10-08-2015, 07:55 AM
(10-07-2015, 02:43 AM)SpaceAnJL Wrote: Colourless, depressing and devoid of personality - there is nothing to differentiate these people from any other boring vanilla suburbanites.
The hair/makeup/wardrobe/lighting people should be run out of town with torches. It's as if their budget for these things is actually *lower*, now. That goes for all the characters. It's puzzling. It would be one thing if the show had these guys in clothes that were less geeky and more conventionally fashionable. That would be sad, but not inexplicable. This stuff isn't nice-looking in a mainstream way and it's not "so bad it's good", either, it's just blah, like Space said.
What is up with SH/Howard's shirts looking so rumpled, these past few seasons? It's not a change from tight clothes to clothes that fit correctly, it's a change from tight clothes to clothes that fit poorly in a different way. It's like the sleeves are too long for him. And yes, he looks washed-out. They all do. I know I've said this before, but he actually seems older (in a good way) and more manly to me in the early seasons. Now he looks waif-like, unhealthy, vulnerable. When I go back and watch Vintage clips, I'm always struck by how deep his voice is. Now he's a milquetoast and looks it. Vintage!Howard has a sort of rakish masculine je ne sais quoi which I think is not entirely fake, or maybe he just believes in it so hard that it becomes real.
Howard's shirt should be so tight, you can see his nips. So it is written.
I am in "frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn." mode. Molaro can't lure me into his unmarked van by dangling Howard-Raj scenes in my face.
I actually hate this Howard-Raj-Stuart triangle* or whatever it is, more than I hate the canon ships. It's just such a bizarre and random choice and such a mis-use of that character. (Stuart.)
Incidentally, PJ mentioned something in the chat box the other day, about how Sheldon was almost *revered* in the early days of the fandom, in the sense that people knew his personality traits and habits and quirks and they were not to be violated. I feel that. Reverence is what I feel, towards him. I once wrote here that I was a little scared of Sheldon, but in retrospect that's not quite what I meant. What I mean is that something about him *inspired* reverence; something about that character demanded recognition, and I felt that long before I became an HQer. I am majorly, majorly scared to even write about him, I think carefully about every word, because Sheldon Purists know him SO WELL, and I don't want to get it wrong. That's a very real feeling for me, almost like a responsibility, a standard to meet, something to be upheld, to avoid giving offense by honoring that set of traits and that persona which were so definite. It's something I've been meaning to mention, and this thread is as good a place as any, I guess. What's been done to Sheldon is a violation, a defacing of something, a toppling of something, whereas what's been done to Howard is more like bullying, more just mean and senseless.
* also this concept that H-R-B and Stuart are now a "unit", somehow. *nonplussed*
Quote:Idle thoughts;
Is Emily Sweeney a nod to Sweeney Todd?
I am trying hard to understand why Emily bothers me so much, because I *do* like dark humor, sometimes. This time of year, especially, it seems like all of us are having dark and twisted plot-bunnies. It might be just fatigue at yet *another* half-baked female character inserted for the sole purpose of being a love interest. But it's also because Raj was presented to us (in some ways, at least) as a scared, anxious, innocent, and vulnerable character, so this pairing seems remarkably insensitive. I've posted about this before, but she's like the embodiment of all his earlier fears about women. It's like his phobia was well-justified. It's such an emotionally tone-deaf choice, like they've forgotten his original persona and character-arc, entirely. A rather threatening character needs someone strong enough to stand up to them, an equal. This just feels like victimization and sadism. With Emily, TPTB have now made their woman-as-monster complex almost literal.
ETA: I have been noticing these weirdly ill-fitting shirts on SH/Howard, for some time now. IDK.