Okay, but what I like about XO, KITTY is that it’s hormonal and messy and exactly like teenagers should be without it being weirdly sexualized. Yeah, they’re fooling around and figuring things out, and they have a new crush every other week but at no point does it feel like a fantasy made up by some pervy, Hollywood director. It’s all very sweet and innocent and its totally normal to not find your person in high school and sometimes people end up with the wrong people. And its okay. It’s all part of the journey. Older teen shows were very like, “you are my soulmate and we HAVE to end up together” and its just nice to see a show that is very normal about what teens dating is actually like. Nobody knows what they are doing but they are going to have fun while they are.
Can we also talk about what a good job Maid did by portraying generations of abuse ?
How Paula ran away in the middle of the night to escape an abusive partner and how Alex did exactly the same thing, years later.
How Alex realises she is traumatised because her own father was violent and how she repressed that memory.
How Maddy hid in the kitchen because her parents were screaming and fighting and how Alex used to do the same thing.
Hell, even Sean was also abused by his mother and is now repeating the same cycle of violence. His addiction is deeply rooted in his mother’s own drinking problem.
It’s all repating itself and if Alex hadn’t broken the cycle, by seeking help and leaving, Maddy would have probably ended up going down the same dark path.
I think the continued point they make about class is interesting and a little uncomfortable but in a good way. Makes you really sit with how class privilege applies to and affects everyone regardless of political affiliation, race, gender, or sexuality. Regina has a lot of struggles as a black woman, as a soon to be single mother, as someone with fertility issues, but it still takes her so long, too long, to see Alex as a person and from what Yolanda says, it’s the first time this has ever happened. Yolanda talks about how often she’s called the wrong (racist ass) name by so many clients and we know plenty of those clients are other people of color - shit maybe even assimilated ass Latinos.
And it shows very well in the episode where Alex is trying to rent. That lesbian couple - who volunteer at a homeless shelter doncha know - are perfectly happy to help Alex until it inconveniences them. They witness her ex break into her house, pass out drunk on a couch in his underwear, and get inappropriately sexually explicit with her, going so far as to blame her in front of near strangers for his inability to get an erection - and then callously kick her out on the street, knowing they could very well be driving her right back into that man’s arms. Bc all their liberalism doesn’t stop them from seeing her as less than a person because she’s poor.
Even with Nate - as sweet as he is, so many of their scenes are just dripping with patronizing behavior. Maybe it could change one day, but he looks at her like a project, someone precious he can save from her big bad ex. He’s painting her as a damsel in his head completely against her will even as he seems to be genuinely trying to help her. She’s like a half person, the manic pixie dream girl here to help him feel love again, instead of a deeply struggling young woman with a lot of problems and a desperate yearning for love.
None of them ever have bad intentions but it’s the same end result - people like Alex, like Yolanda and Danielle and Kate are all side characters in their story and therefore they can project what they want onto them. And the interesting thing is that Alex affords them so much more humanity than they afford her. When she’s writing as she gets to know them, she looks for the good and bad in them. She doesn’t like to assume the worst in them, wanting to be Regina’s friend even when Regina is short with her, developing feelings for Nate despite his hero complex because she sees that he means well more or less.
Anonymous asked:
Would love to know what your thoughts are on Nate's character in maid?
fruityfour answered:
honestly i really kinda hated him at the end which was a shame because i really liked him at first when i thought he was a genuinely nice guy who just wanted to help alex out but oh boy was i wrong
when he kinda shamed alex for sleeping with sean and then kicked her out for it, it became very very clear he was only helping her just because he expected something out of it (whether that be sex or a relationship). even though he was adamant it wasn’t like that, his true colours kinda showed when he kicked her out
someone commented on one of my posts that he was using her financial situation to keep her close and dropped her when she didn’t give him what he wanted and i really do agree
i think i would have liked him more if he’d shot his shot and respected when alex said no the first time and let her pursue something if/when she decided she was ready. it wasn’t the time or place for him to try and make passes at her or act like a jealous boyfriend when she slept with someone that wasn’t him and then claim it was because he was just ‘babysitting her kid while she fucked her ex’
tbh all of the men in that show were kinda trash
maid is such a good show but the fact that people will say alex “made all the wrong decisions” when she left the first time really irks me. when she left the first time she had no reliable support system, no money, no way to reconnect herself to the rest of the world. leaving was the best and most correct decision she could have made, and everything that followed was her doing her best and taking all the necessary steps to ensure freedom for herself and maddy. of course she fucked up a few times and wasn’t perfect but she’s a human being. Those decisions and connections she made were what eventually led to her being able to leave again and finally get her freedom. so i guess just stop blaming her for not navigating the broken systems perfectly and instead criticize the systems for making it so difficult for abuse victims to keep their feet on the ground.