This review may contain spoilers
Woke Soup Turned Sour
When this was announced everyone was thinking "this is the GL version of Only Friends!" and like... We did get it right, actually. It is Only Friends. Just fucking Dream On, I guess, maybe worse.
We start off with an environment that's poorly explored. Ladybird is meant to be a company created by and for women to fight off the struggles within the industry, which is great, the problem is that we never really get to see what those issues within the industry were besides 1 (one) singular mean director and Shasha's story arc. Prim, Min, Praew, Bambi and nearly all the other workers seem to go unscarred by whatever it is men are doing.
But the series goes further with this trope. Min gets constantly harassed by men during the 1st half. It's that certain brand of "feminism" (I put it like that because real feminism acknowledges that ALL people suffer within patriarchy, including men) that's just so unnecessarily hateful towards men like they're evil by default. And then BAM: Praew appears and harasses her just like the guys before did. The best example of this is at the bar. She tells a guy off for not taking Min's no as an answer only to proceed RIGHT AWAY not to take her no for an answer. Insane behaviour.
On top of this, on multiple occasions, though I specifically remember the situation with Oil, they frame women as sensitive and even emotional beings, like that's not just misogyny 101.
And, to end it all, the series continuously disregards Min's sexuality and tries to push the lesbian lable on her (they do try to fix it at the end by having Praew say she can take her time to label herself and whatnot, but really the message that sticks isn't that one).
It's like every single relevant and important topic was shallow and played out for people on Twitter to say "slay" and move on. Yes, even Shasha's arc, which ends after a single press conference and then the world carries on. As if that wasn't massive for her and her career. As if that wasn't important to her character.
And these are just major issues, I'm not even mentioning the rest. Bambi getting away with the most toxic behaviour ever, Prim having no self-worth, Praew and Min giving lukewarm at best, whatever the fuck was the point of having Kris as a character (I love Emi and I loved her on screen, but narratively: why?), KapookCiize continuing to be doomed yuri... The things pile up. Not to mention the atrocious editing wth those big ass colourful lines, of centre images and windows movie maker frames and transitions.
Needless to say, therefore, that I ain't happy. I got nothing of what I wanted, nothing that was worth my time. I watched 12 episodes in hopes I'd get a crumb, at least, because I wanna support women and their acting and I want more GLs. I want GMMTV and other companies to think of queer women's stories as highly as they think of men's. But this just wasn't it. Whatever they tried to do, this wasn't it. And nobody is more disappointed in this fact than I am.
We start off with an environment that's poorly explored. Ladybird is meant to be a company created by and for women to fight off the struggles within the industry, which is great, the problem is that we never really get to see what those issues within the industry were besides 1 (one) singular mean director and Shasha's story arc. Prim, Min, Praew, Bambi and nearly all the other workers seem to go unscarred by whatever it is men are doing.
But the series goes further with this trope. Min gets constantly harassed by men during the 1st half. It's that certain brand of "feminism" (I put it like that because real feminism acknowledges that ALL people suffer within patriarchy, including men) that's just so unnecessarily hateful towards men like they're evil by default. And then BAM: Praew appears and harasses her just like the guys before did. The best example of this is at the bar. She tells a guy off for not taking Min's no as an answer only to proceed RIGHT AWAY not to take her no for an answer. Insane behaviour.
On top of this, on multiple occasions, though I specifically remember the situation with Oil, they frame women as sensitive and even emotional beings, like that's not just misogyny 101.
And, to end it all, the series continuously disregards Min's sexuality and tries to push the lesbian lable on her (they do try to fix it at the end by having Praew say she can take her time to label herself and whatnot, but really the message that sticks isn't that one).
It's like every single relevant and important topic was shallow and played out for people on Twitter to say "slay" and move on. Yes, even Shasha's arc, which ends after a single press conference and then the world carries on. As if that wasn't massive for her and her career. As if that wasn't important to her character.
And these are just major issues, I'm not even mentioning the rest. Bambi getting away with the most toxic behaviour ever, Prim having no self-worth, Praew and Min giving lukewarm at best, whatever the fuck was the point of having Kris as a character (I love Emi and I loved her on screen, but narratively: why?), KapookCiize continuing to be doomed yuri... The things pile up. Not to mention the atrocious editing wth those big ass colourful lines, of centre images and windows movie maker frames and transitions.
Needless to say, therefore, that I ain't happy. I got nothing of what I wanted, nothing that was worth my time. I watched 12 episodes in hopes I'd get a crumb, at least, because I wanna support women and their acting and I want more GLs. I want GMMTV and other companies to think of queer women's stories as highly as they think of men's. But this just wasn't it. Whatever they tried to do, this wasn't it. And nobody is more disappointed in this fact than I am.
Was this review helpful to you?
