Media Round Up: We Finished Voyager!

Authentic Indians: Episodes of Encounter from the Late-Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast by Paige Raibmon — This book uses three stories involving American Indians of the pacific northwest to argue that the idea of authenticity as constructed around the turn of the 20th century both created opportunities for and limitations on Indians. I thought it made a lot of good points, but I wished it had more of a strong narrative.

Star Trek: Voyager — We finished this! It feels like the end of an era since it's been our show for so long. The ending was ok. I really wanted a bit more denouement though. Still I found Voyager very much worth watching, I loved seeing a woman captain a starship, and I loved the found family aspect of the show.

Oh My General, episodes 1-14 — I started watching this Chinese drama about a woman who disguised herself as man and won a great victory. Then she revealed her gender and the Emperor arranged her marriage to his very fem nephew. So far this is fun and campy! There were tons of women: mothers, sisters, mothers-in-law, sisters in law, ect, in the 1st few episodes. The Emperor’s mom is a literal power behind the throne. Some of these characters haven’t been around for a while and I miss them! This doing some interesting things with gender roles. I’m not internally comfortable with everything thing it's doing with gender, some bits strike me as sexist. Or trying to subvert gender roles and missing the mark. However I also know that I’m missing a lot of cultural context, and that there’s still a lot of story to come so I’m trying to reserve judgement. It's a fun and fairly light show and I’m enjoying it a lot. (Content note: Non consensual kissing, threat of suicide for coercive reasons, occasional gore, alcohol and drunkenness)