The Top Twelve Female TV Characters of Awesome: Part One

So it was only a matter of time until the inevitable top-something list from us and we've worked long and hard to bring you what we feel are the greatest female characters on television. Why? Because television, like most media landscapes, are devoid of interesting portrayals of women and so we felt we should celebrate all those charecters that fulfill a certain quota of greatness. OK, so TV still has a long way to go and this list is mainly cisgendered, attractive women under 30 (holla at the gender theorists in the hizzle!), but hey, baby steps right? Lets start with 12 - 6.


12) Nancy Botwin – Completely amoral but with the best of intentions (at least to start off with), Nancy is a joy to watch and fits in with that select group of characters who you just love to hate, but still want to win. Becoming a drug kingpin (queenpin?) and continually winning it all and subsequently losing it as she lurches from one disaster to the next, Nancy brings being fucked up to new and dizzying heights.

Highpoint; ‘Go’ - Burning down an entire town to save her skin. Crazy like a fox!


11) Martha Jones – The second companion in the rebooted Doctor Who, Martha (a doctor in training herself), brought a certain fiery dynamic to the doctor/companion relationship and though her lovestruck awe of the doctor could get a bit trying, she ended up being just as awesome as him.

Highpoint; ‘Last of the Time Lords’ – Saving the universe. Can’t really get more awesome than that.


10) Anne (Annie) Clare Sawyer – The idea of an insecure, agoraphobic ghost is hilarious but could have easily become annoyingly one-dimensional. Not so with Annie, the resident ghost of ‘Being Human’. The fragility of her character in the beginning of the first season slowly blooming into the confident woman she never was in life; in fact for a dead woman, she seems far more alive than most (OK, I’m kinda in love with her).

Highpoint; ‘Season One, Episode Six’ Annie who was so confined both actually and figuratively, saves lives with her newfound confidence (and mad poltergeist skillz).


9) Lorelai Gilmore – Gilmore Girls is a completely misunderstood show. People view it as mindless fluff when it’s actually a complicated treatise on class in modern America. Well, sort of. But Lorelai is great and an excellent role model, not relying on her parents handouts she started a business from scratch and raised a child alone, all while managing to watch a phenomenal amount of TV a day.

Highpoint; ‘The Lorelais' First Day at Yale’ Coolest. Mom. Ever.


8) Veronica Mars – Ace female detective? Brilliant. I love Veronica Mars so much I wrote an essay about her for my degree. Her deductive reasoning at points put her for me, into the pantheon of greatest fictional detectives and the wonderful subversion of the type by using a pretty blonde girl (something owed in part to another entry on my list) was quite clever. Her relationship with her father is another important point, being both realistic and warm, making it a joy to watch.

Highpoint; ‘Not Pictured’ Solving the 2^nd season mystery and getting a lot more besides answers (plus Kristen Bell’s performance here is incredible).


7) Dr. Neela Rasgotra – Another example of a complex character given plenty of growth over the course of the show; Neela, my personal favorite doctor in E.R. starts out as reticent and uncommunicative and downright grouchy, but softens as the show went on going on to become an excellent surgeon and friend to much of the staff, it’s no wonder about seven people fall in love with her over the course of the show! Neela is the sort of character you cheer for when she overcomes some difficult goal, like her claustrophobia or terrible bedside manner and very much became the heart of the show.

Highpoint; "The Gallant Hero & The Tragic Victor" If your heart didn’t break for Neela here then you have no soul. Seriously.


6) Buffy Summers – The girl, the legend. Buffy, who has inspired numerous critical feminist discourses on the subject of women in television is just plain amazing; whether she’s fighting numerous demons and vampires or trying to deal with high school. Even when she fails, she does it so well you can’t help but love her; and you can never forget that she taught a generation that the girl doesn’t have to be the victim and can kick ass with the best of them (and quite often, better). So popular she continues to live on in comic book form, not many charecters can say that. If they were, you know, real and could say things.

Highpoint; ‘The Gift’ Heroic self-sacrifice of awesome.


That's enough for now, check back soon to find out who made it to number one!

I AM LOVE Movie review

“Our family’s fortune is built on unity” Edoardo Recchi Sr

“I am Love” is an elegantly shot yet gracelessly structured piece of arthouse cinema.

The film centers on a wealthy industrialist family: the Recchis. Specifically we observe the film through the eyes of Emma (Tilda Swinton), a Russian Émigré who owes her name to her husband Tancredi Recchi the man of the household. In the film we view a clash between the public familial loyalties and the private intimate passions of Emma.

When it comes to reasons why I am Love doesn’t quite succeed a poor narrative tops the list. In the film certain scenes felt disconnected, going on for arbitrarily long periods and then abruptly stopping causing us to miss out on events that would have illuminated character. We are left not understanding why characters do the things they do. Emma’s mother in law for example is virtually a bit player, her motivations forever left un-established. Why Emma was unhappy in her marriage, why she chose to embark on an affair with Antonio, none of this was ever clear. Though the subtlety had its charm at points, much too much was never given a clear reason for happening. The film was very post-modern in the sense that it required audience members to be far too active in the construction of the meaning of certain scenes. This was lazy filmmaking masquerading as artful. Additionally the sparseness of dramatic tension brings to ones attention another flaw with the film: It is uncertain whether it wants to be a gripping family drama or an erotic melodrama focusing on a woman’s self-discovery.

The performances by the actors in this film are all exemplary, working with the little material they had to bring the characters to life; although this feels like they achieved this in spite of the script at points rather than because of it. Tilda Swinton, predictably can be singled out as having a notable portrayal of her character.

Stylistically, the film is exquisite with a sweeping score (if a tad overblown at points particularly the end) and haunting cinematography that inspires a desirable sense of displacement. The Recchi house is a character of its own, possessing an imposing and cold presence. In opposition to this there is the warm idyllic atmosphere of Antonio’s restaurant. Most of the film is shot beautifully apart from a few odd scenes where the camera seems to hover around aimlessly for too long with no fixed purpose in mind. Particularly there is a scene where we ignore Antonio and Emma and instead witness a car’s POV as it drives them towards their country getaway: this shot lasts far too long. In addition there is a sex scene which goes on forever and is accompanied by a grand swell of music that all seems garish and pointless.

In conclusion I Am Love is a mostly beautiful film that is let down by an unfocused narrative and camera.

We say hey, you say hey. We all like bananas.

Salutations, greetings and welcome to Mouth versus Brain, a blog about lots of stuff; High art, low art, inbetweeny art, critical readings of media, and random pictures and links of stuff we like.

The whole concept of Mouth versus Brain comes from those instances when the mouth and the brain refuse to co-operate. For instance when you see that hot girl/guy/etc and your brain formulates a winning piece of dialogue to introduce yourself and your mouth decides to go blerugghha? this is mouth versus brain. see?

We will nerd out and share our ludicrous obsessions with American television, films of every ilk and media galore. Define stuff, get bored, start again, make some toast and then redefine it.

If you're still unclear on what exactly this blog is about, don't worry, we're a little fuzzy too. Just roll with it and we'll get there in the end.

In the words then, of that great thinker Eloise Hawking "Let's get started"