The Romulan Republic wrote: ↑2020-06-30 02:15am
Galvatron wrote: ↑2020-06-30 01:59am
At what point did Holdo "flirt" with Poe? Did I completely misread their interaction?
Yeah, I never once got the vibe that they were flirting on-screen. I wonder if that is something that was discussed early on but got dropped in the course of production, or if it was an idea Rian had but Dern decided to play it differently (if so, then good for her- its a stupid, offensive idea that would undercut both characters). It certainly makes little sense for Holdo to have chosen her wardrobe to flirt with Poe in-universe, since she had not met him prior to appearing at the briefing.
Either way, though, Holdo is in no way unique in wearing a dress as a military officer. Leia does as well, and no, she's clearly not a civilian at this point. Or is Leia supposed to be flirting with Poe too?
In fact, pretty much ever criticism of Holdo could be made of Leia as well, but Leia largely gets a pass, because OT worship.
Well, it doesn't make sense in-universe, but Out-of-universe, that's the reasoning given to the costume designer by the director, because he wanted Holdo to be flirting with Poe. Leia's dress design, out-of-universe, was to resonate her with Queen Elizabeth in World War II, which works very well, IMO.
So, if we're going to be discussing themes, we HAVE to remember that what the Director intended, was for Holdo to be flirting with Poe at some point, and he wanted her to do so via body language, hence the dress. This is if you want to stick with Doylist reasoning for things. This also kills my upper class vs lower class interpretation that I got when initially watching the film, as I thought she was supposed to mesh with the rich aristocratic snobs on Canto Bight in the film. And no, it's not a subversion of that either, it's because the director wanted her to flirt via body language with Poe. Which, I think we can all agree, is very stupid. It also
brings up unwanted connotations about
sexual harassment in the workplace and potentially Rian Johnson's views on it being okay if it's a female boss doing it to a male subordinate.
(sarcasm)I'm wondering if they were going to have Holdo do an interpretative dance scene in the film or something to justify the need for 'body language'.(/sarcasm)
So, that's part of the dialogue of the creative team's intent for the characters. If you want to avoid that, and go Death of the Author, pure Watsonian, we have to deal with what seems like questionable choices by the Resistance leader towards a subordinate regarding communication and morale(and apparently latitude from the Resistance in regards to uniformity, but that's honestly not as important IMO), for whatever reason. In the film, as quoted in this thread, Poe asks a question, and I must stress this, he is doing so politely and with respect. He gets rebuffed for doing so, and is told to go away and is insulted for his trouble.
This is questionable leadership on Holdo's part. It's her first meeting with a subordinate. If we're being charitable, her friend Leia and who knows who else just got spaced and she might be flustered from the situation. However, she had plenty of time(the course of the day), to say to Poe, when he is still asking politely, 'What are we going to do? What's the plan?', to apologize for her earlier behavior, saying that she was stressed, and take him aside and explain that she's trying to keep things secret for OPSEC reasons, or because she doesn't know who to trust, or because she needs him to do XYZ while other things are needed for ABC, etc. Or can send him on meaningless assignments that are still productive to get small things done like helping load the transports, help with morale, or assess their needs and bring those to her, or a dozen other things that would have kept him occupied, and also help his morale since he would be accomplishing something. The Japanese even have a word for this.
LINK
matsurikomu (祭り込む), which is translated to "place an obnoxious person in an out-of-the-way post to be rid of him.
Note, telling him to just sit in one spot for 18 hours as "return to your post" is a bad version of doing that, since he's not doing anything, and just tweedling his thumbs, when he could be useful lifting boxes. Because any able bodied idiot can help lift boxes, and they're kind of pressed for time, and more people moving things like fuel, rations, survival gear, long range communication equipment, etc. into transports increases their chances of survival.
That she does not do this is concerning, because it means that she's bad at handling a subordinate, whether it's because she has never had to deal with a subordinate asking questions before, has issues with inheriting subordinates who she doesn't like, uses subordinates to relieve herself of stress via insults, has the hots for Poe and is overdoing it in the discipline department so that she doesn't appear as flirty, or is really bad in moments of crisis, or some combination of the above.
Again, this is why we find her troublesome as a leader, because while Poe is acting like an idiot at points, good leaders can usually steer idiots towards more productive means, and that Holdo started the argument.
