I pretty much can't function until I've had caffeine in the morning. I can muddle through a routine (like getting up, feeding the cats, and driving to the train station), but don't ask me to make any complex decisions without at least a little coffee. This includes, in fact, ordering coffee.
Because today, I accidentally ordered one of those olive oil drinks from Starbucks that they announced a while ago. A friend of mine saw them at the fancy tasting room in April, but I hadn't realized they'd made it to the wild yet. Granted, I live in the PNW (that's "Pacific Northwest" for the uninitiated), so maybe it's still being tested?
Anyway, I was in the drive-through at the start of a morning of errands, and when I saw that a "NEW!" drink had both oatmilk and "toffeenut," I told the barista that took my order I'd "try that new Oleato shaken espresso." I love oatmilk in coffee, and I figured a "toffeenut" syrup would be fairly close to the pistachio flavor that is and always shall be my favorite (and I've tried asking at so many different locations and they claim they don't have the syrup year-round, so ya' girl's gotta substitute).
(Just a heads up, I'm going talk about swallowing and mouthfeel in the next paragraph. Go ahead and "heh" all you want.)
I took my first huge gulp from the straw and wasn't wrong: the combination of the oatmilk and syrup did taste fairly close to a pistachio latte, if less flavorful overall - I could still taste that signature "burnt/overroasted" note that is in all SBux drinks that are lower on the additive/syrup-side (which is one of the reasons the pistachio is my fav, it totally masks that). In that split second, I figured I'd take a few sips to give me the energy I needed to get through my errands, then I'd just add some sweet cream to it when I got home. But almost immediately after swallowing, before the coffee was even down my esophagus, I was taken aback by an almost buttery flavor, instead. And the last moment the coffee was between the roof of my mouth and tongue, there was a greasy mouthfeel that was unexpected, unwelcome, and bizarre. I would have spit it out again if it wasn't already past the point of no return (and if I had had somewhere to do it, considering I was in my car).
Basically how I felt
And then, the aftertaste went from a little buttery to... a lot buttery. Like popcorn the way I eat it, meaning with at least a 1/4 stick of butter melted and tossed onto it. The nuttiness from the syrup was still there, so it wasn't just butter, but it wasn't really pleasant.
Still, you know how when there's an olfactory experience that's not entirely unpleasant, you go in for more? Like a weird or unexpected candle scent that you put down, then reach for again a few times, or a sauce with a single ingredient that maybe doesn't quite jive with everything else but also doesn't render it inedible? That's how this coffee was. It wasn't terrible, it wasn't undrinkable, but it was weird, like the Uncanny Valley of coffees. So I drank some more. And then I noticed a few slimy, green-tinted blobs on the lid, and I honest to Bob groaned, "Oh NOOOO! I ordered that olive oil stuff!" alone, to myself, in my car, because I was so upset about this turn of events.
I thought of the friends I'd talked to about it months ago, how we'd all agreed it was a resounding, "NO THANK YOU!" in:re olive oil in our coffee. And I wasn't sure if they'd laugh with or at me, mostly because I honestly wasn't sure which of those I was yet.
And then, I thought of, of all people, my gorram therapist. And figured she'd tell me to either keep drinking it as-is, or add stuff to it later (like I'd already thought about doing) to make it work for me. No, she and I don't discuss my food or beverage choices on a regular basis, but how I handle upsetting and unexpected events? All the time. So... I decided to stick it out. In the name of that sweet little old lady that gets my fucked up sense of humor. (You bet your ass I'm telling her this story next session.)
And the more I drank, the less off-putting it was. Like an acquired taste, I suppose. I even found I kind of liked it, if you can believe it. And I ended up finishing most of it off by the time I got home, to my own surprise.
But. And I won't go into details, but the whole thing that brought this coffee up with my friends in our group chat was when one of us dropped this story in the chat. And for some reason, I'd forgotten about it all morning, until I pulled up in my apartment parking lot. And it hit me. Like, SUPER hard, and SUPER fast.
Ruh-roh, indeed
I'm usually a take-all-the-bags-at-once kinda person, but I just ran upstairs with my keys and purse and the bag of library books I'd had in the front seat; the rest was just going to have to wait. This was an emergency. And I of course dropped my keys when I was trying to open the door. And I audibly wailed when I had to jump over the Chewy box in our doorway. Which then led to another audible cry, since I pulled my back a few days ago and was almost, almost back to normal; but that little leap hit just the wrong way, so I just rolled back about a day-and-a-half's worth of progress. But I kept going, because I had no choice. Again, this was an emergency, bad back be damned (literally, damn my back!).
Did I make it? I guess that depends on your definition of "make it," now doesn't it?
You, right now
So, I can confirm, even though I'd had a perfectly good morning movement, I still had to make a mad dash to the toilet about two hours after my first sip of this concoction.
And what upset me the most as I eventually went back downstairs to unload the car was how I'd gone through all that, and the damn drink couldn't even hide the shit quality of the coffee they serve up. I mean, come on. If I'm going to have a bathroom emergency and re-tweak my back over some overpriced coffee, it should at least taste amazing, not like it has been sitting in the office decanter, with the coffee maker still in the "on" setting all gorram day.
But of course, after I was done unloading and putting everything away... I finished it. Because I am, at the end of the day, weak. I'm not proud of me, either. Not my best moment. But it was coffee, and it was there. I didn't even bother adding anything to it, either. Not sure why, maybe I subconsciously figured that was the punishment I deserved for finishing it?
This, by the way, is a picture I took of the cup after I tossed the ice.
Look at that.
You, again
Whose ungodly idea was this? What sociopath decided to add olive oil to lattes and shaken espresso? Why on EARTH would anybody think this was a good idea?
(Note: The above questions are rhetorical. I don't give a shit what the actual answers are.)
If you've read this far, I appreciate you sticking with me. Take my advice. Do not get any of these "Oleato" drinks. I repeat.
DO NOT ORDER THE OLEATO DRINKS
Your bowels will thank me later.
Unless you're constipated. In which case, your bowels will thank me for entirely different reasons.
I haven’t ranted blogged in a while, and I was inspired last
month when I watched Ophelia
for the first time. I say “first,” because I watched it again after reading Hamlet
again, ‘natch. And I say “again” because I’ve been a big fan of ol’ Willy
Shakes since I was a kiddo, watching that old HBO series Shakespeare:
The Animated Tales. So I’ve read Hamlet probably a dozen times
over the course of my life, not including when I read it in high school.
Anyway, I was expecting Ophelia to be an absolute dumpster
fire of a movie, but instead, I… loved it? I mean, I wouldn’t have watched it a
second time if I hadn’t enjoyed it, right? But I don’t want to get to ahead of myself,
here.
ii. Plot Summary
You’re probably thinking, “But lo, why wouldst I require a
sumnation when the basest of bacon-fed is privy to the tragedie of Lord Hamlet!”
To which I’d reply, “Fie! Thou dost underestimate the power of artistic
liberty!”
Anyway, so yeah, the plot of Ophelia does differ from
Hamlet enough that a brief rundown is necessary, IMO, otherwise when I
say “when suchansuch happenes," you’ll get confused, since it didn’t happen
in the play. I’ll just list the important differences to make it quick, since the
important beats of the original play are, for the most part, in there. Thusly,
-Ophelia is one of Gertrude’s ladies in waiting (after being
mistaken for a boy as a kid). -There’s a woman in the woods that ends up being the source
of every tonic and poison throughout. She has a deep connection to the royal
family (I’ll save that for later). -Ophelia is the one who figures out Claudius killed the king
and tells Hamlet. -Hamlet and Ophelia have a secret marriage in the
countryside and spend their days dressed as peasants together. -Ophelia drinks a potion that “mimics death, but mocks it”
in order to feign drowning in the river. Horatio digs her up and she goes back
to the palace to try to get Hamlet to run away, but he insists on doing the swordfight
first, promising he’ll “follow” her. (We know what happens to him once he goes
into the room with Laertes, so….) -Ophelia escapes to a convent in the north and raises her
(and presumably Hamlet’s) daughter in peace.
I.i. As Film
Any adaptation of a pre-existing story, whether it be from
the typically central character’s perspective or not, is going to have bits and
reveals that are to be expected, or at least that come about in a sort of, “Oh,
so that’s how they’re doing it here,” way. Ophelia is chock-full
of the latter. And I can’t separate my love of Shakespeare from my feelings for
this movie, no, but here’s the thing: I’ve always loved the play Hamlet,
but up until recently, I found Ophelia the character exhausting, not to mention
patriarchally boring. What I mean is, she has absolutely zero agency and is
entirely at the mercy of the men surrounding her the whole time, and then she
dies, and Hamlet is sad, and Laertes is sad, and…. She was fridge stuffed way
before Gail Simone coined the term, is what I’m saying.
I started warming to her a few years ago when I saw the
National Theatre Live rendition of Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch in a movie theater. The
actress that played Ophelia, Sian Brook, totally broke my heart during the
scene where she gives everyone flowers and sings for the loss of her father and
Hamlet’s affection (IV.v). Her performance helped me grow up a little and see
Ophelia more as a victim of her circumstances than just a lazily/stereotypically-written
character. The tragedy of the original version of Ophelia is that because she
was born a woman, she really couldn’t do anything for herself.
Obviously, Ophelia flips that. Here, she’s an active
participant in her story- her story, not Hamlet’s, nor that of any of
the other men around her. And Daisy Ridley is utterly breathtaking in the depth
and wit she demonstrates. There are subtle flickers of her eyes, turns of one
corner of her mouth that say so much more than Shakespeare ever let Ophelia
say.
This is during her "madness" scene; the way she looks at Gertrude, what she says- I do think she genuinely cares for her; when she says, "...daisies, the day's eye. All-seeing. Someone sees you," I think she earnestly means she, Ophelia, sess how Gertrude is hurting.
Naomi Watts as Gertrude (and another character- we’ll get
there) and George MacKay as Hamlet also were wonderful. George exuded a passion
and longing for Daisey that felt like it belonged in Outlander, and
Watts is never not impressive in anything. I even adored Devon Terell as Horatio,
the steadfast and utterly Good friend to Hamlet- he has a gentleness about him
that screams compassion and intelligence. Clive Owen plays Claudius, and I’ll
get to what I liked about that in a while, too.
They did an excellent job of giving the castle its own
personality. In the primary source material, Hamlet knows everyone is watching
him and, when portrayed well, his sense of claustrophobia seeps out into the
theater. There was a similar feeling here- every time our girl and Hamlet steal
a kiss, it feels like someone is going to walk up to them and catch them at any
moment. When things start to go downhill, you can really feel how unsafe the
castle is for our heroine, Hamlet, and Horatio.
The score is also wonderful and perfectly fits with the mood
and tone they were going for. In the first few seconds of the movie, when
Ridley starts the introductory voiceover and right as the title card pops up, a
woman starts softly chanting these lines from Hamlet:
Doubt thou the stars are fire Doubt that the sun doth move Doubt truth to be a liar But never doubt I love
-II.ii.
It’s the first part of the love letter from Hamlet to
Ophelia that Polonius reads aloud everybody when they’re trying to figure out
what Hamlet’s deal is. This refrain, this haunting chanting, permeates the
soundtrack and echoes in the background constantly throughout the movie, and it’s
a beautiful, loving touch. I’ll get to the fact that it’s a woman/women
chanting it later, but suffice to say, when I first realized what it was, I
literally gasped and put my hand over my heart like some Victorian socialite. Below is the score from the big climax of the movie, and it demonstrates perfectly the intensity and emotion.
All this- my predisposition towards anything Shakespeare-adjacent,
the old-story-through-a-woman’s-eyes, the superb acting, the setting, and the score-
all this meant I cared. I cared so much for these characters. Maybe moreso
because I knew what was going to happen, I can admit that. But man, was I invested
in the melodrama taking place on the screen, and have cried both times I’ve
watched this movie.
I.ii. As Shakespeare Adaptation
Of course, this isn’t anything close to a true adaptation. But
I think a lot of the haters online (and if you look for them, you’ll find them)
aren’t giving the creatives behind it (Lisa Klein, the original book’s author;
Semi Chellas, the screenplay writer; and Claire McCarthy, the director) enough
credit for how they so skillfully wove pieces of the original into this movie,
nor for how their original dialogue was just as smart and clever as Willy
Shakes’s, without being so high-brow you’d need a “No-Fear-Ophelia” to help you
understand.
Take, for example, how in II.ii., Hamlet says to Polonius
(after the latter asks if he recognizes him, since Hamlet has been acting weird
lately), “Excellent well; you are a fishmonger.” (Meaning, “Sure! You sell
fish!”) Then chew on this dialogue the first time Ophelia and Hamlet speak as
adults; Ophelia is swimming in a quiet portion of the river when Hamlet and
Horatio approach, ready to go fishing:
HAMLET: [upon seeing OPHELIA] A wondrous fish indeed inhabits the grove! OPHELIA: [ducked so just the tops of her shoulders and
head are visible] The fish would like to come ashore! HAMLET: Oh, the fish is very welcome! OPHELIA: No fish comes willingly to the fisherman. HORATIO: My Lord, it’s one of the queen’s ladies in waiting. HAMLET: Well then she will not mind waiting ‘til I catch a fish. OPHELIA: Of all of the ladies, I’m least fond of waiting. [OPHELIA moves a little closer, as if to come out of the
water, but stops] OPHELIA: There are two sides struggling in you. One is baser, one better. HAMLET: She tells my fortune, Horatio! OPHELIA: My Lord, it is your misfortune. [the two men kind of wrestle and end up falling in the
water; while they’re distracted, OPHELIA runs away] HAMLET: ‘Tis a quick fish, Horatio!
It’s an absolutely delightful scene that sets up not only
the “fishmonger” thing later, but becomes sort of a running line between the
two- Hamlet tells her “a fish needs water” when offering her wine at a dance, shouts,
“Nymph! where is your water!” when he realizes she’s in the room with him later
still, and they finally tie in an overt “fishmonger” reference during the “play”
scene when he says Polonius has “come to sell me some fish” and comments about
Ophelia, “And what a lovely fish it is.”
There is also a lot of dialogue that is utterly poetic and
beautiful, and could fit in well with Willy Shakes’s work. For example, when
Hamlet sees Ophelia alive, after thinking she was dead, he says to her as he
caresses her face, “You’re like a dream I had… when I woke, it was true…” (literally
tearing up thinking about it, kids).
And there are tons of examples where the
original dialogue directly influences that of the movie. For example, in I.ii.,
when everyone is giving Hamlet a hard time for still wearing mourning colors
for his father:
CLAUDIUS: ‘Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet To give these mourning duties to your father: But, you must know, your father lost a father; That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound, In filial obligation, for some term To do so obsequious sorrow: but to persever In obstinate condolement is a course Of impious stubbornness; ‘tis unmanly grief…
And in the film:
CLAUDIUS: His father lost a father once, who was my father also. We were ever
men about it
The writers took the insincerely saccharine dialogue and
characterization in the primary source material and turned Claudius into a dark,
bruting menace, while still allowing his speech to be a bit poetic.
Or how they trimmed down both Laertes’s long speech in I.iii.,
warning Ophelia about Hamlet’s advances, and (right after) Polonius’s to
Laertes as he advises his son on how to behave before leaving to study in
France. Both are a lot of dialogue, so I won’t recount them here, but suffice
to say, they took around one hundred lines on the page and turned it into about
ten while still absolutely remaining true to the spirit of the original lines.
There are all sorts of other examples, a few of which I’ll
get to later.
One last thing: I’m sure you noticed the “secret wedding”
and “potion that fakes death” parts of my summary. Well, yeah, they did those
things, no doubt taking inspiration from the other play every high schooler has
to read, Romeo and Juliet. They leaned into the “star-crossed lovers”
aspect here, moreso than is present in Hamlet. While sure, Gertrude is
less than thrilled to talk to Ophelia after she loses her mind (IV.v.), she
does say when they’re burying the girl that she had hoped Hamlet would have
married her (V.i.); although the sincerity of the latter can be called into
question, of course, since people do tend to be more generous to others in
death than while they’re still alive. But anyway, the encouragement for them to
be apart in the play seemingly stems just from Hamlet’s erratic behavior
throughout the course of the play’s events, not as a categorical state. In Ophelia,
however, there’s one brief moment where Polonius is excited about the courtship,
since it would elevate their family, but the rest of it is basically everyone
else in the castle (except, of course, Horatio) actively trying to keep them
apart- including Polonius himself later when he insists Ophelia get married off
post-haste.
So the team making this movie fostered an environment more
actively against the pairing of our girl and Hamlet, and used that conflict to
draw parallels with Romeo and Juliet whenever possible. As such, their sneaking
around makes all the more sense here, since they (and Horatio!) were the only
ones actually invested in their happiness.
I.iii. As Art Adaptation
The opening scene from the movie is an overt and direct
homage to one of the most famous paintings of the titular character, that of Ophelia
by John Everett Millais. Here’s the painting:
(1851-52)
And here’s the opening shot:
See it?
And that’s not the only painting referenced. I find it very,
very hard to believe that the 1910 painting by John Williams Waterhouse wasn’t
an additional influence in the imagery. The color scheme of her the majority of
her clothes evokes the third Waterhouse painting with its deep teal blue, but
the red on the sleeves in the painting is alluded to with her cloak, and the
gold on the shoulders is represented in her dress during a ball scene:
He actually made three but this is the one I think they looked at the most
This is her dress at the dance- notice the gold brocade, not unlike the JWH painting
The dress underneath is the main one she wears, and the red cloak there speaks to that same painting
And if you just Google Image search “Ophelia paintings,” you’ll
see that she’s frequently painted with red hair, despite no mention of her hair
color in the primary source; and of course, they put Daisy in a (kind of
crappy, ngl) red wig for this movie. Her hair could have been any other color,
but I think the red was to signify the whole “fiery personality” thing with her,
how she refused to be a pawn or to walk any path forced on her. And in that
image above where she’s dressed up for the ball, just look at how frizzy
that wig is- it’s also a lot like the John William Waterhouse painting.
You’ll also notice how in so many of those paintings that
she’s depicted with flowers in her hair. Her connection to flowers comes from
her final (living) scene (IV.v.) when she gives flowers to Claudius, Gertrude,
and Laertes after losing her mind, and then when Gertrude describes how she died
(IV.vii.), saying Ophelia had made floral wreaths and was trying to hang one on
a branch when she fell in the water, but didn’t try to save herself and let her
gowns cause her to sink. She’s never described in the play as wearing any
(although in truth, Shakespeare’s plays had very little actual stage directions
in them), and a lot of productions don’t even give her flowers to hand out
during her madness scene- the imaginary gifting is meant to emphasize how she
has lost her mind.
The first time we see Ophelia as an adult, she has flowers in her hair, though.
And she demonstrates some herbal knowledge during a scene with Hamlet the first
time he’s home from school (that we see- presumably he comes home every year,
but this is the first time he sees her As a Woman, so…), where she describes belladonna
as “the most deadly nightshade” to him, and then later when she describes what
each flower is for as she hands them out (which yes, she did this latter thing
in the play, too). But something I adored here was those flowers in her hair,
she stops wearing them soon after we first see them- she overhears the other
ladies in waiting gossiping about her, how she wears flowers instead of jewels
because her father is common and can’t afford to give her fancy adornments; she
takes them out of her hair as she brings in water for Gertrude’s bath. When Gertrude
sees them and assumes they’re for her bath, Ophelia’s main antagonist among the
other ladies of course jumps in and acts like it was her idea.
But! Ophelia then puts a long red ribbon in her hair instead of flowers, and during
that same scene where she tells Hamlet about belladonna, he snatches it as she
gets up and walks away, and it becomes his token, something we figure out later
he’s carried with him every day since, even after going back to school. And another
way they rework the source material is instead of “staring” at her in her own
chamber (II.i.), he follows her into Gertrude’s chamber- he had intervened
when she was dealing with some unruly/horny guards, and when she tells him she
was not “in need of saving,” he tries to apologize for making her feel used the
previous summer when he was home from school. She doesn’t really accept said apology,
so he storms into the room in front of Gertrude and the other ladies in waiting
and throws the ribbon at Ophelia’s feet. And this is what causes her to
forgive him- seeing that he kept it with him for nigh a year: she picks it up
when the other ladies aren’t looking and clutches it to her chest.
This is the belladonna scene; also LOOK AT HOW ADORINGLY HE'S STARING AT HER
So either way, what is in her hair matters to the story,
while also referencing other depictions of Ophelia, and I loved it.
II.i. Feminism in a Patriarchal World
This movie definitely strives to bring feminist themes and
ideas into a story that’s usually patriarchal. There’s dialogue that is overtly
feminist, to boot. For example, in the beginning, when Gertrude meets her for
the first time, after having mistaken Ophelia for a boy and everyone says “alas”
about her presentation:
OPHELIA: I may be a lass, but there’s no need for such
alassing. I would not want to be a lad.
(This is also another example of the pseudo-Shakespearean
dialogue, amirite???)
Much later, during the
scene where they officially “get together,” so to speak, the following happens:
HAMLET: Fickle… My mother is like all women. Fickle, frail. OPHELIA: My Lord, you are most unjust. Frailty in love is
not a habit of my sex. Perhaps it runs in families.
Both are small bits of dialogue, but they are direct
statements about how women are more than their stereotypes, and the women in
this movie, at least the three main ones, definitely prove themselves as such.
And Ophelia’s own madness (IV.v.) is in fact Ophelia acting
the part in order to get away from Claudius. Earlier in the film, she had told
Horatio never to dig her up for an anatomy lesson, but very pointedly insists
he do so “while her body is still warm” in this scene. (Shout out to Devon
Terell for the look on his face here.) In other words, what in the primary
source material was a “poor girl” driven mad by the men around her, Ophelia in Ophelia
actually pretends to go mad so she can take charge of her situation. There’s
even a brief moment before she enters the room with everyone where she closes
her eyes and takes a deep breath, as if to prepare herself, much the same way a
performer about to go onstage would.
We also have that chanting in the background- sure, in the
original, they’re Hamlet’s words (and read aloud by another man, Polonius), but
here, they’re repeated sometimes by one woman, others by a chorus of women. Not
only does it somewhat evoke a Greek chorus, but it sort of claims those ideas
and sentiments as Ophelia’s. Since the movie is from her perspective, it stands
to reason the music is, too. Sure, I knew what the words were from the start,
but that’s why it was such a surprise to me- what an absolutely brilliant way
to weave direct lines from the play into the movie while holding to the
feminist perspective.
One of the biggest changes is the addition of the woman in
the woods. Arguably, her story is just as important as Ophelia’s, since without
it, Claudius would have had no poison and Ophelia wouldn’t have been able to
fake her death. Even the moment we find out she exists is feminist. The queen
tells Ophelia to find this woman’s hut to retrieve more of her “tonic” (that
she’s clearly addicted to), and this string of dialogue absolutely delighted
me:
GERTRUDE: In the wood, there is a woman. Go to her tomorrow
and get more of what I need. Make sure you are not followed. No one must know. And
whatever you do, do not look upon her face. OPHELIA: [excited] Because she is a witch? GERTRUDE: [sighs exasperatedly, rolls her eyes, pulls
Ophelia closer to her and looks her square in the eye; says firmly] She is a healer.
The very moment she says, "She's a healer."
Shall we unpack that a little? I don’t think I need to go
into the history of how any woman who put one toe outside the lines of
normality could be accused of
being a witch back in ye olde times. So I absolutely loved how
Gertrude refused to let Ophelia spout that same garbage. Her protectiveness
also, no doubt, stems from how the healer is her own sister, too- YUP. And as
if to emphasize this, later, the woman herself, Mechtild, warns Ophelia when
she sees how in love the girl is:
MECHTILD: You pretend to have a broken heart. That you are
innocent and wounded. But you cannot hide your true self under ladies’ clothes.
You are wild and full of desire. They will strip you, they will judge you, and
they will find you wanting death. They will cast you to the fire. Do you know
why they called me a witch?
She then goes on to tell Ophelia how she had been in love and became pregnant,
and that the town, upon finding out she miscarried out of wedlock, accused
her of bringing the devil. She knew they were going to try to burn her at the
stake, so she drank the venom/poison we hear about constantly in the movie in
order to pretend she was dead- and they bought it, declaring the “devil vanquished”
and leaving her in the middle of nowhere. So she took an antidote and fled. Importantly,
she emphasizes how she survived, but she lost her baby boy. So clearly she had
wanted to keep the baby, despite the community around her.
Mechtild doesn't want what happened to her to happen to Ophelia, clearly- women helping women, another feminist idea!
Ophelia, being our smart girl, puts all of the pieces
together and ends up realizing that not only did Claudius kill the king, since
she saw him leaving Mechtild’s house the day King Hamlet died, but then finds a
vial of that poison in his cloak; she also figures out Claudius was the father
of Mechtild’s child and that he was the one who cried witchcraft when
she miscarried.
This is important later, because when she confronts Claudius
about it, only then does he see her as a genuine threat and plot to get her out
of the way- he goes so far as to declare she committed treason and throws her
in a cell (she gets out, of course, because she’s a badass). Later, when
Horatio digs Ophelia up after her “death,” she has no antidote, so she goes to
Mechtild’s hut. They talk, and Ophelia tells her everything she’s figured out
about Claudius, which naturally pisses Mechtild off (she swears Claudius “shall
burn”); the healer takes Ophelia to rest and sets out to find the Norwegians hiding
in the woods. The next morning, Gertrude is in her sister’s hut and, upon
seeing her, at first thinks Ophelia is a ghost. After they talk and Ophelia
once again tells Naomi Watts (oh yeah, she plays both of them, since they’re
twins) how Claudius killed the king and betrayed her sister, Gertrude begs Ophelia
to forgive her for not standing up for her better and for being blind to Claudius’s
wickedness. It’s a really great scene, and I appreciate how it in itself
absolves Gertrude of any willful duplicity- there’s all sorts of scholarly
debate over whether she was involved in the murder of her first husband with
regards to the primary source, but here, during this conversation, it’s made
clear she didn’t know Claudius had murder on the mind.
This interaction also demonstrates how Gertrude isn’t
stupid. While they discuss how Hamlet is about to duel with Laertes, it’s obvious
she realizes this is what Claudius wants and that he must be plotting
something. And she points out that if Ophelia comes back to the castle, Claudius
will just have her killed. And then she gets this great look in her eye, a sort
of, “Aha!” and we see that she helps Ophelia disguise herself as a man in order
to infiltrate the castle and convince Hamlet to escape.
So then, in the final castle scene, after she’s done
screaming over the body of her dead son, Gertrude has Had Enough. In the play,
Hamlet stabs Claudius after he figures out Laertes’s blade was poisoned; in Ophelia,
Gertrude grabs Hamlet’s sword and runs Claudius through- literally, the sword comes
out the back of the throne. Naomi Watts is impeccable in this scene, of course,
flawless acting, and as she stares right into Claudius’s eyes with rage and
hate, her look changes to shock as she finds the vial of poison in his robes
and she understands even more.
Also, the art department and cinematographers did an EXCELLENT job with this scene, since the colors really are that contrasting. It's a blink-and-you'll- miss-it effect, but the gif really shows how most of the shot is in greys and whites, but the blood is RED
And then who bursts in but her sister with the Norwegians!
And as the soldiers begin slaughtering everyone in the room, Gertrude drinks the
poison and dies in her sister’s arms.
I know that felt like a lot of unnecessary summary, but the
point is to say that Ophelia takes the events in the play, events that
were entirely beholden to men, and makes them the direct result of the actions
of women. Instead of the Norwegians coming into the castle on a diplomatic
visit in the final moments, they storm the throne room with the help of
Mechtild- a woman seeking vengeance for how the man she had loved betrayed her
and would have let her die. And instead of Claudius getting avenged by Hamlet for
his father’s death, he’s killed by Gertrude as vengeance for her sister’s exile
and the deaths of both her former husband and son; and her death, instead of the
result of her being kind of an idiot (she just really wanted some wine),
is the result of an active choice when drinks the poison on purpose. And all of
this comes about because Ophelia is the one that pieces everything
together.
And this is why Ophelia is a feminist retelling.
Remember how I said earlier that Ophelia is the one that tells Hamlet his
father was murdered by Claudius? That’s another example- it wasn’t a dead man’s
ghost that told Hamlet what happened, it was a woman, a woman whose character
in the primary source didn’t serve any purpose except to act as a foil for the
leading man and a character for the others to yank around. The whole thing with
Hamlet feigning madness/acting weird happens in Ophelia because she
told him his uncle killed his father.
(As an aside, the scene where this happens, which in the original
is III.i., the insistence she “get to the nunnery” changes from Hamlet being
cruel to her to Hamlet trying to protect her- he realizes how dangerous the
castle is and wants her to escape, and knowing Claudius and Polonius are
spying, tells her to act afraid of him in order to help her look innocent. It’s
touching, because it removes any lingering suspicion that Hamlet was legitimately
losing it, but also demonstrates his intelligence and ability to think straight
in the middle of a hot moment.)
And so this is also another way the film is a lovingly Shakespearean
adaptation of a Shakespeare play- there’s some dramatic irony in that if
Ophelia hadn’t figured it out, if she hadn’t told Hamlet, maybe things could
have ended differently. But even so, as I said, Ophelia, Mechtild, and Gertrude
all rise above their stereotypes. Ophelia proves an active participant in her
story at every step of the way; Mechtild isn’t just a “witch” but a powerful herbalist
whose smarts lead to the overthrow of a kingdom; and Gertrude isn’t just the
vapid, vain woman she seems, but a fierce protector who kills for the sake of
those she has loved. And the ball really starts rolling when the women stop
being at odds with each other and instead realize the real enemy is Claudius. All
the while, the overtones and drama involved are in themselves Shakespearean.
III.i. Disclaimer and Conclusion
No, it isn’t perfect. I do find it pretty inconsistent that
Ophelia is ready to jump off the parapets when she thinks Rosencrantz and
Guildenstern had killed Hamlet (Horatio gets her to come down, bless that sweet
man), then willingly walks away when he’s about to duel with Laertes. Also,
considering Laertes is her brother, the smarter way to prevent that fight would
have been to talk to him.
Also, I understand why the book would include the forced
marriage subplot (it’s a book, it would just need more), but in the movie, it
felt like it was only there for the purpose of setting up that opening shot where
she’s in the water in a whiteish dress. Along those lines, the fact that the
dude she was supposed to marry was kind of… well, didn’t respect consent, was
unnecessary, too. There’s enough melodrama already, the threat of sexual
violence against the women in the castle was superfluous.
I’m also a bit disappointed we didn’t get to see more of the
relationship with Laertes. He isn’t in the play all that much to begin with,
and he’s in Ophelia even less, and that made me sad. Especially given
how much Hamlet genuinely cares for him in the original, and how he is
well-known and liked enough to amass a mob and threaten to overthrow the castle
after his father dies. A movie from Ophelia’s perspective is also a chance to
get more of what made Laertes such a stand-up guy, or at least show how close
they supposedly were. It doesn’t happen here, alas.
But. I still adore it. I’d put it on the shelf right next to
Ever After and Clueless. I didn’t talk about some other themes,
like familial loyalty, motherly love, and what giving one’s word truly means
(H: I swore vengeance. O: You swore to love me and be mine. - for example!). But I’ve
rambled enough here, and I hope that, if you haven’t watched it yet, you will; or
that if you have and felt meh about it, you’ve decided maybe it wasn’t as bad
as you thought.
I've had this thought for a while now, and with my state announcing its vaccine schedule recently, I can't sleep without putting my thoughts down. Indulge me.
Also, I know this is going to piss people off, but...
Ok, so the gist is this: In the conversations and suggestions about who will get the vaccine and when (eg. here, here, and even the CDC), there is no mention of people in the service industry (namely retail and restaurants) and their place in the pecking order. The closest I can come by is this recommendation from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that people who work in gyms, banks, and hotels should be included in "Phase 3," meaning the third wave of mass vaccinations.
But nothing about servers, cooks (etc.), or cashiers outside of grocery stores and pharmacies, which are considered essential. Nobody in restaurants (which, no, are not part of the food supply chain- that's farmers and distributors, not cooks and servers). Nobody in regular retail. Nobody that was forced to work the holiday season because that's the nature of their industry's beast.
I'm by no means insinuating someone like me that sells lotion and candles is as, let alone more important than, say, a nurse or a firefighter.
But the fact is, myself and countless others like me are utterly trapped.
We're hourly wage workers, some of us surviving on tips, who don't get paid if we're not there, who don't get PTO, are lucky if we earn sick time, who have to fight tooth and nail for every goddamned CENT over our local minimum wage. Our jobs aren't considered "essential" writ large, but they're sure as Hell "essential" to us- and, by their nature, they physically, literally cannot be done remotely/from home. So we're forced to go to work every day, and deal with the public- people we can't control and have no viable way of enforcing safety guidelines with, who whine and complain and find any excuse to take their mask off and get up in our space (something I hated even before there was a plague, mind you). Which means we're putting ourselves at risk the whole time. And our country's safety net is too shallow and fleeting for us to "just stay home"- there has been no help with our rent (and let's be real, us wage workers don't have mortgages); food aid is scant, especially if you don't have children; Unemployment benefits run out, and on their own, they aren't enough for us to live off of, not realistically, anyway.
(Also, this is a good time to remind you, the fact that the extra $600 a week meant most of us were making more money on Unemployment last summer when we were furloughed or otherwise stuck at home says more about how little we're paid on the regular vis a vis cost of living than our "lack of skill" or whatever the hell else was being said about us. Fuck you if you're still angry about that.)
We're risking our lives in order to pay our bills and, yeah, just survive.
And again, I'm not saying my job is as dangerous as a hospital worker's, nor that it's as important as a nursing home employee's.
But I just find it terribly disheartening and, frankly, terrifying, that an entire class of people is being ignored and forgotten, and that I and the man I love are part of that group.
And even as we went back to work, nobody was talking about protecting us from shit like this:
Or this:
And since a lot of us work for big companies that don't want to rock the boat, no matter how much we hear that "[our] safety is [their] number one priority," we're still pressured to smile (with our eyes!) and take it when customers don't comply, for fear of losing our jobs.
Again. I'm not saying I, or anyone else in retail/the service industry "deserves" the vaccine before the elderly, before grocery store workers, before first responders.
But it would be nice, and I'd sleep a helluvalot better if someone would at least acknowledge us and admit that maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't be left to fend for ourselves. That this economy needs us, too. That we have value as people. That we're seen.
I feel alone. I feel scared.
I don't want to go to work in these conditions, but I have zero choice in the matter. And because of my age and lack of complicating conditions (despite my laundry list of health problems, somehow none of them are really Covid-related), I'll be one of the last eligible for the vaccine. As will my partner, with whom I live. Even though we're out there, every day, interacting with strangers to earn our living.
Ok, we're going to play a quick word association game. I'll leave a word for you to read, and I want you to hold tight to the first VISUAL CUE that pops in your mind in response. For example, if I say "fruit," and you picture an apple, you'd keep that appple in mind for discussion. Ready? Scroll down to the word, then scroll some more to get to the rest of this newest rant of mine. As you read, remember what popped into your head, though, ok? It's going to matter in a while, I promise.
ACCESSIBILITY
Main Post
First, a little vocab/slang lesson: "Git gud" is a phrase in the gaming community to indicate becoming/getting better at a game. As the Dictionary.com definition elaborates, it is often said to people in online forums who may be experiencing difficulty with a game and (arguably making the mistake of) soliciting tips from their brethren. In the worst cases, it's flung as an elitist, intentional insult at these people looking for help, and often paired with the noun "casual," meant to imply they don't really care about or play games much, as in, "Git gud, you f***ing casual, and gtf outta here with that blubbering!" The implication with all of this is that the person struggling with the game either isn't trying hard enough/ is looking for a shortcut, don't deserve any help, since they only play games "casually," not serious like these real gamers, and/or isn't good enough at video games to warrant any consideration (or even to play the game in question).
I'm trying to finish Bloodborne for the first time, and I almost gave up yesterday. I was stuck on a boss fight in the DLC (extra stuff you can download, sort of like an epilogue), the last one of the DLC, in fact. My boyfriend assures me that since this is the last DLC boss, and the next two bosses are the last two of the official, original game, they'll be easier. But given the slog I've gone through to get to this asshole and how GODDAMNED FLUSTERED I got with a few of the other bosses, especially the DLC ones, the idea of having nothing but bosses left really deflates me. A lot. I've loved the game so far, for the most part- it's gothic/Lovecraftian (with a little H.G. Wells, imo) horror at its finest, and five years later, the graphics and sound design are still uncannily beautiful. Boss fights I did enjoy, I was elated every time I was victorious. But I only beat the boss before this one because she glitched and somehow got stuck in a wall, and if I'm honest, I didn't feel as disappointed with this outcome as I wished I had- part of me wished I'd noticed the glitch in time and had beat her outright, but I was mostly relieved I didn't have to try anymore. And that flies in stark contrast to this "git gud" culture- I didn't earn that victory, after all. But the boss before her? I wasn't happy when I beat him, I was relieved. Relieved it was finally frakking over with him. So this one I just finally beat yesterday? I had to have tried close to 100 times, based on the number of consumables I went through. And when I finally did win, I was numb, unexcited, and attributed it more to luck than anything else (a similar feeling I had two bosses ago). And like I said, the trouble is, now that I'm finished the most recent, all that's left is two more main game bosses. And the idea of more boss fights, more dying to the exact same dude over and over and over again is just flat-unappealing to me. "Sense of accomplishment" be damned. I'm centimeters away from having none of that so much as just strait-up solace that I'm finally fucking done.
For the uninitiated, Bloodborne is by From Software, whose games are notoriously brutal- not just in the gore, but in their difficulty. In fact, there isn't even a difficulty setting in their games- you just start and that's that. So I'm certainly not the first person that had a hard time getting through this or any of their other titles. And I don't think it's a coincidence that if you Google Image Search "git gud," roughly half of the images/memes, from what I can tell, feature various characters/images from their main series, Dark Souls. (Same if you look for "git gud meme," too.) The image I linked to in the above paragraph features two, and if you can't read it, the post at the bottom of the clipboard is an actual tweet from PCGamer, where they posted a link to this article here, which is about beating the final boss in From Software's newest title using a modification to actually slow the game itself down- and being unashamed of the fact.
This game in question, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice led to a lot of debate in the gaming world over "gitting gud." It started, arguably, with this piece by Dave Thier, calling for an easy mode because, basically, a game's difficulty is only one part of its experience, and by making a game, any game, so difficult that only "serious" and/or "talented" gamers could get through it excludes a huge portion of people from enjoying the rest of what the game has to offer. Remember how I said Bloodborne had a great setting, sound design, etc.? That stuff. The story, us N00bs and "casuals" would miss out on stuff like that. Thier's colleague Erik Kain wrote his own, direct rebuttal of Thier's article the next day. A big part of his argument is that the creators at From Software want to teach players about overcoming obstacles and triumphing in the face of adversity. That the sense of accomplishment after beating a boss on the umpteenth try is an integral part of the games themselves, so it absolutely cannot be removed. And while there were lots of pieces on Thier's side and others on Kain's, FromSoftware kept pretty quiet about the whole thing.
Given what I've said about Bloodborne, you can probably guess where I fall. I'm kind of bitter that these "great" games are pretty much out of my reach because I'm not "gud" enough to play them, no matter how long I play and how hard I try. How much I've struggled to get through Bloodborne has made me earnestly reassess if I should play a few other games, games I watched my boyfriend play parts of that had me on the edge of my seat because the stories were so beautiful and rich, stories I wanted to experience for myself. And that makes me genuinely sad, and yeah, like I said, bitter.
And if you've looked at those (and maybe looked at other?) articles I linked, you'll see the word "accessibility" in some more than others. And my issue is that even the Reddit post by the person with a fine motor disability assumes everyone else can learn to play difficult games without any adaptations, and by implication, any video game out there. That every person who wants to experience the world-building, character development, design, etc. has the same level of capability, and not just when it comes to how "gud" they are, but physically. That any "can't" they encounter is one of the mind, basically. Kane uses the word "anyone" four times in his essay, which is a lot, considering really isn't all that long (certainly shorter than my stuff, womp-WOMP). And I sympathize with that Reddit user and am excited they have figured out how to get around their disability. But not "everyone" and not "anyone" can, and, the truth is, a lot legitimately can't- at least, not without help.
ANYONE GETS TO PLAY
That's the rub with this "git gud" culture- it assumes everyone is on equal footing when it comes to the capability of completing a game (and having fun at it). As that definition I linked above goes on to say, it's implicitly ableist because of this- it disregards the possibility that the individual may have a disability by assuming "git gud" is what errbody should be doin'. Plus it can be just plain rude, too. I mean, I understand sometimes it's a joke between friends, but when someone earnestly asks for help online and a stranger says something like, "Huh, I thought that boss was super easy, beat 'im on my first try, I just ran in and whomped his ass, so maybe just git gud?" is not only super showoff-ee, but also extremely dismissive. But anyway, the ableist aspect is what I'm more focused on, here.
"Git gud" isn't the only ableist rhetoric in gaming. The erroneous and unfounded diagnoses of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) were frequently thrown at the women and people of color demanding more inclusivity in video games during GamerGate, as were countless insults involving "crazy" and "batshit," and threats of violence against some of the more outspoken members of the feminist community referenced being sure not to leave the victim "too retarded to be afraid of us." And as this great article in Disability Studies Weekly points out, using mental health diagnoses and rhetoric to discredit one's opponents is nothing new in general. But it's clearly nothing new to the gaming community specifically. I'm a "crazy-ass bitch" for saying games need more POC and women leads (true story), and "anyone" can "git gud," so inclusivity and accessibility aren't actually important- people are just using people with disabilities for their oppressive and "narcissistic" agendas.
Think back to the start of this post. What image popped in your head when I flashed "ACCESSIBILITY" in front of you? I think a lot of people would picture ramps, big bathroom stalls, curb cuts, maybe even the International Symbol of Access.
Was it anything like this, though?
If not, that's ok! It's why we're here. That right there is the XBox Adaptive Controller. It is designed to interface with assistive technology the user may already have (or can conveniently also purchase from Microsoft, 'natch!) in order to help people with physical/mobile disabilities play video games more easily.
You see, accessibility in gaming goes so. Much. Farther. Than just difficulty level. It has to do with sound, with color, with text, with how the controls themselves work, with core aspects of functionality and gameplay in a lot of instances. Adaptive controllers can do wonders for helping people that cannot hold a standard controller correctly or (or use it efficiently or for very long as-is) play the same games as everyone else. Importantly, stuff like this isn't just beneficial for people with severe conditions that lead to paraplegia - I've had a few friends with various and severe conditions like chron's disease, different forms of arthritis, and other conditions that can lead to joint pain, fatigue, and nausea. Adaptive tech like this could help them play more games, and for longer stints. Adaptive tech can also help blind people play games, as well.
Which brings me to the highly anticipated The Last of Us Part II. CNet reported a few days ago that it is going to include massive accessibility customization, over sixty different in-game settings players can customize in order to accommodate a range of disabilities- visual, aural, mobile, and whatever combination present- so options go beyond just increasing subtitle size and changing the contrast, but completely altering what the buttons on the control do and which ones are even required. Players can choose from a handful of preset mods, then go into those and tweak them to tailor the game even closer to their needs. All of this will make Last of us II the most accessible game ever.
For real, tho
This isn't the first time game studio Naughty Dog stepped up and made an exceptionally accessible game. As the story goes, one of their developers met Josh Straub, a game lover and game accessibility consultant with Cerebral Palsy, at a conference. At the event, he told this developer, Alexandria Neonakis, that while he loved the Uncharted series, he had been unable to finish Uncharted 2 because of a QuickTime sequence toward the end where button mashing was necessary to progress, but his CP made it impossible for him to do so. The experience of being unable to finish that game without help from an able-bodied friend led him to start his website where he and a colleague review games with a heavy emphasis on accessibility in mind. Telling Neonakis about it led to him being a consultant for Naughty Dog and, ultimately, one of the first AAA games to include an accessibility menu at all in 2016's Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (the honor of first goes to 2014's Destiny).
And game developer behemoth Electronic Arts (EA) is dedicated to improving accessibility in its games, having gone so far as to create a position called "Accessibility Lead" in the company hierarchy itself. And what started as just a portal to provide accessibility feedback has led to an entire information warehouse, discussion board home, and troubleshooting community on their website.
So this is great. A few steps forward for inclusivity and accessibility in video games.
But what sucks is it's taken this long for it to happen, and Naughty Dog's extensive accessibility menu shouldn't be unique or special, but the norm. And as awesome as it is for them and EA to go to such great lengths, not enough studios are doing so. Not enough games have options to change or get rid of QuickTime events like the one preventing Straub from finishing a game he had loved up until that moment. Not enough games have ways to change how the controller is used to accommodate mobility issues. Not enough games have ways to modify gameplay/combat in order to require less fine motor dexterity or allow for one-handed control use. And far too many games wait until months (or even years) after the original release to patch in mods as simple (and dare I say obvious?) as subtitle size changes, options that should be available from the start.
Limited options, ironclad gameplay, minimal changes to controller configurations- stuff like this leads to people with disabilities either not playing, or having an experience much like Straub's, where they encounter a game mechanic/sequence they can't get past because its demands are outside the scope of their range of capability- and they have to quit. If you've ever rage quit a game because it was too difficult and don't have a disability, imagine how crappy people with disabilities feel when a game they were enjoying suddenly does a thing or has a sequence they just can't get past.
Now THAT'S what I call a "SCREENSHOT'
Imagine knowing you can't even try a video game you were looking forward to because you're aware you won't be able to finish it.
So when talking about making an "easy" mode for a game, it isn't just about difficulty per se. If it can make gameplay less physically demanding on a player, more (not every, of course) people with disabilities may be able to give it a feasible try. Add to that the need for more adaptive hardware, and the issue becomes even more frustrating.
So let's circle back to that XBox controller. Did you look at that price? Or the price of the accessories that go with? This is another huge problem: The lack of industry development revolving around accessibility means officially-licensed products are prohibitively expensive- and as of now, that XBox controller is the only one, although some ingenious people figured out how to make it work on the Nintendo Switch. And tools that aren't licensed (so, y'know, literally everything else) are entirely custom-made by individuals with disabilities themselves, those that care about them (as this article elucidates), or charity organizations specializing in making adaptive controllers and setups- so, again, pretty damn expensive. In other words, access to these accessibility tools is, ironically, extremely limited.
And this is something that really needs to be worked on, too. Mods and settings in-game can only go so far to help people with severe enough physical disabilities play video games, and why should they be excluded from enjoying the same stories as "anyone" else? Adaptive and assistive technology is absolutely paramount to increased accessibility in video games.
The good news is, Josh Straub isn't the only disability consultant out there specifically working with video game developers. One of the other most influential consultants is Ian Hamilton, who apparently got started after seeing kids playing a game he had been working on using adaptive/assistive technology, and now he has become a huge name in the industry. And these free-to-use Game Accessibility Guidelines are up and available for any developer to reference as they design their games.
And as mentioned before, there are charities that offer adaptive and assistive technologies. AbleGamers is an American group that even has grants to help gamers pay for equipment; Special Effect is a UK-based charity that does the same. And there are lots of different reviewers focused on accessibility. Straub's website is focused on physical disability and console gaming; this gentleman, also with CP, focuses more on PC games and has just started consulting. Brandon Cole plays and reviews games (his current method of choice is PS4) as a blind player, and has also done lots of consulting (including with powerhouse Ubisoft), and he also co-founded a great site to help bring gamers with disabilities and their allies together.
I do want to clarify something, here. I'm not saying me being a mediocre gamer is the same as having a disability and needing accommodations. (And like, come on, really? If you think that, you really need to read more of this blog because we obviously don't know each other in person and thus you have no idea who I am and what I'm like.) But what I am saying is creating more accessibility in games will allow far more people, disabled or not, enjoy them. And honestly, if nothing else, all that will do is increase profit margins for developers and studios, so aside from the humanistic perspective, there's the capitalist angle, too!
What can you do? Well, donate to those charities and anybody trying to freelance as a consultant or disabled game reviewer, for one. Also, be vocal, be it in person or online. If you see a feature in a game that would be great for someone with a particular disability, let the studio know! If you see something that wouldn't, let them know that, too. If you're a gamer and talking about development with a friend or group of friends, bring up accessibility. Educate them. And just...
