Another week, another list of 10 things I felt worth sharing from said week:
- Nino Cipri on why bad dad redemption arcs need to die. I cannot recommend reading this essay in full enough. Some choice quotes I felt worth pulling out:
These redemption arcs inevitably end with the fathers’ self-sacrifice after spending most of the movie ignoring, neglecting, or abusing the kids under their care. They die, because death is the only way we imagine fatherly failures being forgiven. And we applaud them for it, the writers and the dead dads both. It’s meant to be cathartic. In fact, it is bullshit.
… The children in these movies are only ever an afterthought to someone else’s character development. It’s like the concept of fridging was turned inside-out: the children live and the men die. But men get the spotlight, the good death scene, the redemption. The children get the consequences and the lifelong trauma, but that all happens off-screen. I guess it’s not as compelling.
- Shing Yin Khor: “I Do Not Want to Write Today: A Comic.”
John Wesley Stammers 