From late to 2019 to the beginning of 2020, the BBC aired three high budget, prestige television adaptations of classics of Victorian literature: A Christmas Carol, The War of the Worlds and Dracula. I had... mixed opinions on all three of them.
You can read my reviews of the Victorian telefantasies at Television Heaven by following these links:
To say I was disappointed with the War of the Worlds series was an understatement; in regards to writing and storyelling, I have always had a problem with the characters in the series. The show has three female characters, Amy (George's lover and the main character of the show besides him), Mary the servant, who is quickly killed off during the invasion with little to no characterization, and George's actual wife (who only appears in one scene to demonstrate the failure of her and George’s marriage). George's wife warns that Amy is selfish, and honestly, this really feels like a warning for the audience, who are able to follow what makes compelling writing. Amy is on the surface a strong women, clearly realising what is happening before everyone else and intelligent. But she’s like a day-old sink full of dirty dishes and brackish water; the moment you poke the surface, you’re assaulted by the nasty stench underneath. It’s hard to see her actions as anything other than self serving opportunity. She’s figures out what the aliens are doing and even smiles at the photographs in a way that feels patronizing. And she even berates George's brother as though the invasion is due to her relationship with George. It is her failure to adore her husband properly that forces George and his brother to see the hollowness of their action, because neither man understands the long-term consequences until they are killed. So basically, if Amy wasn’t such a jealous shrew, these men would have been more understanding and could have survived. She is the cause of most of their pain. When you combine Amy as an image of femininity, we’re left with a view that women are simply destructive to men. Amy's power is profound, corrosive, irresistible, and ultimately enduring. The woman survives the story.
ReplyDeleteI get it. I understand why Writer Peter Harness expanded the role of the narrator's wife from the novel, stating "I think the clearest choice that I made from the start of this project was to give the male character a wife who had strength of character in her own right [...] It was very important to me to make the female character three-dimensional" But I’m baffled by why Harness, didn’t recognize what a moral sludge the story becomes as a result of these choices and how deeply misandry the series’s treatment of its male characters are.
To say I was dissapointed with this series was an understatement; I was angry, I was upset. Funny enough, I remember disliking Eleanor Tomlinson in this series, especially Amy's character (I remember some people rolling their eyes when Amy produced a teasmade). Looking back, it was not out of dislike for the actress but it is just because I felt her performance to be lacklustre and unlikeable; she's obviously capable of much better and I think a lot of reviews gloss over this point (out of deference to her previous performances?) The real gripe is how it is done. In regards to writing, I have always had a problem with the characters in this series, especially with they were written. The series has three female characters, Amy, George's lover and the main character besides him, Mary (the female servant who is quickly killed off during the invasion), and George's actual wife whose name I can't even remember (who only appears in one scene to demonstrate the failure of her and George’s marriage). In her only scene, George's wife warns that Amy is selfish, and honestly, this really feels like a warning for the audience, who are able to follow what makes compelling writing. Amy is on the surface a strong women, clearly realising what is happening before everyone else and intelligent. But she’s like a day-old sink full of dirty dishes and brackish water; the moment you poke the surface, you’re assaulted by the nasty stench underneath. It’s hard to see her actions as anything other than self serving opportunity. She’s figures out what the aliens are doing and even smiles at the photographs in a way that feels patronizing. And she even berates George's brother as though the invasion is due to her relationship with George. It is her failure to adore her husband properly that forces George and his brother to see the hollowness of their action, because neither man understands the long-term consequences until they are killed. So basically, if Amy wasn’t such a jealous shrew, these men would have been more understanding and could have survived. She is the cause of most of their pain. When you combine Amy as an image of femininity, we’re left with a view that women are simply destructive to men. Amy's power is profound, corrosive, irresistible, and ultimately enduring. The woman survives the story.
ReplyDeleteI get it. I understand why Writer Peter Harness expanded the role of the narrator's wife from the novel, stating "I think the clearest choice that I made from the start of this project was to give the male character a wife who had strength of character in her own right [...] It was very important to me to make the female character three-dimensional" But I’m baffled by why Harness, didn’t recognize what a moral sludge the story becomes as a result of these choices and how deeply misandry the series’s treatment of its male characters are.