All posts by ThatOneDanny

Aspiring Med Student and Nerdist. Loving life and hope that it loves me back.
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Daredevil is Arrow in the Best Possible Way.

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Daredevil gives fans the same rush and excitement that seasons 1 and 2 of Arrow did. There is a man trying to save his city, well done action scenes, great overarching villains and well developed characters that we care for. Season 3 of Arrow was terrible when it came to plot development, character development, villains and the forced relationship of Oliver and Felicity. Season 4 of Arrow is trying to make Arrow more “Happy” and lighter in tone, but sadly is stuck in a weird state between the dark tone of seasons 1 and 2 and a weird lighter tone of the Flash. What if the dark and gritty Daredevil became more focused on a love story and made that the core part of the season? What if all the sudden Matt was more concerned with his love life than what Kingpin or some other villain was doing to his neighborhood? What if then the show tried to make Daredevil “happier” and light hearted the season following that? Take a sigh of relief because I doubt we will have to worry about that with Daredevil, but that nightmare is most definitely real for Arrow.

Just so everyone understands before reading this: I am a fan of both DC and Marvel, but I have always been way more invested in DC comic storylines…so as such please do not think I am a hardcore marvel fanboy trying to rip on DC for the fun of it. 🙂

I am like  many of you, I enjoy Marvel and DC comics mythology. They embody characters we can relate to, cheer for, and even hate. The vast amount of emotions we feel for some of these characters is why we keep coming back (not to mention the universe sharing arcs resulting in team ups, and the action packed scenes  we hype ourselves for). Arrow started a great trend of superhero shows that showed us that Superheroes on the small screen were possible and that we would not have to rely on side characters of big movie franchises to give us our fix on the small screen.

But sadly Arrow has completely reversed that excitement starting with the abysmal season 3 and with the somewhat improved but still not as good as season 4. No longer did we have a cohesive storyline, a compelling villain, or the action scenes that became the norm in the first two seasons. The empowered female who was both feminine and nerdy became another one of Oliver’s love interest and ended up crying for most of season three…only to become an Oracle substitute in season 4. Season 3′s main focus seemed to be on “Olicity” which was a forced relationship by the writers. It was rushed, and was implemented to please a part of the fanbase. Season 4 is trying to find a balance between “Olicity” and a lighter hearted superhero show and so far “Olicity” continues to hold it back with the oddly perfect relationship in the beginning of the season to the very predictable midseason finale of Felicity not being in the grave. But thankfully there is a substitute for those who loved the grim undertone of season 1 and 2 of arrow, called Daredevil.

The first two seasons of Arrow had amazing choreographed fight scenes, great overarching villains in the form of malcolm and Slade and dark tone of a vigilante trying to take down the corrupt in his city. Season 3 and even season 4 do not come close to the quality of storytelling and drama the first two seasons produced.

Season 1 of Arrow had a dark tone, great character development (still missing Tommy) and amazing fight scenes that seasons 3 and 4 have not been able to match. Season 1 gave us the story of a man who was trying to fit back into his world after being stranded on an island for 5 years. A man who came back to right the wrongs of his father, and to take down the corrupt who had brought Starling City to its knees. Season 2 expanded on the universe by introducing Black Canary, and gave us the greatest villain to this date the show has ever produced, Slade Wilson. The tragic fate of Oliver and Slade becoming enemies after sharing a brotherly bond on the island made for some amazing storytelling and some compelling action scenes.

We went from amazing action scenes like this in season 1 of Arrow…

Arrow Season 1 Fight Scene Example

To awful rushed fight scenes like this in Season 3…

Arrow Season 3 Fight Scene Example

Daredevil premiered last year to much critical acclaim and love from the superhero loving crowd. We All connected with Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer who just wants to make his city a better place. The show has a very dark tone it that works very well. The fight scenes and villains are handled extremely well with the episode 2 fight scene taking the cake as most memorable fight scene from season 1. We have great supporting characters in the form of Matt’s best friend Foggy and a very strong female character named Karen Page, who proves that she’s not just some helpless girl who needs Daredevil to save her every single time she is in trouble. The characters work, the story works, the fight scenes work…hell even the connections to the Marvel big movie franchises worked. Daredevil is exactly what a dark, street fighting superhero show should be like and sadly Arrow would have stayed up there had it continued the cohesive parts of the story from seasons 1 and 2 in a dark and gritty tone.

Okay before some of you jump at me and say how Arrow was never perfect, or you love Felicity and Oliver’s relationship hear me out. Imagine that amazing hallway fight scene from Daredevil season 1 episode 2. Now imagine something of that caliber with Arrow in place of Daredevil. Imagine Oliver going after corrupt people on his list and venturing into the Glades, and Bludhaven to savagely take down kidnappers, rapists, murders and such. Oliver Queen in the comics is a left wing social justice advocate who is all about the little guy. Arrow was headed towards the “Green Arrow” mythology in seasons 1 and 2 but instead became all about “Olicity” and Arrow becoming Batman by making him fight Ra’s Al Ghul.  Sure the show now features Oliver as Green Arrow and sure its great to see team ups between Arrow, Flash and the like, but the damage done to Arrow by season 3 is painfully obvious. Daredevil on the other hand is continuing with the awesome dark storytelling from season 1.

Listen, I understand that since Daredevil is on Netflix there are less restrictions in terms of what they can show or do. I also understand that The CW is going to want to make Arrow appeal to as many members of the audience as possible. But lets not forget what Arrow was like in its first two seasons and also about how much those first two seasons were loved by the fan base. For all of you that feel the same burn from Arrow that I do and are saddened by a once great show now nothing but a shadow of itself. For those of you who feel as though watching Arrow once a week, has become boring or kind of like a chore, I urge you all to watch Daredevil season 1 or if you have watched Daredevil, get excited for season 2! Because Marvel is appealing to those of us who loved and miss the tone and direction of season 1 and 2 of Arrow.

Social Ideals

The Unaware Racist

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Hey there! My name is Danny and I’m from New England. I love it here and even with any issues I have had its still my favorite part of the country. Now you may ask what that tidbit of info has to do with the title.. Well you see where I grew up I was always the only kid of a different background…or well at least the only one with a dark complexion. Now before you go jumping the gun I am not saying that being a dark kid in a whitewashed environment was the root cause of the unaware racism or prejudice I dealt with….er….actually maybe it kinda is.

You see back when I was going to school my parents insisted of giving me the best life possible. They value things like a nice house, job, a healthy meal, and oh…right…education. So since my parents came from a different country they were really committed to giving me the life they never had.

By all standards I have gotten the life a kid could ever want. I was spoiled rotten and never have to worry about money. I got a nice luxury car for my 16th birthday as well as my 19th birthday. Hell my parents even bought me a upgraded version of my Mercedes in 2011. So as you can imagine when certain “apologetic” people of a caucasian background come up to me and say something along the lines of “I realize white privilege is a thing and that minorities like yourself don’t have access to many things” or “I have an indian friend who is just like you” can be very awkward to hear.

You see I get it, they mean well by what they say. Some of these individuals who recognize their privilege are using it help gain equality for other groups but when they say things like the quotes above, what hat they think they are doing is being politically correct but in reality they are being unintentionally racist. Well in case you are seeing this and shaking your head saying I don’t get it…how are those two quotes racist then I ask you to do this: Take those two quotes and replace “white” in the first quote with whatever other race and picture someone saying that to you and take “indian” and replace it with “white” or “black” or any term that best describes your background. So in an essence you can see why saying something like “Hey man I totally have this white friend who is just like you”  or ” you are really cute for a white guy” can sound hilariously stupid.

I could go on hours of what people have said to me that they think is out of good nature but ends up making them look the opposite. Obviously this isn’t limited to my background and happens to people of many other backgrounds. So this brings me to another point. That point is that obviously we all come from different backgrounds whether it be Indian, Chinese, English, Latino etc. So it doesn’t sit well when someone refers to me simply as a person of color and goes on to apply all the struggles and success of different groups to me. To be more frank I hate when white people come up to me and talk about people of color referring to me but then they also talk about an asian or hispanic friend they have applying that term to them as well. See the problem? Well some of you might be thinking “hey if you are dark skinned you are colored…so therefore this term applies to you.” To which I would respond with No shit! you have eyes!!. But that’s not the issue I have with it rather my issue is the grouping of people of different backgrounds into one category to justify to ourselves that we aren’t being racist or not acknowledging someone’s race.

I am sorry but someone who is hispanic would not understand what it was like to grow up as a punjabi boy in New Hampshire and vice versa. The fact that minorities in the United States are grouped together is horrendous. People all have different experiences and they should be acknowledged. You are not going to offend me if you use the words dark skinned, brown, indian to physically describe me but you will offend me if you use indian or brown to describe me as your brown friend or indian friend. I understand that this might some weird to some but remember how I said I grew up in New England? Well I was forced to go a private christian school for elementary all the way to the end of high school. To many of them I seemed foreign and people even referred to me as black because they didn’t understand the difference. When I would explain to them that I am Indian..their first response would be “what tribe do you belong to?”….yeah….not even kidding that actually happened multiple times.

It was not until college that I saw people in class and made friends who weren’t of this limited mindset.  It was nice to finally escape from the mindset of where even mentioning the notion that Jesus Christ was not white but looked middle eastern would make you a laughing stock to entering a place where that is actually a valid point. Instead of learning how bad democrats were and how muslims are supposedly trying to destroy the world I learned about how equality is still a work in progress and that you know being muslim does not equal terrorist.

So my point is if you are someone who says to your friend that you know someone just like them based on their ethnicity, take the time to acknowledge that it is wrong. It might be surprising to some but people of other ethnicities have differences amongst themselves too. For example, I am indian but I am also Punjabi whereas someone else you may know may be indian but may be from a different part of india or may not even know where their family comes from. Based on different regions of India people speak different languages and have different customs. It’s like saying that a kid from New York City is just like a kid from Nashville.

If you are someone who has had a similar experience to mine or has heard friends say such things, do what I didn’t do back then or was afraid to do..SPEAK UP. Some of your friends/acquaintances just may not be aware they are hurting you by saying such things and need to be educated on the matter. Hopefully telling them would make them be a little more aware about not grouping people together and may help avoid awkward stares or conversations with someone in the future.