Skip to main content

Once Upon a Time seasons 1-4 | Review

First of all, if you haven't seen Once Upon a Time and want to go into the show blind, then please minimise this, go watch it all and come back. While there are no ground-breaking spoilers here, I do touch on parts of the plot, and characters that may be considered of a spoiler-y nature.

Back in 2010, I was babysitting for an old neighbour when what to my wandering eyes could appear but an advert. The advert was to become the beginning of an adventure in my life, spanning right up until this very day. It has indeed taken me since that dreary, dark night in 2010 until this very day to get up to date with Once Upon a Time (IMDB here), and my what a journey it has been.
What drew me to the show initially was the basic theme of fairytales (I’m a sucker for a good story), and the added twist of modern day America meets the fairytales was just my cup of tea. Over the years we have seen a group of characters, once (upon a time *sniggers*) defined by their stock stereotypes of ‘hero’ and ‘villain’ be uprooted, thrown about, taken apart and put back together again in a very charming way.


The roller-coaster ride that was season one established Emma Swan in my heart as a defiant, sassy and fiercely loyal young woman. I loved her stand-offish nature and as the series has continued, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning her back story. I relate so much to Emma Swan in as much as she gives as good as she gets, but she has flaws; she gets scared and runs away and is overly defensive and won't open up. Over the four years the show has been on, Swan has grown and blossomed and fallen in ways in which no follower of the show could have imagined. Her relationships with other characters, particularly her close family: Henry, Regina and her parents. The fact that Emma is given the stereotype of 'the saviour', yet isn't always good and hasn't had the most perfect past is really refreshing. 

Regina, whom I adored from the beginning, manages to grow into a complex character. According to the show's IMDB page, this is largely due to the character's actress, Lara Parrilla asking them to make her more multi-dimensional. Her relationship with her adopted son and her motivations for her actions lead us to grow to love Regina (there isn't a single person who watches OUAT that I've spoken to that dislikes her). I think part of the draw to Regina is that she is an outcast - she's stereotyped as a 'villain'; much in the same way many viewers may have felt cast out by being labeled by society as 'woman' or 'black' or 'gay' or 'bisexual' or 'trans'. 

One of the things Once Upon a Time does so compellingly, use the tropes of fairytales to look at our society and our lives. While there are these sociological aspect to it, it maintains an active plot, brilliant writing and beautifully complex characters. Once Upon a Time succeeds simply because it is passionate; passionate about stories, about people, and about life. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Teens don't read"

Earlier today Maureen Johnson pointed out that the view of "teens don't read" in the UK is deeply entrenched (which is a word that I now love  and had never heard before). As a teenager in the UK, the stigma around reading seems to be - to me - it's "uncool", it's "geeky", there "aren't any good books out there". I think the fact that a lot of teenagers in British schools are exposed to older literature or, perhaps, not that popular literature in lessons and forced into over-analysing and spending countless hours on 'what the author meant'. A point that was raised in this twitter discussion was that people didn't want to be seen reading, or didn't want to be seen reading certain books. It's made me realise that I never   ever ever  see people reading in the older years in my school ( ever ). Perhaps the odd year 7 (12 year old) or year 8 (13 year old) will read, but - from experience - they will probably be ...
4 comments
Read more

The concept of 'okayness'

Something I've noticed through both personal experience and observing other individuals is how human beings deal with the concept of being 'okay'. Generally we all have good things and bad things going on in their lives, take me for example: bad - back pain, medicine; good - family, friends, home, life, food, money... good stuff happening and change (change is an 'okay' right now rather than a 'not okay'). I happen to think that my life is  okay at the moment because, for me, the good stuff out ways the bad stuff by a milestone. Throughout a day I may become not okay but on the whole I am - on the whole I'm happy. I have noticed though, through reflection and looking at others, that we almost have this desire... this tendency to want to point at the 'not okay' bits of out lives and make them of a higher importance than our 'okay' bits. If I'm having an average day it can much more easily become a bad day than a good because I reme...
2 comments
Read more

Girls on YouTube

You know something that is really  annoying me lately: slimey YouTube comments. I posted a video, admittedly yes because I knew it would get attention because I'm a girl talking about Skyrim, wearing a vest top because that happened to be what I was wearing at the time and I've had really... objectifying comments. It's not even as if some of these comments are commenting on my looks, they're commenting on my body. I don't even care if guys think when they see a girl in a low-cut top "ooh, boobs!" but they don't (usually) voice this in person, so why should they be allowed to do it on the internet? It annoys me greatly; imagine if I was two years younger and had done the same thing? It would put me in a very vulnerable situation, and it still does in a way. I want people to view my content because they like what comes out of my mouth, not because I'm female and film in casual clothing. I've even had someone accuse me of angling my camera so ...
2 comments
Read more