I know we all love the train scene and the “look back at me” scene and john and margaret’s character growth and dozens of other memorable moments but this miniseries has so many wonderful asides I wanted to mention a few:
1. HANDS! HANDS! SO MANY HANDS! the best hands.
because honestly, if there’s one thing this period drama excels at it’s the PINING.
2. those shots of margaret and john sleeping at their desks
3. alll the letters that margaret and edith write to each other.
letter writing was an important aspect of female relationships (among women who could read and write) and I like that their letters are the narrator’s voice.
4. was it normal for men to travel with open collars in 1855? asking for a friend.
5. how margaret is allowed to be tired.
she’s busy, okay? she’s washing curtains and helping her mother and father and smuggling her brother into the country and attending parties and making friends with union members. girl deserves that nap.
6. thornton’s complete lack of chill whenever margaret shows up
margaret: your mother has kindly given me the name of a doctor. john: you’re ill?!
beeeeee cool soda pop. for the record, for a 19th century hard-nosed manufacturer this face is the equivalent of “GOD PLEASE GOD NO” from michael scott.
7. the soft implication of john keeping his mother and sister in comfort while he pursues education as an adult –
because of the hardship they went through when his father died 😦
8. nicholas “number one john/margaret shipper” higgins
thornton: was miss hale the woman who told you to come to me? you might have said. higgins: and you’d have been a bit more civil?
you cheeky bastard.
but let’s not forget “ohhhh yes, she has a brother, he was here, ah, just about that time the mother was dying, ah yes, very secret, hush hush, she had to smuggle him out, just thought you’d like to know for nooooo reason whatsoever” I mean come on nicholas, be more transparent 😀
obviously he’s not on board episodes 1-3 what with the whole union strike but boy by episode 4, higgins has two missions – feed boucher’s children and get his OTP together. and he gets both done.
9. on a related note – how all of john’s friends and family are just like “dude, come on. come on. be more obvious. we dare you.”
or, if you’re john’s mother oh god no not this again. “if you would let us alone, perhaps we might see her merits and like her.” damn lady. exactly how much does john talk about margaret hale???
10. this is a sad one but – margaret giving bessy some of her old handkerchiefs and bessy holding one in her dying clasp, my emotions
11. margaret’s absolute exhaustion at men proposing marriage to her.
“oh not this again.”
12. the grudging respect margaret and mrs. thornton develop for each other
“you once accused me of not knowing what kind of man I’d rejected. you were right. but if you think I’ve come to triumph over him, that I do not feel keenly the misfortune of this empty place, then you don’t know me at all.”
also check out how their dresses are almost identical in their last shot together. they’re finally on the same page.
13. the entire framing of john and margaret as hades and persephone, and how margaret chooses to go back north, away from the spring.
she goes from “I believe I’ve seen hell. and it’s white. it’s snow white.” to “I have a business proposition.” persephone chooses “hell” and I love it.
just once I want to see a good post critiquing makeup culture that doesn’t turn out to be made by some janky radfem blog
oh hey!! I’m not a janky radfem I can do it myself!
makeup culture is wack and normalizes a ludicrously high bar as the bare minimum women can do. I saw a “lazy"makeup tutorial the other day that listed 22 separate goddamn products. you’re supposed to buy and know how to use 22 different things on your face just for the privilege of being considered lazy and that’s uuuuuuh what’s the word? bullshit.
Really, five products could work, even 3. Just frame the face, eyes, lips, and you’re done.
0 products also works great
because I’m gonna be real here, the idea that 22 products is a minimum sucks but it’s really upsetting that any amount of makeup is the bare minimum at all
I would really just suggest some powder foundation, concealer, mascara and lipgloss/lipstick, or tbh just mascara works too, but that’s up to you
I’m sorry if I didn’t express this clearly enough in the original post but I’m not really looking for more concise makeup regiments. my intention was to point out how it’s Bad that makeup is considered a bare minimum at all, regardless of individual feelings on the matter
“But makeup makes some women feel better / more empowered!”
Consider why they felt bad about or disempowered by their appearance in the first place. Consider why the thought of leaving the house without even those five products on makes you uncomfortable enough that you recommend it to random women you encounter because you genuinely want to help them avoid feeling how *you* feel without makeup on in public.
There are things about makeup that are ABSOLUTELY AWESOME, but what makeup *culture* normalizes is (as said in the post above) that there’s a “bare minimum” a woman should be doing in the first place. That no woman’s face is fine to show to others just how it looks because their natural appearance is inherently flawed and in need of correction.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel pretty. It’s the fact that women are socialized to not feel pretty unless they have makeup on that we ought to be examining.
(And yes, it’s entirely possible to maintain the point of view that this is A Bad Thing while also appreciating amazing makeup jobs as the works of art that they are.)
This. And I’m not down on make-up as a concept. I own and sometimes even wear make-up. I’m naked-faced probably 90% of the time. But I find makeup fun and artistic. Sometimes I wanna feel like the offspring of a fae and a dragon and wear green highlight with wet eyelids. Face decoration is cool. Fight me.
But I was also fortunate to grow up in a house where makeup was not the minimum. My mother wasn’t a makeup person. My father was a feminist. The only time anyone ever told me to wear makeup was when I was on set, where everyone of any sex wears makeup. It’s so that the lights don’t make you look dead, not to make you “more attractive,” per se.
My default is “no makeup.” It always has been. And really, even if you love makeup and like to wear it basically every day, I feel like that should always be our default at least mentally. Our naked face is what we wake up with every day. It’s a part of our bodies, our health, our lives from cradle to grave. Makeup is face paint. It should be fun. But your face is part of you.
And as the last comment sort of alludes to, we also don’t have to lose track of the fact that makeup is an art form, while we’re critiquing the overtly misogynist and homophobic context that it tends to take on in the West. At the end of the day, the paint itself doesn’t think you’re ugly if you don’t put it on. It’s society that imbues us with that idea.
Oh, and also let boys wear fucking makeup if they want. Jesus. It’s not that deep, it’s face paint.
And like so many things loaded with oppressive dynamics, it really is a shame that all this bullshit has made it so hard for us to enjoy something so simple. Straight dudes get to enjoy their custom car paint jobs, their interior design for their “man caves,” all the acceptable dude-bro artistic outlets, without being criticized over it, or forced into it.
But makeup is either mandatory or else you’re repulsive, or a sign that you’re a bimbo, or a reason to target you for homophobia, depending on whatever form of attack benefits the attacker at that moment.
Sexism has managed to turn something so simple and potentially fun into something so heavy and fucked up. It’s another virgin/whore dichotomy with the added bonus of potential homophobia. “I want a girl who LOOKS natural, but isn’t natural because that’s just gross, but also she’s not allowed to take any time doing it because then I’ll put her down for being high maintenance, but also I take makeup wearing as a sign of invitation for sexual objectification, and also…” on and on it goes.
Can we just fucking… not? And let people not paint their face, or paint their face, if they please?
One of the most challenging things I’ve had to learn is that healing must be intentional. There is no one golden day that comes and saves you from all your misery. Healing is a practice. You have to decide that it’s what you want to do and actively do it. You have to make a habit out of it. Once I learned that, I only looked back to see how far I came.
As I am sure any cat owner will be able to tell you, someone else putting you in a box is entirely different from getting into a box yourself.
This is the most brilliant, concise, cute, and disarming response to the “but laaaaaaaabels are baaaaaaad” argument that gets used against people trying to self-identify as something as a way of making sure their boundaries are understood and respected.
Spitfire Alice A Gra 
You must be logged in to post a comment.