hawkwing_lb (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hawkwing_lb) wrote2009-01-09 01:17 pm
hawkwing_lb) wrote2009-01-09 01:17 pm
Entry tags:
Thoughts on "Merlin" (2008), episodes 1-6
The problem of "Merlin" is not that it mangles Arthurian myth: many retellings have taken liberties as great. The problem is not that its plots are predictable, for television is frequently predictable; nor is the problem that its language and register are jarringly anachronistic: this is fantasy, after all, and not very tightly historically located fantasy at that.
No, the problem of "Merlin" is that it is lazy. It is lazy in its treatment of knighthood and courtly behaviour, and it is lazy in its treatment of women. It is especially lazy in its treatment of women. Morgana and Gwen are cyphers, blank pages whose motivations and desires are opaque to non-existent. They are not active players: occasionally they show a spark of agency, just enough for you to see how little the role is challenging the actor; but mostly they are tokens, existing to be rescued, or competed for, in the context of the homosocial world of Uther's court and the Arthur-Merlin focus. There are no strong, active women in Uther's court: the only women whose agency has impact on the story are the "evil" witches (who I actually find quite sympathetic. Nimue could even be likeable, if she wasn't such a cypher).
(It's telling, too, I think, that the only non-pale characters of note are Morgana's maid, and the blacksmith. Lazy. Why not let the court physician be a foreigner? A Moor, even, and use the medieval stereotype/fascination with Arab medicine. But I forget: all Arabs are terrorists, right? At least on most TV. Certainly they aren't sensible fatherly old men.)
So much for the problems. A half-minute's thought could come up with half a dozen ways to make it more complex and more interesting. (Personally, I think it would have been interesting if instead of being simply Uther's ward, Morgana was also a noble hostage of some kind. Because then even a half-decent writer could insert some emotional complexity.)
And Gwen. It seems all dramatic presentations of Guinevere are doomed to blandness. For gods' sakes, in the romantic tradition the women committed treason for the sake of love. With Arthur's best friend. How can you screw that up? But it seems you can.
Which is not to say I don't like "Merlin". I do. The actors have energy and comic timing and convey a sense that they are having incredible fun. (And Richard Wilson as Gaius can do more with a look than many actors can with a paragraph.) I find it ridiculously entertaining, and I would have fallen head-over-heels in love with it at age ten or twelve.
But that doesn't mean I'm blind to its faults. Which are glaring, and disappointing many.
(Of course, I still want to watch the rest of it.)
No, the problem of "Merlin" is that it is lazy. It is lazy in its treatment of knighthood and courtly behaviour, and it is lazy in its treatment of women. It is especially lazy in its treatment of women. Morgana and Gwen are cyphers, blank pages whose motivations and desires are opaque to non-existent. They are not active players: occasionally they show a spark of agency, just enough for you to see how little the role is challenging the actor; but mostly they are tokens, existing to be rescued, or competed for, in the context of the homosocial world of Uther's court and the Arthur-Merlin focus. There are no strong, active women in Uther's court: the only women whose agency has impact on the story are the "evil" witches (who I actually find quite sympathetic. Nimue could even be likeable, if she wasn't such a cypher).
(It's telling, too, I think, that the only non-pale characters of note are Morgana's maid, and the blacksmith. Lazy. Why not let the court physician be a foreigner? A Moor, even, and use the medieval stereotype/fascination with Arab medicine. But I forget: all Arabs are terrorists, right? At least on most TV. Certainly they aren't sensible fatherly old men.)
So much for the problems. A half-minute's thought could come up with half a dozen ways to make it more complex and more interesting. (Personally, I think it would have been interesting if instead of being simply Uther's ward, Morgana was also a noble hostage of some kind. Because then even a half-decent writer could insert some emotional complexity.)
And Gwen. It seems all dramatic presentations of Guinevere are doomed to blandness. For gods' sakes, in the romantic tradition the women committed treason for the sake of love. With Arthur's best friend. How can you screw that up? But it seems you can.
Which is not to say I don't like "Merlin". I do. The actors have energy and comic timing and convey a sense that they are having incredible fun. (And Richard Wilson as Gaius can do more with a look than many actors can with a paragraph.) I find it ridiculously entertaining, and I would have fallen head-over-heels in love with it at age ten or twelve.
But that doesn't mean I'm blind to its faults. Which are glaring, and disappointing many.
(Of course, I still want to watch the rest of it.)