I've placed my finger on another thing that made the energy of this video so different!!!!! it's phil. he actually comes across his own age.
like, i think he generally has an entirely different stature from bubbly amazingphil when he's talking about, or for, dan (see: editing zone phil from the end of I try to give dan a haircut), and also when he's very attentively listening to dan and giving him space to let out what he needs to let out (see: their og mukbang). he becomes that phil we've heard dan talk about so lovingly and appreciatively: the one that sees dan, encourages him, that strong and dependable rock in dan's life that lets him be free. so i think that surely plays a part in this, as there were many such instances in this video where phil was being that person for dan.
but I think it's also just the topic at hand. phil has never really interrogated big complex concepts with his videos - they've always been more about whimsy and enjoyment. the gaming channel videos were much the same, plus hanging out with your best friend always allows you to be your most easeful and childlike self!
but given this platform and this specific topic, discussing things that affected them so seriously as well as discussing the very real, 16-year-long relationship he's been in with the man beside him, I just think we got to see phil in a firmly adult capacity. still with the same silliness and awful innuendos and such (bc those are just things that make him who he is & aren't a factor of age), but really solid. mature, of course. wise. compassionate. understanding. he very strongly felt like a 38-year-old gay man who has been in the spotlight for 16 years and was ready to share about it.
(which is all especially poignant considering they directly confronted the way some fans had infantilised him for years.)
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so uh, okay, I haven't read the whole of the hitcher script yet (mostly the parts where jim and ryder interact), and the first thing that stood out to me was that ORIGINALLY JIM HELPS RYDER ESCAPE WHAT
that COMPLETELY changes the emotions behind the final confrontation and indeed whole vibe of the police interrogation scene is different.
in the movie they don't speak to each other at all like they do in the script, everything is said through facial expressions that are very loaded. in the movie, jim doesn't purposefully help ryder free himself but is absolutely confident that he will escape by himself to continue his reign of terror.
in the script, the exchange is more straightforward. it's merely a handshake compared to the movie where it's more of an intimate hand hold. the spitting is also a callback to earlier in the script's version of the car scene.
which he never does in the movie, making the spitting a total surprise.
I think I'll write more about it later after I've read the whole script, but Jim comes off as a subtly different character. he seems more... plucky? I guess more of a typical 80s protagonist. ryder is a somewhat different character too.
we should collectively thank c. thomas howell, rutger hauer, and robert harmon (the director) for bringing about these changes to their characters that are so fucking good.
I know we're all having a lot of fun bullying them for saying they wouldn't make couples content and then proceeding to make.... well, everything they've made since the 13th of oct. but can i be a little pedantic for just oneee second so that I can appreciate what I think has really been happening?
because in tbv, phil said they weren't going to become "couple vloggers in bed or be romantic on camera" and to be completely fair to them, apart from certain instances that in my opinion have been no more romantic than anything they've done in the past 2 years, they've stuck to their word. they haven't filmed themselves in their private moments of being a couple and they haven't started being that much more touchy or lovey dovey than they used to be. could this change as time goes on and they get more comfortable, definitely, yeah. (I think we're already seeing a little bit of that.) but for right now I think they've made pretty good on their promise.
I think most of the fandom - understandably, as we had no precedent to model our expectations after - interpreted what phil said as "we're not going to make content that focuses on our relationship", and then we all died under the avalanche of relationship-focused content. but when you take a closer look at what he really specifically said, none of their content has violated it at all. and I think what's so wonderful and comforting at the end of the day is that dan and phil really haven't changed post-hard launch. they're still just yapping at us and bantering with each other and being stupid - "making content that will make you laugh", as dan said - it's just that now they're doing it with a whole lot of new, previously forbidden material. and i love that. that they're the same. just unchained.
ok you can forget everything I said and go back to bullying them now <3
"you've been waiting a long time" is just not something you tell an audience whom you see as young naive or self-serving. it's what you tell an audience whom you know sees you as a symbol of what they could have in their own lives in the future, of finding and then accepting and then loving yourself loud enough for everyone to hear, of time-tested queer love, of freedom. I've never felt more seen and cherished by someone I don't even know, and this wasn't even my firsthand experience. but what dan said to that fan was said to all of us, really. I have no more words than that. I'm just too full of love to speak
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Hello, can i cry at you about how phil's love poetry/declarations is his actions with regards to dan (and i think probably the same is true towards other people he loves, like his parents)? Dan makes these beautiful unique devastating declarations and metaphors about their relationship and why it's Him and Phil (way before the hard launch even). But Phil has never in the same way (publicly) stated why it's dan, you know? Like, why was it dan from the beginning and it's always always been dan (it sure seems that way at least). And he doesn't use metaphors or poetic language about them really. But there are alllll these big and small actions, accommodations and choices that he doesn't really call attention to that much that are like so devastating put together (and without sacrificing who he is). I've just been thinking about this since both the comeback and the hard launch and seeing how excited he is to be working with dan and being more open, but still being so patient. Not saying dan doesn't show love through his actions, obviously, just that there is poetry in actions too.
Congrats on graduating by the way! Well done!
I agree! I think dan's method of expressing his feelings simply translates much better than phil's through a medium that's built primarily around speech. not that phil doesn't know how to do it - we've experienced the damage he can inflict when he chooses to e.g. in tbv - but as you said that's just not his preferred mode of expression.
I have talked about their differing - I don't wanna say love languages because I'm not only sticking to that tiny set of prescribed categories, but nevertheless - love languages before, but I can't for the life of me find it again because tumblr search is the best (/sarcastic). so I guess I'm articulating it all over again.
I think dan (primarily) expresses his love by projecting, and phil (primarily) expresses his love by accepting. dan shows his love by putting it out - through his poetic odes and metaphors about their relationship, and his acts of service for phil - and phil shows his love by creating the space to let dan out.
in the sense that, if dan has new merch out, phil's going to highlight that in a video (wdapteo 2). dan releases a book, and phil gets him to talk about it at length (I try to give dan a haircut). dan disappears from youtube, and phil gently brings him back through stereos and random storytime videos and eventually the gaming channel revival. dan, in his heart, loves to be a silly person but oftentimes denies himself the pleasure of creating "frivolous" content, and phil gets him to react to tiktoks/eventually make tiktoks under the guise of forcing him (when you know dan secretly, to some level, enjoys it).
and this is only to talk about the more recent instances. if we're talking about phil's love being rooted in his acceptance, well there was of course the first and most important instance of that - in him meeting dan for the first time and literally changing his life by just letting him be himself.
I totally get you, like I feel bad that I want low effort content because they want to be appriciated for the effort they put in
And they are actually very professional entertainers that know what they are doing. I always think of the overcooked live stream as really showcasing that, just with the contrast of the other guests, and in a new environment they still shine. And when they recently talked about the ii show in North Carolina, it really hit me that you don't go through that and not come out a very mature and competent entertainer
But I really just appriciate them for who they are and therefore eat up the parasocial low effort content
In conclusion, I do love to see them make good content in the way you love to see a friend do/make something they enjoy, but you still want to hang out with the friend too
I guess this is why the pod +patreon extra is probably a very good format for them
this ask actually helped me realise some nuance my previous post was lacking, i think, because anyone who has followed my blog for a little while knows that I'm a big fan of dnp as professionals - in that I love when we can see signs of or at least somehow have the opportunity to appreciate the craft they put into their videos. I don't necessarily enjoy this over their casual unscripted stuff, but I do very much enjoy it. so my preference for their more casual chatty content, which became apparent last night with the letterboxd video, as opposed to the more highly produced hard launch setup where their comedian switch is On almost all the time - has made me realise that there are aspects to their craftsmanship that i enjoy more than others. (which I did already know, I just didn't pinpoint what most of them were before.)
based on what i can remember right now, I would break their craft down into maybe 4 main categories (listed in no particular order): Hosting (self-explanatory, think brit awards and bbcr1), Acting (their more scripted stuff like the stage shows), Entertaining (think podcast, interviews; entertaining the way any old comedian entertains - jokes, innuendos, witty banter, etc), and specifically Parasocial Entertaining (what I would categorise the hotel video under. without getting back into the was it planned or unplanned debate - let's just assume they did plan it. that was masterful. they knew how to craft an experience for us that was simultaneously believable and narratively/emotionally satisfying, plus appealing to our parasocial attachment to them, in that because they didn't show us that any of it was pre-planned, we could (with self-awareness) buy into the delusion that we were witnessing their spontaneous decisions playing out before our eyes and that of course phil would break the challenge to share something special with dan and isn't that so Dan and Phil, etc) (if you really hate this example then take the fake sleepless night with phil as an alternative. also applies).
now. personal preference time. don't love them as Actors. enjoy them as Hosts. love them as Entertainers. obsessed with them as Parasocial Entertainers. and I think this ranking makes sense based on their origins and history - because that could have also been listed in order of time spent doing each thing, you know.
my point being. I do like them when they're Entertaining. out of all the things they do it's one of the things I like best (and as I mentioned I do really enjoy the podcast, it's great). but Parasocial Entertaining is their forté imo, and is in itself also a craft; there may be varying levels of complexity to it, like, you can't compare the letterboxd video and the hotel video based on amount of preparation that went into it, but they're in essence the same thing. they understand their audience. they know the parts of their lives and aspects of their dynamic that we find most interesting. so it's not that I want them to put no effort into their videos - I would rank the hotel video higher than the letterboxd video - I just think the category of entertaining they do best is the kind that blends real life intimacy with some amount of theatre - which is what they've always done.
idk if any of that made sense - or if it made sense in relation to the points you were making, but your ask made me start thinking about all this and i figured this was as good a place to put my thoughts on it as any. also, as with most of my posts, I was basically thinking out loud so if you have any more opinions about this feel free to continue the discussion!
I think I'll end it with this really good comment by @pickleyaps (hope you don't mind me putting you on the jumbotron) because I think they articulated what about the letterboxd video really hit the spot compared to the average pod episode really well, separate from the discussion about categories of entertainment or whatever:
