meganbmoore (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
meganbmoore) wrote2010-05-14 12:20 am
meganbmoore) wrote2010-05-14 12:20 am
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Girl Zorro: initial thoughts
I have finally watched the first episode of Queen of Swords, aka “90s Girl Zorro.” I hereby declared this series to be awesome. Please note that “awesome” and “good” are not always synonymous.
The series is, literally, a female “Zorro.” I understand there were lawsuits. Neither the acting nor the writing is anything resembling stellar-the plot relies on people conveniently not noticing that The Queen of Swords showed up immediately after the heroine, Tessa, returned to California from Madrid, and just happens to be concerned about the same family as Tessa, and only Valentine Pelka (chief villain) and Paulina Galvez (Marta, Tessa’s servant/girlfriend/best friend) really turn out anything that could be justifiably called “real acting.” (Before anyone says “what about Peter Wingfield?” well, if he was in this episode, it was a 2 second cameo that I missed.)
Yet, it’s quite fun, though not really in a campy or even “so bad it’s good” way. This could change!
Like most of the heroines in 90s adventure TV, Tessa is cocky, competent, and skilled in her chosen field. I can’t help but think that this trend explains a lot about my love of campy 90s TV, no matter how much these things may fall into clichéd gender traps. And about 2/3 of the lines were from women, mostly talking to each other? In a swashbuckling adventure show! Also, the two main characters (in this episode, at least, I suspect non-Tessa character focus will shift) are Hispanic women, who practically don’t exist in US TV. At least, not with lines and without being the Gangster of the Week’s Girlfriend/dead sister.
I kinda can’t wait until Tessa learns that the guy who spent the episode hitting on her and thinks changing a kid’s execution to a whipping is a love token is the one who killed her father.
The series is, literally, a female “Zorro.” I understand there were lawsuits. Neither the acting nor the writing is anything resembling stellar-the plot relies on people conveniently not noticing that The Queen of Swords showed up immediately after the heroine, Tessa, returned to California from Madrid, and just happens to be concerned about the same family as Tessa, and only Valentine Pelka (chief villain) and Paulina Galvez (Marta, Tessa’s servant/
Yet, it’s quite fun, though not really in a campy or even “so bad it’s good” way. This could change!
Like most of the heroines in 90s adventure TV, Tessa is cocky, competent, and skilled in her chosen field. I can’t help but think that this trend explains a lot about my love of campy 90s TV, no matter how much these things may fall into clichéd gender traps. And about 2/3 of the lines were from women, mostly talking to each other? In a swashbuckling adventure show! Also, the two main characters (in this episode, at least, I suspect non-Tessa character focus will shift) are Hispanic women, who practically don’t exist in US TV. At least, not with lines and without being the Gangster of the Week’s Girlfriend/dead sister.
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Like Sinbad...
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(Teresa would be insufficiently posh for the time, anyway. You would need a longer name for that)
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(Also the actress's name is Tessie, and I think this was her first big gig. It might be interesting to learn if the character was named before or after she was cast.)
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But at least Paulina is believable and appropriate for the time. That's the kind of name Benito Pérez Galdós would give a character :P
Spanish nobility had (and still have) rather "unique" names because they used to have three or more first names and two surnames, any of which might be composite. For example, the link above went to the Duchess of Alba that Goya painted. The current Duchess of Alba's full name is Maria del Rosario Cayetana Alfonsa Victoria Eugenia Francisca Fitz-James Stuart y Silva, and our present king is Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias. Their surnames start at "Fitz-James Stuart" and "de Borbón", respectively.
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I'm not sure the modern TexMex culture I'm familiar with would even use Tessa. (As near as I can tell, she grew up in California but her father sent her to Madrid, either because of her mother's death, or because he thought the environment was unsuitable for a teenaged girl without a mother and he couldn't give her th proper attention-it wasn't clear on when her mother died, or how long the family had been in California, or, come to think of it, even if the 5 years Tessa mentioned was how long she'd been in Madrid, or just how long since she saw her father.)
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