艾美奖的提名将在7月28日的不到两周内宣布，这就是为什么我们看到了所有这些虚拟竞选活动，并给出了涉及的名称，Little Fires Everywherecould be a strong contender.
Warning: Literally all spoilers
Little Fires Everywhereis a beautiful limited series, led by Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington, who both also served as executive producers on the project. They play mothers with little in common besides their belief that they are a great mother and the other is not. It is this damnation and judgement, clear projections from their deep emotional wounds and secrets, that is woven through the series, eventually leading to a realization of the metaphor and titleLittle Fires Everywhere.Each choice, lie, and betrayal along the way serves as an ember for the eventual fire. Add in an absolutely searing critique on past and modern day racism, and the cruelty of good intentions, and the result is a riveting show.
位于俄亥俄州的Shaker Heights，一个富裕的小镇，被称为种族隔离领导者，Little Fires Everywhere讲述了即使不同的人共享一个看似均衡的环境，特权和权力有多重要。里斯（Reese）扮演埃琳娜（Elena），他是一个神经质和荒诞的白人妇女，有四个孩子和一个丈夫，她的眼睛和控制力都在她的批判性眼中奔跑。克里·华盛顿（Kerry Washington）扮演超级秘密的黑人单身母亲米娅（Mia），有一个孩子，珍珠，她的骄傲和喜悦。还有另一个母亲二人组，琳达和贝贝，埃琳娜和米娅的朋友，他们是次要角色，因为中国婴儿的监护权。
I love that the show was set in the 90s to demonstrate the nonsense of post-racial principles we are still dealing with today. The way in which we are trained to feel lucky that white people can pretend to be colorblind needs to be unpacked. Elena and her daughter Lexie show us that tolerance is often a performance, and more importantly a barrier to actual respect: while Elena thinks she’s a liberal, we are shown that her actual behaviour is far from progressive, especially when she’s exposed to the slightest bit of pressure. In this time of exploring卡伦主义,the timing is uncanny.
Another bonus for me was it being set at the exact same time I was in a predominantly white high school in Toronto. Details down to the music at the school dances and other cultural references, and the popularity of girls still live in my memory. My guess is a lot of Black students in white spaces can relate to the show, particularly the educational dynamic. In fact,this true and damning accountof how the Shaker education system failed Black students written by a former white resident and student of a Shaker high school looks like it came directly from the show – that’s how accurately they portray this on the show. After all, Celeste Ng, who wrote the book from which the series is adapted, grew up and went to high school in Shaker Heights.
But nothing on the show works without the dynamic between Elena and Mia (Reese and Kerry) who work so well together and capture so many delicate nuances through their performances alone; every interaction and subsequent conflict between them escalates the tension that builds and builds until, well, the inevitable. It’s a gradual but unavoidable burn.
从他们的第一次战斗开始，他们就放开了所有保持关系至少运作的假愉快的人。发生在灾难性的聚会之后，埃琳娜（Elena）向她最好的朋友琳达（Linda）庆祝了梅·林（May Ling）的第一个生日，更名为米拉贝尔（Mirabelle）。一旦米娅（Mia）发现这是贝贝（Bebe）在消防局遗弃的婴儿时，她告诉她的朋友，她的朋友显然无法抗拒她的孩子。这打断了埃琳娜（Elena）计划的另一个完美事件，更重要的是，警察被召唤，引发了即将进行的监护之战。埃琳娜（Elena）并没有花费很长时间才能连接Mia和Bebe，具有讽刺意味的是，她并不是唯一一个入侵空间和界限以获取信息的人。
因此，埃琳娜（Elena）在一个争论中面对米娅（Mia），种族，阶级和权利是前锋和中心。Like a textbook narcissist who argues in bad faith, Elena seems to have the most energy for a conflict if it’s right after some kind of power struggle with someone else – in this case after she unethically offers Bebe money for May Ling and when that fails, she tries to regain her power supply through Mia who is standing in her kitchen. Obviously, Elena gets dragged by Mia who calls out her blatant caucasity in thinking she knows the best interest of a child that is not hers. Which then leads to Elena criticizing Mia’s mothering of her own daughter, Pearl, because her desire to win an argument overrides any logic or sensitivity. In a scorching indictment about choices and motherhood, Mia retorts,“您没有做出不错的选择，您有很好的选择，有钱，有资格给您的选择。”
埃琳娜（Elena）没有谦卑自己并学习一些东西，而是做了白人所做的那件事，他们表现得很惊讶。这是一种转移策略，我很高兴该节目不断地彻底揭开了微侵略的科学。这主要是通过微侵略和一般性的女王来完成的，Lexie，但我稍后再找她。
Another haunting conflict scene between Elena and Mia occurred in the courthouse washroom, where Elena was illegally attempting to dissuade Mia from testifying (again, she failed) and she drops the bomb of knowing how Mia decided to keep Pearl despite being a surrogate. Reese Witherspoon takes her time with Elena’s twisted condescension, layering her performance to highlight that her character is totally unapologetic that she found Mia’s parents and creeped her life story so unethically. Mia is clearly crushed and it almost worked, but her integrity and Bebe’s pleas make her testify anyway and she goes on to provide a strong and emotional testimony while Elena looks on, shocked (again) that her tactics didn’t work and that, unlike what she just did, her husband Bill (Joshua Jackson) did not cross the ethical lines she did while he was cross-examining Mia.
And while I’m proud of Mia for standing her ground, the more we learn about her obsession with helping Bebe, the more its connection to her story with Pearl seems murky. Elena’s detective work unearthed Mia’s secret: the tragic death of her brother, her decision to become a surrogate to make enough money to pay for school, her absurdly strict parents who cruelly forbade her from attending her brother’s funeral because she was pregnant. Whether that justifies her keeping Pearl because she felt abandoned is a choice for the viewers (I think it’s just as unfair as Linda keeping May Ling). While I can’t relate directly to the specific circumstances, I do have experience with the absurdly stoic Caribbean household, with unexplained and constantly rigid rules that don’t work and come out of thin air or vague religious references. That’s why it bothers me that Mia chooses secrets and protection as her excuse to be so strict with Pearl. Either be devoted to being a free spirit who holds people accountable, or be strict with your daughter, I don’t like how she tried to do both. It’s supposed to be Elena that abides by the rules, but time and time again, this show uncovers the common ground between these starkly different women while highlighting how their differences hurt each other and those around them.
And the trial frames the issues of the show perfectly. There’s a mind-blowing amount of white entitlement tied up in Linda’s belief that Bebe’s abandoning of May Ling due to a clear episode postpartum depression is irrelevant, and that the only thing that matters is her rescuing and mothering the child. This court battle demonstrates the value white people can place on their good deeds and how everyone is expected to rally around them; that even a child can be bought with $10,000, heavy manipulation, and a wink to the power they yield over the immigration system, closely connected to law enforcement, and the education system. These connections are not meant to be concealed on this show and even with an amazing and culturally competent lawyer and compelling arguments, people like Bebe will always lose their children in a system that was not built to empower them. Bill said it himself to Elena, how even he knew that he would win a losing case speaks to not his legal expertise, but his knowledge of how the law is unfair and unjust in the first place.
Elena and Mia’s final argument was so heavy that the actresses recounted the day on set in各种各样的interviews. Elena was spinning out quickly, armed with the wrong information about her own daughter’s abortion as the last chance to outpower Mia while she was kicking her out of the apartment she rented to her. Of course, Mia let her know how disgusting it was that Elena couldn’t be there for Lexie’s abortion aftercare because she was gallivanting with Mia’s parents and gathering dirt that was none of her business, telling this woman how misplaced, ridiculous, and dangerous her antics are. It’s the takedown the audience is waiting for before the actual and physical takedown of Elena’s home.
虽然埃琳娜和米娅这个圣的细胞核ory, the warning character in this story, as a reflection of our times and a reminder of what’s at stake, is Lexie. She is Elena’s mini-me, astoundingly lacking in self-awareness just like her mother, played beautifully by Jade Pettyjohn. And just like her mother, Lexie believes herself to be more progressive than she actually is – because she’s dating Brian, a Black boy (played by Stevonte Hart). But this relationship only empowers her macroaggressions towards Black people (how can I possibly be racist if I’m dating a Black person?) and these macroaggressions accumulate over the course of the series, each one worse than the last right up to when Brian finally breaks up with her.
Like Lexie, I was waiting for him to just do it already. He was bothered at the onset when she stole Pearls discrimination story to get into Yale, but he had to call her out a bunch of times and witness more to finally name her behaviour for what it is. I know he is supposed to be seen as some kind of woke hero, but it doesn’t go unnoticed that he reaped the benefits of being with Lexie at the expense of the target of her microaggressions, Pearl and other Black women. Just another way Black men often act as the shield that Black women are actually providing while allowing to weaponise their association with them to conceal their biases. In the end, the show offers hope that Lexie wants to change, especially when she tells her siblings they are becoming like Elena before they burn down the house. Do the Lexies of the world inevitably become Karens?Little Fires Everywhere让他们有机会在他们之前看到自己。
