Trying To Fall For Myself

Wizard: Elphaba, aren’t you tired of running/fighting? Aren’t you tired of being the strong one? Wouldn’t you like someone to take care of you?

the A in LGBTQIA+ stands for AROMANTIC.

the A in LGBTQIA+ stands for ASEXUAL.

the A in LGBTQIA+ stands for AGENDER.

Since when is femininity “uncool”? Since when do you have to be edgy and wear all black and put down other girls to be a badass?

I loved the original cartoon because it showed young girls that you can love fashion and shopping and “girly things” without sacrificing your intelligence, integrity, and, for lack of a better word, badass-ery. I loved it because it showed that friendship and lifting other girls up is cool.

Why does “badass woman” equate to “mean girl” in popular fiction?

^That is what Winx Club is supposed to be. I wish Hollywood would stop perpetuating the idea that in order to be a strong, independent woman, you have to be “edgy”, mean, or “not like other girls”. The idea of a girl that’s better than others because she’s “not like other girls” is a response to feminism. It says, “You’re right, women are strong, but we have a right to decide WHICH women are strong.”

In conclusion, I’m tired of “girliness” being equated with being shallow, petty, weak, dumb, and selfish. We have to demand better. Feminism is wanting empowerment and validity for ALL WOMEN, no matter how “basic” their interests are. I can love clothes and romcoms and “girly” things and still be a badass. You can buy your Starbucks and wear bright colors and still be a powerful woman. You can have a significant other, and guess what? You’re still a badass. You’re still amazing, you’re still strong, you’re still YOU because having a bf/gf or not having one does not determine YOUR worth. You can be who YOU are, and that’s powerful on its own.

- Sky and Stella have been turned, respectively, into the cool quarterback and mean cheerleader tropes. This is also why I think they’re dating. They’re just Finn Hudson and Quinn Fabray under pseudonyms, and this kind of american perspective on them is the reason why their personalities are off, especially Stella’s. Yes, Sky is cool and a prince and a leader, but he’s always shown as part of the group and tbh the subplot of him switching identity with Brandon for safety was always one of my favorites and I’m so mad they erased it. I’ve already expressed all of my thoughts about this mean Stella copycat, so I won’t elaborate on this again, but it’s so wrong on so many levels.

- Why the fuck is Bloom from California, I know it’s stupid but I really can’t stand the fact that they took an Italian product and erased all Italy from it. So mad. As if there weren’t already tons of USA-made fantasy products. 

- The specialists have been turned too militar and serious. Also they gave Robert James-Collier that ugly af military haircut and I can’t forgive them for it.

- I know this is silly but it’s so USA-typical to show that Riven is a bad boy by making him offer alcohol to another student. 

Was it as bad as I thought it would be? No. It’s actually worse, if you can believe it.

Was it a good show on its own? I’d say mediocre and generic at best. The vibe was very much “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and Harry Potter had a weird baby”, but not in a fun way. 

Was it a good Winx adaptation? We already knew the answer to that. 

Some highlights:

The cinematography was decent (much of it owing to the stunning filming location), and the set design was atmospheric. That’s about all the positive things I have to say about the show.

The show loves using buzz words like masculinity, gender roles, sexism, and it all feels like perfunctory lip service in an effort to appear “woke”.

The worldbuilding is weak as hell, and the show suffers from horrible Riverdale Dialogue Writing Syndrome where they have characters randomly make pop culture references that add nothing to either their characterizations, or the world they’re living in. 

This show loves info dumping on the audience. White Musa in particular exists to feed the audience with exposition half the time. The other half is spent kissing or talking about Sam. 

The friendships were forced and inorganic. None of the girls feel like friends, let alone the fire-forged besties the show wants us to believe they are. Terra and White Musa’s entire friendship revolves around Sam. They had like, one conversation throughout the show that wasn’t about Sam, and it was right at the beginning, before Sam was introduced.

The show’s treatment of Aisha and Dane, literally the only black characters (and the only non-white characters, period) in the entire main cast, is so fucking terrible. Aisha’s entire character revolves around Bloom and swimming. Midway through the season, Aisha gets a plotline about her struggle with her own powers and her exhaustion with being Bloom’s babysitter, and then the former gets dropped entirely, possibly because it was cutting into her “Bloom” time, and the latter sees her returning to that role once Bloom needs her again. 

Even more egregiously, the moment Aisha stops being an accessory to prop Bloom up, the other characters turn on her. We also get a scene where Stella, the white blonde girl who was nothing but mean to the other girls, lecturing Aisha on her so-called “betrayal”. And then Aisha actually apologizes for doing the right thing. 

All Stella needs is a therapy session with White Musa where she talks about her abusive mother and she’s forgiven. Aisha was Bloom’s very first friend, who helped her at the expense of herself, and the second she stops agreeing with Bloom, the narrative villainizes her. 

Speaking of, Bloom is a dumb fuck and her protagonism is ridiculous. She gains the absolute loyalty of the other girls even though she makes everything about herself and spends the entire show preoccupied with her own issues, simply because she is The Protagonist. 

Where do I even begin with Dane? He gets used by two white characters and has a weird face-heel turn. Now he’s some white girl’s enamored boytoy, I guess. 

The absolute biphobia in the Riven/Beatrix/Dane plotline, oh my god. We get multiple instances of Riven pondering aloud if Dane is gay, and then the show tiptoes around saying the word bisexual. Also, our bisexual characters are a threesome of villainous characters. That’s nice. 

Terra’s entire existence is about her weight. There were a couple of fat jokes thrown in there, too.

Absolutely love how on board Bloom is with potential genocide. The moment it’s revealed that the residents of Aster Dell were “blood witches” (what are they? tune in to season 2 to find out!), she becomes okay with Rosalind slaughtering them real fast, without knowing what blood witches even are. 

Bloom is the most annoying character, and I speak as someone who absolutely adores her cartoon counterpart.