Gaiman, Neil - Stardust (reread) and Stardust (2007 movie)

I reread Gaiman's Stardust after watching the movie this weekend because I disliked the ending and the gender politics so much that I wanted to see if a) it was the moviemakers being stupid or b) I had overlooked the skanky gender issues in Gaiman's book.

Thankfully, I think it is more a) than b); though Gaiman's book isn't absolutely wonderful on gender, it is also not the glaring awfulness that is the movie.

I don't think I would have minded as much had it not been an adaptation of a book I loved; I am so used to seeing this blatant gender typing in movies that I have all but stopped being angry at it. This makes me sad.

The book Stardust is a lovely little fairy tale in the best of senses -- it is odd and wry and frightening and grand and quiet. A star falls, and young Tristran Thorn promises to bring it back to Victoria, whom he is infatuated with. So he sets out to the world beyond the Wall.

( Book and movie comparisons, spoilers for both )

Links:
- rushthatspeaks' review (spoilers)
- sophia_helix's review (spoilers)
- Feminist SF's review

Tateno Makoto - Yellow, vol. 01-04 (Eng. trans.)

Taki and Goh are snatchers; they get secret missions and recover drugs for some private organization. Many of their missions involve seducing beautiful men and women and decoding strange clues at the most romantically inconvenient times.

Taki is straight; Goh is gay; Goh has a mad crush on Taki and expresses it by molesting him in public. This would seem homophobic, except it's pretty clear that the mangaka approves of such behavior. I don't, largely because Taki dislikes it and I am a huge unfan of the "if you love someone obnoxiously and loudly enough, that person must return your affection" trope. Also, the setup with gay Goh and straight Taki means that women end up being the romantic rivals.

I wasn't going to read much more, except there was fic on Yuletide. So I read vol. 2, which thankfully moves away from the mystery of the week set up and also works on Taki's reciprocation of Goh's feelings, which made me much happier. I like mutually reciprocated relationships! I only wish more BL/yaoi mangaka liked them too... Either that, or their line for mutual reciprocation is much, much, much fuzzier than mine.

In the end, this series ended up being better than I thought it would be, but I'm still not the biggest fan.

( Spoilers )