he slips up – he’s been disliked so often he’s always pleased to have friends so he cuts them an awful lot of slack."

(by the way, here is very long post/essay I wrote on the Skins livejournal community about my love for JJ, which at some points discusses JJ's unequal relationship with Freddie and Cook.)

I hope everyone is reading Josh's tumblr posts today. I read one and went back to sleep and then there were MORE!

Buffy, Faith, and Camus
..ok sorry to go on about this but more Buffy thoughts.
..I mean I’m not saying Willow is an elitist, classist bitch

The initial crime that marks her out and separates her from the Scooby Gang is not so much accidental manslaughter but not displaying a socially normative emotional reaction to a traumatic event...I’m sure the well meant concern and flapping from the Scoobies, and having Buffy’s deeply empathic grief thrust at her pours considerable salt on this alienation. Perhaps if they’d not made a value judgement on Faith’s psyche, she wouldn’t have become what- from that moment- they feared she may well be?

A++