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Jul. 6th, 2020 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
babydracoNetflix's The Baby-Sitter's Club.
It's so good! It's about as true to the books as possible, while subtly updating the things that needed updating.
I have to laugh at the way they didn't change Claudia's clothing at all, because the rule about Claudia's wardrobe is that there are no rules. But the 80s/90s have come back enough that it was probably easy to do modern reinterpretations of their outfits without looking insane.
Is Mary Anne biracial? I guess she could have been all along but maybe they wanted to make sure the cast was less whitebread, considering Jessi won't be showing up for some time. In the books, Mary Anne is Jewish, which doesn't, of course, preclude being half black. So maybe they put out a blind casting call and just really liked this actress. Because the level of detailed adherence to the books is amazing otherwise, so I can't believe they forgot Jessi exists.
EDIT: Jessi appears briefly in the season finale, when they go to camp. She did go to camp with them in the books, so that's fair, although she'd already been their friend for awhile before that. This time, they're meeting her for the first time.
Interestingly, Dawn is also racebent. I feel like the point of Dawn was always that she's a raging White Girl from Cali stereotype though. But the writing and portrayal is otherwise spot on, so...? Okay. They can have as many racebent characters as they want, I was just worried for a moment that they'd erased a well liked canonical black character in order to add diversity.
It was considerate of Kristy to get Stacey a salad instead of pizza when she thought she had an eating disorder. EDs are a defense mechanism, if someone feels fearful and uncomfortable, and like you're pushing them to eat, they'll dig in their heels. "Let people eat what they want to eat, you don't know, it's none of your business" is a good place to start with food in general.
The episode "Claudia and the Phantom Caller" is confusing because it's narrated by Claudia but the phantom caller is a subplot that doesn't involve her and is kind of anti climactic. Spoilers, the caller is actually Mary Anne trying to contact them on an old phone her dad is making her use.
I like that casual references to gay characters are so common in kid's media now (Claudia's teacher is married to a woman,Mary Anne meets a gay boy at the beach). And the elephant in the room of the BSC having been lesbian icons for decades would've been hard to ignore, especially since Anne M Martin came out of the closet a few years ago. And they do later include on the show, the (book) canonical reveal that Dawn's dad is gay. But I was a little surprised to learn this production is from Walden Media?
huhh. I thought Walden was the studio Disney set up to appeal to evangelical Christians, but maybe things have changed or I'm super confused.
It's so good! It's about as true to the books as possible, while subtly updating the things that needed updating.
I have to laugh at the way they didn't change Claudia's clothing at all, because the rule about Claudia's wardrobe is that there are no rules. But the 80s/90s have come back enough that it was probably easy to do modern reinterpretations of their outfits without looking insane.
Is Mary Anne biracial? I guess she could have been all along but maybe they wanted to make sure the cast was less whitebread, considering Jessi won't be showing up for some time. In the books, Mary Anne is Jewish, which doesn't, of course, preclude being half black. So maybe they put out a blind casting call and just really liked this actress. Because the level of detailed adherence to the books is amazing otherwise, so I can't believe they forgot Jessi exists.
EDIT: Jessi appears briefly in the season finale, when they go to camp. She did go to camp with them in the books, so that's fair, although she'd already been their friend for awhile before that. This time, they're meeting her for the first time.
Interestingly, Dawn is also racebent. I feel like the point of Dawn was always that she's a raging White Girl from Cali stereotype though. But the writing and portrayal is otherwise spot on, so...? Okay. They can have as many racebent characters as they want, I was just worried for a moment that they'd erased a well liked canonical black character in order to add diversity.
It was considerate of Kristy to get Stacey a salad instead of pizza when she thought she had an eating disorder. EDs are a defense mechanism, if someone feels fearful and uncomfortable, and like you're pushing them to eat, they'll dig in their heels. "Let people eat what they want to eat, you don't know, it's none of your business" is a good place to start with food in general.
The episode "Claudia and the Phantom Caller" is confusing because it's narrated by Claudia but the phantom caller is a subplot that doesn't involve her and is kind of anti climactic. Spoilers, the caller is actually Mary Anne trying to contact them on an old phone her dad is making her use.
I like that casual references to gay characters are so common in kid's media now (Claudia's teacher is married to a woman,Mary Anne meets a gay boy at the beach). And the elephant in the room of the BSC having been lesbian icons for decades would've been hard to ignore, especially since Anne M Martin came out of the closet a few years ago. And they do later include on the show, the (book) canonical reveal that Dawn's dad is gay. But I was a little surprised to learn this production is from Walden Media?
huhh. I thought Walden was the studio Disney set up to appeal to evangelical Christians, but maybe things have changed or I'm super confused.
