My thought process as I watched DICKINSON-
1. Wow this is certainly not the Emily I imagined, but that’s ok…
2. This is no period drama or biography but a cosplay…but at least they know that and are owning upto it so that’s a plus? I like me a self-aware show anytime!
3. They can honestly tone down the campy ott factor tho, it’s cringey at times. And all the adults are stereotypes, the kids are from modern teen high school dramas, and everyone are cartoonish. Also you got a black person to play a white girl’s imaginary DEATH personified??? With Billie Eilish background music??wth!
4. At least it’s charming, kinda addictive (watched the entire thing within a day, couldn’t stop), definitely has its moments…..and Emily/Sue is a gorgeous couple to look at and it all gets really heartwarming and tear inducing at times!
5. Season 2 midway I figured out what’s my problem with this. It’s not that they depicted Emily as a rebellious, effusive social being. It’s that…in some extreme episodes it gets really hard to imagine this girl came up with such deep poetry, because sometimes they make it look like she’s some shaman prophet and all the poetry is magically appearing to her, completed with abracadabra handwaving and that’s about it. Which I suppose isn’t impossible but I would personally prefer something more grounded, emotional than that?
When you read beautiful works of writers/poets long gone, you imagine someone who was deeply empathetic and in tune with life and every other happenings they describe in their works, despite being normal human beings like any other with normal human problems.
I saw that in Little Women’s Jo.
Hell, I even saw that in that brief Louisa May Alcott cameo in this very drama.
It’s protagonist on the other hand…..is a daydreaming self-absorbed girl with lofty ideals, holed up for not hours but years scribbling poetry while her parents provide for her and worry about her. So basically, hypothetically if this was the real Emily and I was a fan of her poetry and then I got to know this about her….my admiration for her and her work might even get lessened.
Ironical because this Emily experienced the very same thing after meeting her favorite environmentalist Henry David Thoreau whose family turned out to own a pencil factory.
So yeah, that was dissapointing.
They might have as well sold it as an imaginary coming of age of some poet instead of specifically Emily Dickinson. But then again they almost always play fast and loose in Western period dramas so this is probably decent, plus they wouldn’t get to use the “Wild Night! Wild Night!” or “Open me carefully” or “Sue, Forevermore” if they didn’t borrow Emily’s name, ha.
At least, like I said it was an entertaining watch.