If I could pinpoint when I stopped watching OUAT for the story and only watched for Regina, I’d say it was “The Outsider.”

Up until “The Cricket Game” (and including that episode), I was hooked. I was looking forward to each episode despite some of the problems I had before then with Hook’s general sleaziness, the dropped plot threads, and so on.

But from “The Outsider” onward, something changed. I started dreading rather than looking forward to each episode. I stopped caring about anybody other than Regina, and even then I was more like, “OK, how the fuck are they gonna make her suffer now?” rather than, “I wonder what she’s going to do next.”

Although there were a few bright spots in the latter half of this season (“Welcome to Storybrooke” springs to mind), my viewing experience this season has been pretty disappointing. So much so that I’m going to skip Season 3 unless it’s one of those “Regina is fucking awesome” episodes.

I wish I could put my finger on exactly what went wrong, but I can’t.

Can anybody help me out here?

onceuponameta:

Someone had a great idea about coming up with meta prompts to get OUAT fandom thinking and talking in new directions. It’s such an awesome idea that I’m going to take it and run with it.

So I’m going to open up the Once Upon A Meta submission page for meta prompts: your questions to the fandom about the meaning of the show, its characters, and its audience.

What I hope to do with meta prompts is to encourage dialogue and avoid debate (and there is a difference). The point is not about who agrees or disagrees with whom, but the perspectives and life experiences people bring to their understanding of a particular aspect of the show.

Click here to submit a meta prompt. TIP: open-ended questions are best.

onceuponameta:

The season finale is Sunday night, so let’s talk about Season 3 and beyond.

1. Are you tuning in for Season 3? Why or why not?
2. Which problems with the story do you hope they fix for Season 3? What would you be willing to put up with if they get that part right?
3. How do you think Season 3 will pan out?
4. What is something you need to happen in Season 3?
5. What is something you definitely do not want for Season 3?
6. [insert your own Season 3 question(s)]

Reblogging now because it’s more pertinent.

As I talked about over here (and some other folks explained here), the way fandom talks about mental illness when it comes to Regina leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. From the haters, it’s sociopath and psychopath and all that jazz. From the lovers it’s this or that personality disorder or clinical diagnosis.

Now, I get that people often interpret Regina’s character a certain way because it connects to their own experiences. I really get that. However, there is something that feels really off about the way Regina gets talked about when it comes to mental illness. It’s very subtle, so it’s hard to express, so I’ll do my best to explain where things feel off.

I do believe that there’s a lot that’s empowering about being able to put a name onto what’s happening to us within ourselves. However, I am far more cautious about projecting hegemonic definitions of mental illness onto a [queer] woman of color for reasons that this blog post and the comments get into. 

This is especially jarring when we compare how often Regina gets pathologized compared to other really popular characters on the show, especially Rumplestiltskin and even Snow White.

Let me be clear: this woman does need serious help and has needed it for a very long time. However, I believe it’s crucial to note the difference between Regina’s behavior and mindset as a response to some really fucked up circumstances (Cora, Leopold, Rumplestiltskin, racism, misogyny) and Regina’s behavior and mindset as proof that there is something fundamentally broken and wrong with her.

Is there a way to talk about the toll that trauma, abuse, and systemic oppression have taken on Regina’s psyche without pathologizing or dehumanizing her?

(ETA: I talked more about this from a community organizing perspective over here.)

(ETA 2: Read this. Just fucking read it.)

It is the only book I have read five times despite failing to derive almost any pleasure at all from the experience.

Perhaps this is also why I have such a problem with how OUAT frames morality.

onceuponameta:

The season finale is Sunday night, so let’s talk about Season 3 and beyond.

1. Are you tuning in for Season 3? Why or why not?
2. Which problems with the story do you hope they fix for Season 3? What would you be willing to put up with if they get that part right?
3. How do you think Season 3 will pan out?
4. What is something you need to happen in Season 3?
5. What is something you definitely do not want for Season 3?
6. [insert your own Season 3 question(s)]

One of the great things about viewing OUAT through a Jewish perspective is how much learning I’m doing.

In light of “The Evil Queen,” I was thinking about why I’m consistently bothered by the way the show frames good and evil, redemption, and so on.

What originally started out as a search for Jewish definitions of love and the meaning of mitzvot such as “Love your neighbor as yourself” turned into an exploration of our responsibilities with the power of speech, especially when it comes to people in our communities.

It’s no secret that Judaism places supreme importance on the power of speech. The universe itself was spoken into being. And davar is the Hebrew term for both word and object. It’s also interesting to note that of the 613 mitzvot, 31 of them (a “staggering number” according to the website linked below) deal with how we use speech.

This lesson about the ethics of speech in Jewish law is a must-read. If anything, it illuminates how much of our daily speech we take for granted and how often we inadvertently cause harm through our speech.

In Jewish practice, guarding against lashon hara (the “evil tongue”) is one of the most critical ethical habits and, because of the ubiquity of careless and harmful speech, one of the most difficult.

On OUAT, the bad guys are ba’alei lashon hara (“masters of the evil tongue”). They repeatedly tell lies, mislead people, and speak malicious truths.

But are they the only ba’alei lashon hara? You’d be surprised at the things the good guys regularly do that fall into the category of lashon hara.

WGA West President Chris Keyser summed up the relevance of the findings. “We can’t tell the whole story if only half of us write it.”

aka, “Why OUAT needs to hire Eshu as writer or script supervisor or some shit.”

(Source: onceuponameta)

onceuponameta:

hi how are you?: We take Swan Queen seriously because media representation is…

calculaic:

We take Swan Queen seriously because media representation is important. It has an undeniable impact on the world and individuals. Representation of the magnitude that SQ would be is unprecedented and, believe it or not, we do have legitimate reasons within canon to think it could happen (getting sick of saying that, honestly- if anyone is actually interested in learning more, they can check the links on my blog).

The reason so many SQ shippers and Evil Regals feel comfortable making jokes about Regina saying “fuck it” and burning it all to the ground, is because we relate to her. We understand where that kind of anger comes from, and we understand that it’s justified. We know what it’s like to be discriminated against, and to be vilified, and to have our oppressors complain that we haven’t properly explained why we’re so mad at them.

When you live in a society that perpetrates a million fucking micro-aggressions against your existence every single day, it gets really fucking old, really fucking fast. Sometimes you do just feel like burning the world to the ground, because apparently it’s mostly filled with ignorant people more privileged than you who think they have the right to demand justification of your emotions, as though you owe them anything.

If they really cared to understand, they’d educate themselves, but they don’t. What they really want is for you to be complacent. They want you to feel guilty for being angry about being wronged. They want you to shut up about it. Just get over it, just deal with it. That way, they can go on feeling like they’re good people who don’t contribute to the harm of others.

That’s why we can understand why Regina might just feel like murdering everyone sometimes. It’s not because we condone murder, it’s because we understand the rage that grows inside a person after living through years of relentless oppression. We understand what it’s like to be pushed so far past the point of giving a shit about anything anymore.

Comparing the way we treat SQ and the way we treat the idea of murder on the show is flawed logic, honestly. Representation is serious, and so is murder, but, unlike queer people, there aren’t murderers or murder victims in need of media representation. Murder victims, or relatives of murder victims, aren’t a marginalized group of people- that’s not an identity. The two things just aren’t comparable in that way- and just because we take SQ seriously doesn’t mean we must also treat everything else on the show in the same way. Issues that warrant serious discussion will have it- and those that don’t, won’t.

However, the importance SQ holds for us and our ability to make light about Regina’s murderous tendencies are related, in that the reason we can relate to Regina, in ways many don’t understand, is the same reason we need representation in our media.

My latest piece about the way we bring an anti-oppression analysis to arts and entertainment and how we often think of ourselves as immune to the same shit we speak out against.

A small disclaimer: when I talk about Christianity and Judaism, I mean it only in the sense of what I’ve been exposed to. My experience is far from universal.

Since the second season premiere, there’s been a lot of talk about redemption. Oftentimes, when we talk about redemption, the conversation is dominated by Christian notions of sin, good, evil, and repentance. So, I’d like to explore some of these ideas from a Jewish perspective.

Whenever a discussion about racism or other forms of systemic oppression start happening, it’s damn near inevitable that someone’s going to chime in with, “But what about Barack Obama/Hilary Clinton/Oprah Winfrey/Will Smith? Doesn’t the presence of these individuals in positions of great power indicate that racism and sexism (to name only two) are no longer systemic or institutional?”

Um, no.

The reason for that is: there is a difference between power and position. There’s a difference between a structure and a position on that structure. Think of a pyramid. The stone at the top may seem more important because it’s at the top, but in truth it is another stone. In fact, the only reason why the stone is there in the first place is because of the structure of the pyramid itself and the other stones holding it up.

When we talk about structure and racism, we’re talking about the things that hold a society together: core values, public policy, institutional practices, cultural representations, normative behaviors, and so on. So when we talk about power, we’re talking about the ability to tap into and influence that structure.

So when us Once Upon A Meta folks talk about Snow and Regina not being on equal footing, this is what we’re talking about.

Sure, Regina has magic and an army, both of which she had to struggle to gain. But Snow has a claim to power she was born into independently of desire or ability. No matter what happens, no matter what she does, Snow will always be a princess, which means always having the right to rule. That doesn’t come from Snow herself; it comes from the norms of the society she is part of. Because of that, Regina is at best a usurper and at worst a tyrant regardless of her actual capacity as a ruler.

As a matter of fact, it’s very telling that we do not see Regina’s reign from the POV of the common people until the curse brings them to Storybrooke, where she may not be liked but is certainly respected for her ability to keep things running*. Their take on things is conspicuously absent.

(*Seriously, though! The only crime is the crime she herself commits. Unemployment is virtually nil. All the jobs, even working at the animal shelter, apparently pay enough to cover all living expenses with quite a bit left over for luxuries like eating out at Granny’s all the time. There is no trash, not so much as a stray cigarette butt. And everything in the town works all the time. Not to mention, the town budget is at a surplus! Blah blah curse blah blah destroy their happiness, but this is positively idyllic compared to your average sci-fi dystopia.)

In addition to the society within the world of the show, Snow also has access to the power granted by the norms and attitudes of our own world. There is plenty of information on race and media representation available for you to Google yourself.

So, no, there is no equal footing or equal liability or equal culpability because equality was never a part of how their lives were set up to begin with.

In the Enchanted Forest, the Evil Queen was unrepentant about the pain, suffering, and death she inflicted upon people. In fact, her only regret is that she did not inflict pain, suffering, and death on Snow White.

Although I have suspicions about the ultimately arbitrary nature of law and justice in FTL, it’s clear that mass/serial murder is a capital offense, so the Evil Queen is eligible for the death penalty.

Thus, the tying to the post and the archers and what not.

However, since this is Shabbat, I want to do a bit of study and explore this from a Talmudic perspective.

So, without forcing you to wait for the good part, this is what’s most interesting…

According to the Talmud, it would be unlawful for the Evil Queen to be put to death.

Let me repeat that.

According to the central text of rabbinic Judaism, capital punishment for the Evil Queen would be unlawful.

Not because of a general disapproval of capital punishment. The simple fact of the matter is that despite everything the Evil Queen has done, it does not meet the Talmudic requirements for sentencing someone to death.

What are those requirements?

1. There must have been at least two witnesses, and even they have to meet certain standards (no women or close relatives, no gamblers).
2. The witnesses must have warned the person moments before the act that they were liable for the death penalty.
3. The person has to verbally acknowledge that they were warned and that the warning would be disregarded and then have gone on to do the deed.
4. No one can testify against themselves.

Of course, this suggests a question: why bother with capital punishment at all if the requirements are so stringent?

Like a lot of things about Jewish law, it’s one of those things that on the surface doesn’t make sense but after a bit of probing reveals something really interesting.

What this rather interesting case reveals is that what someone deserves and what you should do to them are not one and the same. In the Torah, there are a lot of things people can do to warrant the death penalty, things far less self-evident than murder. Yet, the requirements for sentencing someone to death seem to state, “Yes, there are people who clearly deserve death for what they’ve done, but there is more to justice than giving people what they deserve. Some things are too sacred to subject to human judgment.”

Speaking of human judgment, let’s take a look at the Sanhedrin required  for cases where capital punishment is possible.

1. They must all be scholars.
2. They have to be of exemplary moral conduct and known for their kindness and humility.
3. They cannot be driven by greed or amplifying their ego.
4. Anyone who has not experienced the pangs and anxieties of raising a child is disqualified.
5. As is someone too old to remember what it was like to raise a child.
6. The procedure itself has very strict rules about how people sit and which testimony must be accepted as-is or corrected.
7. By the way, you need 23 of them.

To me, this seems like a roundabout way of saying, “You don’t want any random ignoramus to make life-and-death decisions. In the absence of perfect knowledge and perfect discernment, you want the people with the most knowledge and life experience to fully understand and make fair judgments about the gravest of legal and moral decisions.”

More than all of this, though, is the importance put on teshuvah, or a return to righteousness, which is among the highest of Jewish values. As I’ve mentioned before, it is not the person who is without blemish who is held in the highest esteem, but the one who has fallen off the path and found their way back.

• “In the place where the repentant (ba’alei teshuva) stand, even the wholly righteous cannot stand” (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 34b).
• “He receives a great reward because he has tasted the taste of sin and yet separated himself from it and has conquered his evil inclination” (Maimonides; Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Teshuva 7:4).

Indeed, this seems to be what the Evil Queen’s death sentence hinged on in “The Cricket Game.” Indeed, it was Jiminy Cricket’s assertion that the Evil Queen would not change that finally condemned her to death. 

And he was wrong.

In a subtle way, the Talmud indicates that anyone who is that fallible should not be the determining factor when it comes to sentencing a person to death. Thus the requirement for not one or a handful, but twenty-three people of remarkable wisdom and outstanding moral character (with an emphasis on kindness and humility) to make the final decision. 

But we don’t have that in the Enchanted Forest. Only Snow’s sentimentality (I refuse to call it compassion or empathy) put a stop to it.

And therein lies the main problem of justice in the Enchanted Forest: it’s ruled not by law or principle, but by sentiment. What matters most is not what someone has done or is capable of doing, but how the person in power feels about them.

No matter how benevolent Snow and Charming claim to be, this is a horrifying prospect.

onceuponameta:

A lot of people have been expressing discomfort with the use of electroshock torture in the promo for the final 3 episodes of Season 2.

But I want to ask you: Is there a “good” way to use torture in a story? Why or why not? If so, how should torture be used? How should it not be used?