Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: Open Thread!

[metatxt]

Welcome to the Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries Open Thread!




(Thanks to cyborganize for the graphic!)

So many friends are watching Miss Fisher, tellitslant and I thought it might be nice to start a new (public) open thread.

Because --

* twitter is too short.

* tumblr is difficult (for some) to archive/track.

* it'd be fun to have my friends talk with each other about MFMM.

* I want to meet your MFMM fandom friends too.


Couple quick notes:

* don't be shy about using comment subject lines. If past is precedent, MFMM conversations can be sprawling and subject lines will help everyone.

* please tag S3 spoilers in your comment subject line.

* please post anything you find on S3! that one video is great but not enough. :D

* it probably doesn't need to be said? but, no character-bashing or ship-bashing. Be respectful of different fanons.


Post away!

Comments

The books

[tellitslant]

I have SO MANY THINGS I want to discuss that are kind of all crowding me at once, so I'm actually going to start with what I think is a less fraught topic, which is: the books! Anecdotally I hear they're not all that great in comparison to the TV show, especially for those of us who like older Phryne, but I have them on my kindle and was bored today at lunch, and then I suddenly found myself embroiled in reading about Phryne versus the surrealists, with bonus discourse about Phryne's thoughts on reading Krafft-Ebing, and... I am intrigued!

So particularly for those who came to the tv show first, and perhaps even more for those who write fic: have you read the books? Have they informed a lot of your opinions on Phryne and/or everyone else? Are they worth it?

Re: The books

[meganbmoore]

I've read most of the books. I know there's at least one book I haven't read yet. I do like the books, but prefer the show. Older Phryne is, of course, a large part of that, but the racism and extreme orientalism in the books-much as I dislike the show writing Lin out after only 2 appearances, that plot line and the depiction of all the characters in it in the books tends to make me start skimming in advance-make a lot of them difficult for me. I feel Greenwood (and therefore, Phryne) has strong feelings about racism and sexism, but that it tends to be a surface understanding. Racist comments are bad, but the white female lead is clearly superior to the WoC, and the rich and incredibly privileged white woman who has are narrative in which men of less privileged groups are all but treated as her property by the narrative. I also feel that, while book!Phryne us aware that she has privileges others dont, the narrative forgets that that privilege gives her liberties and freedoms that less privileged people don't have. While the show is far from perfect on these fronts (and even creates new problems in some cases) I feel that it's aware of these things and tries to remember them, and is much more aware of intersectionality and Kyriarchy and levels of both.

So, uhm, books are good, but gird your loins at times?

Re: The books

[metatxt]

This detail about Phryne's thoughts on surrealists and reading Krafft-Ebing is really compelling and might have persuaded me to give them a shot.

Re: The books

[soupytwist]

I like the books, but that's partly cause Phryne in the books is SHORT, and I feel vindicated by that. I don't quite see them as the same world though, partly because of that and partly because Jack is basically not in the books at all.

Also omg Phryne having READ A LOT OF THEORY and HAVING CONCEPTUALISED HER OWN LIFE VERY EXPLICITLY SO SHE CAN BETTER USE IT TO HAVE IT BE HOW SHE WANTS just makes me so, so happy.

DOCTOR MAC

[tellitslant]

omg MAAAAACCCCC *swoons, falls over, etc*

I really have a lot of feelings about Mac, but right now I find myself immensely curious about her background: things like where she was brought up, what class she was, what training to be a doctor would've been like for her...

Share your thoughts? And then we can get deeper into the truly important things, like THOSE WAISTCOATS OMG.

Re: DOCTOR MAC

[cyborganize]

I'm actually going to put Phryne backstory questions into a separate thread in case others want to weigh in, stand by...

I'd be all over developing some fanon about Mac's backstory. Especially: How she decided to become an MD! And how she found her tailor! And what the lesbian bars/salons of 1920s Melbourne are like! She must have had some degree of privilege to achieve medical school – that doesn't seem like an opportunity a poor girl would have had access to. But perhaps she wasn't so upper crust that social convention would have been a great obstacle – new money from the Melbourne gold rush?

For the purposes of Phryne/Mac:
- it's implied that Phryne has been away from Melbourne since girlhood, so if they're old friends it's fair to assume they knew each other as children
- it's quite plausible that Mac was doctoring at the front when Phryne was nursing – they could have reconnected with each other in wartime or afterwards. I'm not totally sure how to work around Dubois (before? after?), but I'm very attached to the fanon that Mac lived in Paris for a while too and was Phryne's lover
- time spent together during the Great War and its bohemian aftermath would help to explain why Phryne and Mac are so close – when the series opens, they presumably haven't seen each other for at least five years, while Mac was back in Melbourne having her career and Phryne was living in England

The actress who plays Mac (JOOL) is the same age as Essie Davis, if that's useful.

One other Mac thought: I hate her wig! She has her real hair in the first episode, and it looks like they tried to match the coif with a wig later on. They're not giving the actress enough work to be the boss of her hair, I suppose. I wish they'd just let Mac get a haircut!

I really want some sort of Mary Sue fic fleshing out the nameless woman who kisses Mac on the cheek in the racecar episode...

[runawaynun]

JOOL ISN'T DEAD, she just timetravelled to '20s Melbourne.

And because that is crap, here's a preorder for the s3 soundtrack and Essie sings a track on it: https://shop.abc.net.au/products/mfmm-miss-fisher-v3-cd

[cyborganize]

OH SHIT THAT'S THE SAME ACTRESS AS JOOL?!?! you broke my brain.

[metatxt]

Oh and also, this is hilarious because we've become super committed to the idea that Kalinda on the Good Wife is not in perilous danger of going to prison or becoming Mrs. Drug Dealer (and leaving the show end of season), but actually will be time-traveling to 1920s Melbourne. So you know, special lesbian time-travel portal. I am also (pre-emptively) adding Kate from Last Tango in Halifax to the portal's list of travelers.

wait wait wait there are Miss Fisher soundtracks?! and also this one has Essie on it?! <3 oh thank you

[gabolange]

WAIT, THAT'S JOOL?!?

*ded*

TIMELINE

[cyborganize]

Phryne's backstory! I've actually wondered whether the books offer more concrete and developed information about this, but since she's aged up for TV (thank you, TV) I don't know that it would help much. The show seems to have approached it mostly via handwave so far – although I say this on the basis of a first viewing and zero research. On rewatch we are TAKING NOTES.

For reference, Essie Davis was born in 1970, which is how you'd get the age 42 data point for Phryne at the beginning of the series, I think. But let's say, just to make the math simpler, that Phryne is 38 when the show opens in 1928. She would have been born in 1890 and been 25 in 1915.

1. When did Phryne and her parents leave Melbourne? In the pilot, Aunt Prudence (her mother's sister) says she hasn't seen Phryne since she was a girl. This seems quite implausible, since Prudence must have ties to England (with her plummy accent) and means to travel. But that aside, this suggests that the Fishers may have left for England not too long after Janey's disappearance. But if they were dirt poor, how did they finance the move? Did Aunt Prudence never want to give them money (she's high society and it doesn't look like she came into it through her marriage – although actually I think I'm confusing Prudence canon with something I read in a fanfic)? Did Mr. Fisher's "titled cousins" help support them or lend money for the move?

2. We know Phryne was a nurse on/near the western front during the war – it would be nice to understand more about the scars she carries from that experience. We know she stayed on in Paris for a time cavorting with the Bohemian crowd (the Renée Dubois episode - events in 1919). In the course of the war, her father inherited land and fortune. Presumably Phryne went back to England to live with her parents after she burned out on Paris – we see her traveling from her glamorous life there at the opening of the series. She doesn't seem to think much of her parents (father, at least), so why did she stay? Phryne returns to Melbourne, it's implied, because Foyle is near the end of his prison sentence.

Re: TIMELINE

[gabolange]

I've been wondering about Phryne's age, as an aside, because she's supposed to be 3 years older than Janey and they give Janey's birthdate as a little after 1900 (IIRC? I am asking!). They play her 35 or so, but the birthday math would say younger than that?

But I do not have the episode in front of me and could be totally misremembering, but it has been confounding me completely.

Re: TIMELINE

[tellitslant]

Hmm the football ep has something about dates in it, doesn't it? Phryne says she hasn't seen a game since 1910 or something?

For the Aunt Prudence element, it's also possible that Aunt P and Phryne have swapped continents a few times or something and just never been in the same place at the same time since Phryne was young. If Prudence was in Australia when the Fishers left, say, then went off to England during the war (?? IDK why, whatever), and came back before Phryne... okay, it's a little implausible, but it could be.

The older-Phryne thing also has the bonus of suggesting that she was quite poor for quite a large part of her life, which I think is interesting. She's not just reorganizing her life, but doing so as an adult - like, go Phryne! And that makes me wonder about her schooling and her determination to learn...

LINKS

[cyborganize]

favorite articles about Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries:
Netflix Reviewers Think Your Lady Detectives Are Slutty Sluts - Rebecca Rose, Jezebel, November 2013
Essie Davis: On Playing A Sexually Liberated 'Superhero' Without Apology - Linda Holmes, NPR Monkey See, March 2014
Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries: A Love Story - Elyssa Goodman, The Toast, February 2014
Won't they? The power (and pitfalls) of 'shipping - Genevieve Valentine, The AV Club, February 2015

Tip: the author of that last article wrote this novel, apparently wonderful, that's set in the 1920s.

Clothes and Lingerie:
Women's Fashion
A Brief History of the Brassiere
The Girdle Story
History of the Flapper

Other 1920s Sexiness:
slang - penis, vagina, orgasm, sex, oral etc.
History of Vibrators
girlie magazines
porn pictures & porn films (NSFW!)

Re: LINKS

[tellitslant]

OH my god that vibrator timeline *crosses legs tightly*

...I might need someone else to write the Phryne/Mac/vibrators story the fandom so desperately needs :P

Series 3 Support Group

[cyborganize]

What are your hopes and fears? (Let's get shippy!)

Re: Series 3 Support Group

[runawaynun]

SHAMELESSLY WANTS UNDERCOVER AS A COUPLE. (Jack and Phryne would be best but I will accept pretty much anyone.)

Re: Series 3 Support Group

[runawaynun]

Oh, and Dot and Phryne save the boys from certain death!

Re: Series 3 Support Group

[tellitslant]

I am in that place of kiiinda wanting Phryne/Jack but being afraid of it in a way that I'm pretty sure is illogical (they did such a good job with Jack not wanting to change Phryne! BUT WHAT IF THEY FUCK IT UP AND SHE SUDDENLY WANTS TO MARRY HIM.).

[runawaynun]

I'd like Camellia to come back and solve a mystery with Phryne and debate the finer points of Marxism.

[cyborganize]

YES PLEASE. Burt and Ces would be so into it! (I would also appreciate a Phryne/Camellia/Lin threesome.)

location, location, location

[tellitslant]

Do we know whereabouts in Melbourne Phryne's house is? I can't remember if they specify which area of the city.

Man I need fandoms that require less research. :P

Re: location, location, location

[cyborganize]

Yes! St. Kilda - you can look it up on Google Maps. It's a fun neighborhood to virtually poke around in: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Kilda,_Victoria. Also Jack is from Richmond and Phryne grew up in Collingwood.

series 3 episode 1 reactions

[cyborganize]

If it's even possible to say anything beyond incoherent flailing?

Re: series 3 episode 1 reactions

[tellitslant]

I have to re-watch before I have actual thoughts, but in the interim: WHY must there always be dead lesbians. WHY, SHOW, WHY.