kateelliott (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kateelliott) wrote2010-05-28 10:28 pm
kateelliott) wrote2010-05-28 10:28 pm
The good, the bad, and the ugly: porn for the female intellectual, and the Hawaii 5-0 reboot
The good:
I was so thrilled to discover the existence of the film Agora, released internationally last year, about a subject that I would call porn for the female intellectual: a sweeping toga flick centered around the famous scholar Hypatia and the fall of pagan Alexandria. Oh my. Rachel Weisz plays the lead, and clearly she can pull it off. I have no idea how the film is overall, although it appears the script might be intelligent, but I will certainly see it on Netflix at the least if it does not reach Honolulu in theatrical release.
The bad and the ugly:
You know, the year is 2010. Not 1970.
So why is that the Battlestar Galactica people could do a reboot that pretty thoroughly rebooted the original story (whatever other issues there may have been with the retelling), while the Star Trek reboot was somehow deeply retro (really? everyone must be the same white male as he was in the original because, um, because, um, because? except we can switch out the ethnic guy and give the sole female prominence in a romance plot, plus keep her in short skirts).
They are “rebooting” Hawaii 5-0, too. Cool. There are real opportunities here, I thought, to do a cop show set in Hawaii. The real Hawaii, not the Waikiki fantasy Hawaii.
Because here is an opportunity to make one or both of your two main characters a local, not just one of the secondary leads as in the original show, which was itself groundbreaking for its time, I should note.
Think about it!
Instead, naturally, the two formerly non-local white male leads must be non-local white male leads (only . . . younger? and with more of a cocky attitude?). And the two formerly local actors, one an actual person with Native Hawaiian ancestry, can be replaced by any Asian ethnic type. Now, mind you, I have no objection to seeing more of Daniel Dae Kim (or Grace Park), but when Grace Park’s character name is Kono Kalakaua, that is just all kinds of wrong. And Daniel Dae Kim, who by all accounts is a great guy, is just as local as I am. Which means he’s lived here for less than 10 years (afaik he moved here for the Lost series and has with his family made his home here).
Watching the trailer, I came to a better understanding of this so-called reboot.
I keep forgetting that Hawaii has only a million inhabitants. The show is for the Mainland, which means two Mainland cops come to Hawaii (the two white guys) and meet two “locals” (the two Korean-Americans, neither of whom are local, although by now I would guess that DDK can work up some respectable pidgin), and therefore they “see” and work in the fantasy Waikiki-Hawaii only with extra explosions and car chases and high crimes and misdemeanors, the kind of thing we really don’t see in Hawaii, which as far as I know has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation, with the possible exception of certain kinds of theft.
There’s a great shot of two outrigger canoes seen from a helicopter. That’s nice. The ocean is beautiful. And Grace Park is introduced surfing in, natch, a bikini. So our first impression of her can be that she is 1) way too thin and 2) a sex object. Haole dude #2 instantly falls in lust with her because what use is a female secondary lead if not to be lust fodder?
However, to be fair, the clever producers, attempting to reboot, introduce a hate-hate relationship between the two male leads.
Except here’s the thing.
There is a real and genuine conflict they could have used. They could have made Danno a local guy, who is suddenly saddled with this fucking haole from the Mainland hired in to head their so-called special unit over the top of a bunch of locals who actually know the place. This kind of thing happens all too often, and I guarantee, there is resentment, and the outsiders often misread and do not adapt to local culture, so the ripples of political undertow can just go on and on.
See? They could have done something authentic, instead of this faux rash-asshole six-pack white dude action daredevil reckless fist-fighting dude stuff. How cool would that have been? I guess we’ll never know.
I was so thrilled to discover the existence of the film Agora, released internationally last year, about a subject that I would call porn for the female intellectual: a sweeping toga flick centered around the famous scholar Hypatia and the fall of pagan Alexandria. Oh my. Rachel Weisz plays the lead, and clearly she can pull it off. I have no idea how the film is overall, although it appears the script might be intelligent, but I will certainly see it on Netflix at the least if it does not reach Honolulu in theatrical release.
The bad and the ugly:
You know, the year is 2010. Not 1970.
So why is that the Battlestar Galactica people could do a reboot that pretty thoroughly rebooted the original story (whatever other issues there may have been with the retelling), while the Star Trek reboot was somehow deeply retro (really? everyone must be the same white male as he was in the original because, um, because, um, because? except we can switch out the ethnic guy and give the sole female prominence in a romance plot, plus keep her in short skirts).
They are “rebooting” Hawaii 5-0, too. Cool. There are real opportunities here, I thought, to do a cop show set in Hawaii. The real Hawaii, not the Waikiki fantasy Hawaii.
Because here is an opportunity to make one or both of your two main characters a local, not just one of the secondary leads as in the original show, which was itself groundbreaking for its time, I should note.
Think about it!
Instead, naturally, the two formerly non-local white male leads must be non-local white male leads (only . . . younger? and with more of a cocky attitude?). And the two formerly local actors, one an actual person with Native Hawaiian ancestry, can be replaced by any Asian ethnic type. Now, mind you, I have no objection to seeing more of Daniel Dae Kim (or Grace Park), but when Grace Park’s character name is Kono Kalakaua, that is just all kinds of wrong. And Daniel Dae Kim, who by all accounts is a great guy, is just as local as I am. Which means he’s lived here for less than 10 years (afaik he moved here for the Lost series and has with his family made his home here).
Watching the trailer, I came to a better understanding of this so-called reboot.
I keep forgetting that Hawaii has only a million inhabitants. The show is for the Mainland, which means two Mainland cops come to Hawaii (the two white guys) and meet two “locals” (the two Korean-Americans, neither of whom are local, although by now I would guess that DDK can work up some respectable pidgin), and therefore they “see” and work in the fantasy Waikiki-Hawaii only with extra explosions and car chases and high crimes and misdemeanors, the kind of thing we really don’t see in Hawaii, which as far as I know has one of the lowest crime rates in the nation, with the possible exception of certain kinds of theft.
There’s a great shot of two outrigger canoes seen from a helicopter. That’s nice. The ocean is beautiful. And Grace Park is introduced surfing in, natch, a bikini. So our first impression of her can be that she is 1) way too thin and 2) a sex object. Haole dude #2 instantly falls in lust with her because what use is a female secondary lead if not to be lust fodder?
However, to be fair, the clever producers, attempting to reboot, introduce a hate-hate relationship between the two male leads.
Except here’s the thing.
There is a real and genuine conflict they could have used. They could have made Danno a local guy, who is suddenly saddled with this fucking haole from the Mainland hired in to head their so-called special unit over the top of a bunch of locals who actually know the place. This kind of thing happens all too often, and I guarantee, there is resentment, and the outsiders often misread and do not adapt to local culture, so the ripples of political undertow can just go on and on.
See? They could have done something authentic, instead of this faux rash-asshole six-pack white dude action daredevil reckless fist-fighting dude stuff. How cool would that have been? I guess we’ll never know.