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who is the slave and who is the master?
"Hey Orly why is it you can't concentrate on work or go run errands like you planned to over your lunch break or do some rp? Is it because parental health stresses remain unescapable?"
...ANYWAY LET'S TALK ABOUT FULL SPOILERS FOR LUPIN III: THE WOMAN CALLED FUJIKO MINE
Obviously, there is a lot to talk about in the style alone, in the way Fujiko's very changeability becomes a fleshed out character when the focus is on her and her actions, did I mention the style and the film influences it uses, in what it means to do 'darker and grittier' with a franchise like Lupin and with women in charge of it...
but look I'm just still SO HIGH on that ending after finally seeing the last 4 episodes a month ago that I can't contain it
For the entire series, we are teased with Fujiko's mysterious, traumatic past, with Fujiko seemingly actively running from it and trying to confront it at once, and other characters (okay, mostly Lupin) determined to unravel it and the whole conspiracy behind it. And it turns out to be a vast conspiracy, something that honestly seems ridiculous in scale.
Which is, of course, the point. It's an impossible, ridiculous weight - the trauma that 'strong female characters' are expected to endure and constantly deal with as the price of any power and, often, the license to be sexual. It's Black Widow, it's Lisbeth Salander, it's Vesper Lynd, it's the Bride, it's whatever the lead in Red Sparrow is named. It is a weight placed on girls, and then on the women they become, by the full institution of the patriarchy. And then perpetuated by the victims as well, because they can't escape from the cycle.
Which is, of course, why it's not Fujiko's backstory at all. It's just what she was brainwashed into believing, by someone who did suffer that abuse and has been unable to escape.
Thievery and casual sex? It's not a reaction to any trauma, it's just how Fujiko wants to live her life. And she will take the complete freedom to continue that way. She will bring others along with her.
It's the most MASSIVE 'fuck you' to every male-written 'strong female character' and femme fatale and I don't think I'll ever be over it.
I also think that in the end, the series embraces and justifies the presence of Oscar through all of this. How he's positioned in the final two episodes is tragic and treated as such (he had tried to wrest control of his narrative back, and then still ended up someone's puppet anyway), and the nature of that tragedy clearly aligns him with victims of the patriarchy. I wouldn't blame people for still finding his character homophobic and/or transphobic, but I do think that he's there both as a foil to Fujiko and to point out that queer people are also the subjects of this kind of treatment.
...ANYWAY LET'S TALK ABOUT FULL SPOILERS FOR LUPIN III: THE WOMAN CALLED FUJIKO MINE
Obviously, there is a lot to talk about in the style alone, in the way Fujiko's very changeability becomes a fleshed out character when the focus is on her and her actions, did I mention the style and the film influences it uses, in what it means to do 'darker and grittier' with a franchise like Lupin and with women in charge of it...
but look I'm just still SO HIGH on that ending after finally seeing the last 4 episodes a month ago that I can't contain it
For the entire series, we are teased with Fujiko's mysterious, traumatic past, with Fujiko seemingly actively running from it and trying to confront it at once, and other characters (okay, mostly Lupin) determined to unravel it and the whole conspiracy behind it. And it turns out to be a vast conspiracy, something that honestly seems ridiculous in scale.
Which is, of course, the point. It's an impossible, ridiculous weight - the trauma that 'strong female characters' are expected to endure and constantly deal with as the price of any power and, often, the license to be sexual. It's Black Widow, it's Lisbeth Salander, it's Vesper Lynd, it's the Bride, it's whatever the lead in Red Sparrow is named. It is a weight placed on girls, and then on the women they become, by the full institution of the patriarchy. And then perpetuated by the victims as well, because they can't escape from the cycle.
Which is, of course, why it's not Fujiko's backstory at all. It's just what she was brainwashed into believing, by someone who did suffer that abuse and has been unable to escape.
Thievery and casual sex? It's not a reaction to any trauma, it's just how Fujiko wants to live her life. And she will take the complete freedom to continue that way. She will bring others along with her.
It's the most MASSIVE 'fuck you' to every male-written 'strong female character' and femme fatale and I don't think I'll ever be over it.
I also think that in the end, the series embraces and justifies the presence of Oscar through all of this. How he's positioned in the final two episodes is tragic and treated as such (he had tried to wrest control of his narrative back, and then still ended up someone's puppet anyway), and the nature of that tragedy clearly aligns him with victims of the patriarchy. I wouldn't blame people for still finding his character homophobic and/or transphobic, but I do think that he's there both as a foil to Fujiko and to point out that queer people are also the subjects of this kind of treatment.