cara

My Dad will be 64 this autumn. My Dad is a die-hard Republican. My Dad was a Southern Baptist pastor for nearly 30 years. And my Dad is a Sherlock fan.

He’s always had TV shows he enjoyed (I grew up on Star Trek.. it was kind of Our Thing), but he’s mostly a passive fan. The kind who is willing to wait patiently until the next season of something airs and suddenly remembers, two hours prior, that today’s the day.

So when my Dad called me a couple weeks ago, voice a little tremulous, begging me to send him a link whereby he could stream Sherlock series 3 and bypass the PBS waiting period, I happily sent him the best one I’d found. He didn’t want to wait, he wanted to watch it NOW, and I could respect him for that. It was a pleasant surprise, him loving the show so much he had to watch it NOW.

Today, I finally got the chance to ask him about it.

I was bouncing on my toes, excited to be fangirling about my fave show with my own father. “What did you think, Dad?”

I didn’t expect him to get a little choked up. His next words blew my mind.

He said, “Sweetie, I’m old. Set in my ways. I was taught, and adhered to, a certain way that people should be with each other. I preached it, and I voted in light of it, and I taught it to you and your sister. But I watched this show. And I watched these two men fall in love with each other. And the only thing I could think was, ‘These two souls are meant to be together’. Sherlock Holmes and John Watson are… soulmates. Over my years as a pastor, I’ve seen couples get married.. And couples get divorced.. It happens. But I’ve never seen two people who were more perfectly designed to fit together, and it broke my heart to see it not happen for them. I’m sorry I’ve been such an ass.”

Given that it was a brave moment, I blurted out, “Dad, I’m bisexual.”

And he turned to me and smiled, tears in his eyes, and said, “Just… be happy.”

Don’t fret that the press “has yet to discover” the “subtext” inherent in Sherlock. Don’t fret that the creators and the actors still deny it. Because if my Dad can see it, then it’s crystal clear. My almost-64-yr-old-Dad ships Johnlock. My SOUTHERN BAPTIST PASTOR Dad ships Johnlock.

To the point that he internalized change in his thinking about same-sex relationships, and happily accepted my (rather abrupt) coming out.

Keep the faith.

Tossed above the fields

And lost among the winds

Howl’s Moving Castle is one of my favorite Ghibli movies and I love that there’s still so much discussion about it so many years after it came out. Although recently, I’ve seen some people claim that Sophie isn’t really bad looking, she’s actually very pretty but just doesn’t know it. The idea being that she realizes at the end of the film that she was pretty the whole time, and just insecure. However, I disagree with this. I think it’s very important to the story that Sophie actually is plain looking, and here’s why.

From the beginning, we realize Sophie is insecure about her looks. She has a very pretty sister who she clearly compares herself to, and Sophie is always undermining her own self worth because of this. It’s important to note that Sophie is not supposed to be horrendously ugly. She is ‘plain’, ‘average’, ‘common’. She is someone you’d overlook in a crowd. And while she isn’t horrible looking, the important aspect here is that she does not easily conform to the beauty standards of the society she lives in.

As a young woman, even if you purposely reject society and are content with how you look, you will still be expected by others to uphold beauty standards and will be criticized when you fail to meet them. However, once you become ‘undesirable’ (that is, you hit a certain age) you no longer have these expectations thrust upon you. Once Sophie turned into a 90 year old woman, she was not expected to be pretty anymore. She was able to shed this bitterness towards her appearance and live freely without judgement.

As a result of living as an old woman, with no one to openly or even subconsciously hold her looks to a standard she cannot meet, she was able to explore her own personality and stop concerning herself with her appearance. Once her spell is broken and she is able to live again as a young woman, she is visibly happier and more confident because she had time to develop her character without these societal pressures weighing on her.

“But Howl calls her beautiful!” you might be thinking. “Doesn’t that mean she’s pretty?” Well, beauty can mean a lot of things besides surface level looks. Someone’s personality, demeanor, etc. can be beautiful. And it’s very important for Howl’s development that he manages to find every part of Sophie beautiful, even if she is not conventionally so. Howl, someone previously established as being extremely shallow and obsessed with looks, actually falls in love with Sophie for who she is as a person. Howl’s development, too, would be less poignant if Sophie wasn’t plain.

Lastly, I think it’s very important to have a protagonist in a movie who isn’t objectively or conventionally considered pretty. I had seen this movie when I was younger, but rewatching Howl’s Moving Castle at the age I am now, I felt like I could relate to Sophie in a way. Not to get too personal, but I am very critical of my own looks to a point where it does affect my mental health. To me, I saw Sophie as important representation as well as a role model for my own journey with self love.

Anyway, those are just some of my thoughts on this amazing film. I’d be curious to know if anyone else has any similar thoughts, or contradictory ones too, so feel free to reply or reblog with a comment! Thanks for reading,