OUTLANDER: The Boobgate Scandal Examined

The Spanking Scene was one thing.

  
Boobgate is quite another.

We were prepared, in print, for the former scene, where Jamie Fraser punished his wife Claire for her dangerous disobedience by whipping her bare bottom with a belt. There are two opinions that have deeply divided the fan base into #TeamSpankingIsAbuseAndJamieIsABrute and #TeamThat’sTheWayTheyDidShitThenSoCalmTheFuckDown. Social media is abuzz with the debate. Personally, I am on Team #TTWTDSTSCTFD and thought Starz handled the scene well. *Yes, I actually said something positive about the Adaptation…please lift your hand and close your gaping mouth.

But Boobgate was not in any of the books and was unexpected. And it is causing another deep divide in the fan base. Boobgate, as pictured below, is when Jamie let his hand be placed on *LegHair’s boob and then left it there for a tad TOO long. (*sorry…I just bloody love the sound of LegHair in my head when writing it...can’t quit it).

             *Note the curved fingers in mid-squeeze. Oh Jamie...what have ye dun laddie?

                                                          For those in denial:

    And there was hand-caressing and kisslettes, 

don't forget.. 

                                             
                                            Then...

                                          He looks like that with Claire too, right?

Many are saying that Jamie is getting creepy now, or at least is not living up to the Dream that is Jamie Fraser…that he has a ‘chink in his armor’ *or armour? He is a Nicked Knight. A Hero Sandwich with a bite taken out (okay, I will stop now) and others are saying he is just an inexperienced newlywed kid who was tempted but was not truly unfaithful, and should be forgiven. Most are expressing each view quite passionately, because, believe me, Outlander fans are nothing if not Passionistas! *forgive the idiom but it had to be said *wink*

Unlike the Saintly BookJamie, TVJamie is rather flawed. Therein lies the debate: Was Jamie's persona forever damaged in the show because he seemed to desire LegHair and copped a feel? And indeed he DID! You can see how he gives a very quick squeeze (see gif above) and cups the top of the Offending Boobage before letting his hand linger…so yea…in most places, that could be called foreplay or even sexual assault. *OMG! I hope Starz doesn’t go there…a Highland CSI Crime Unit takes fingerprints off the creamy white chest of the vindictive and spurned LegHair and imprisons Jamie for Statutory Squeezing!

In the largest FaceBook Outlander fan forum (that I moderate) called 'Outlander Series FaceBook Group', there are lively discussions going on to whether Jamie was just an innocent who was being kind to a young girl and letting her down gently, or if he was just a jerk and not controlling himself like a decent husband should, and really doesn’t love Claire as deeply as he does in the books.

Well, I say there is a test to find out. 

Ask yourself this question:

“If the roles were reversed and a newly married woman held hands with a young man she knew was crushing on her, and allowed her hand to be guided to his newly exposed penis to gently squeeze it and let it linger for a while as he talked of his love and almost succeeded in kissing her…would THAT have been okay? Would you think her temptation and touchy/feely/squeezy/horndogginess decent or honorable…or her love for her husband very strong? Would you think her obvious lust just 'natural' and your good opinion of her unaltered?

If YES, then welcome to #TeamJamieIsOnlyHumanOkay? If NO, then welcome to its #TeamJamieIsAManWhore 

*I am #TeamQuitChangingTheBloodyCharactersPersonalitiesAndAddingFuckedUpScenes

Book adaptations are always hard and changes must be made...but NOT to the main protagonist's strongest character trait! BookJamie, who we truly adore, is gallant, trustworthy and chivalrous. Loyal. MADLY in love with Claire. He is indeed the King of Men! TVJamie is just average. Well, below average actually because newlyweds are usually still smitten/fresh enough to desire only their wives. And that is the problem in a nutshell. Average guys can cop a feel and walk away from temptation...provoked temptation at that. The Jamie's of the world are never tempted...even a little. They certainly dont do to a 16 yr old girl what the above gifs show. Later on, even in the brothel scenes in the book, does Jamie not really get tempted...just horny. He caresses nobody's hands sweetly, gives not one sexy, short-of-breath kisslette and does not enjoy a wee bit-o boobage with lusty fingers.

The next episode should be interesting, especially since the story can, apparently, ricochet off the page and into God knows where with the snap of the fingers! Maybe we’ll see Claire fall into another Standing Stone and end up aboard the Battlestar Galactica or married to a Cylon somewhere.

Who I hope is played by Tobias Menzies.

He’d be kickass even in a metal costume…

**Late additions that popped in my mind during OS group discussions of this post and E9: 

       Jamie holding LegHair's snow white boob seemed familiar somehow... Ah! now I remember...

                   Official Music Video For Episode #9: 
                    'You Can't Touch This' by MC Hammer!

WHOA!! Diana replied to this blog post on Twitter! She does not agree with the 'boob=penis theory' I have...that each is a sexual zone and therefore equal in DO NOT TOUCHINESS. Interesting...

We replied back and forth a bit but my final say to tweeters was: Breasts are a sexual part of a woman's body that give women 2 areas with equal import to 1 dick IMHO. 

 Debating book related topics is part of the fun of blogs and I thank Diana for her opinions and responses...it is a privilage to have her pick mine out for ANY reason. 

*smiles and munches on popcorn* 

This expresses my feelings a bit better and yes, I chose a flesh colored background *smile*: 

Last one...promise. *smirk*

Interesting views and reactions:

from Atomic1cflea

And a BRILLIANT quote from our group member who said it best, when told not to 'nit-pick' or complain etc...

OUTLANDER EPISODE 9: A REVIEW USING TOBIAS MENZIES’ FACIAL EXPRESSIONS

Episode 9: The Reckoning has left me quite *speechless. *if speechless means writing with a handsome actor's expressions as visual aids.

Tobias Menzies was brilliant as Black Jack Randall...a festering wound of a man, verily dripping with the pus-filled splendor that all great villains secrete. 

 

 *Cheshire Cat Grin*

  His BJR persona is SO psychotic, he has a tattoo on his chest that feigns respect for life and reads LIVE in block letters...but he smiles wickedly and reads it as EVIL when looking in the mirror!* okay, fine...so that part is just a rumor I started, whatever...

  *snicker*

Black Jack is so sick and twisted, so dangerous and such a threat to everything Jamie loves and holds dear to his heart, that after besting him in a battle of nerves that could have seen bloody nipples spinning like Tops on the table and a brutal rape at gunpoint, Jamie decides to leave the unconscious, murderous bastard safe on the floor...because he was 'defenseless'.

Whaaaa....?

 And it was the second time (and not last) that Black Jack Randall was left alive when he was made defenseless in a murderous fight to the death. 

*snort*

 Jamie is, quite rightfully, very angry at Claire for disobeying him. It led to her getting caught by the Red Coats and endangering all their lives and putting them high up on BJR's Shit List...so, after 3 seconds of getting mad at her, Lady GetDaFuckOuttaMyFace slaps his face, physically pushes him around, berates him, swears at him and...well...

makes him cry.  

 awwwww...poor widdle snookums...

He staggers back and sits on a rock with the kind of melodramatic panache one only sees these days from Norma Desmond in reruns of Sunset Boulevard. *I am ready for my close-up, Mr. Moore...*  

 The much ballyhooed Spanking Scene, so loudly hailed as likely to set Woman's Rights back to The Missing Link, came off rather tame and only felt like an excuse to show Claire's ass to the 7...no, 8 men watching the show (Claire's decidedly un-cherry like nipples saw a lot of air time this episode too; the one time I am glad they strayed from the book. Large, hard, round cherries glued on your areola would be painful and just too distracting). I've seen Boxing Day Sale fights in the gift wrap aisle more vicious than that wee belt burp.

 

 

Hell yea...

In The Return To Castle Leoch, Chapter #23 in the book, the Make-Up Sex of The Century that Jamie hungrily demands and Claire barely survives (and which probably is responsible for most of the world's births 9 months after its initial release) somehow came out as a face-kicking, dirty floor fuck with Claire going all-out Black Jackie Randall in a cock-riding rampage with a knife at Jamie's throat. The man was one precipitous orgasm/spasm away from swallowing a cold steel sandwich.

 *gulp*

Oddly enough, and for reasons that will never be sufficient, when Jamie asks Claire what a sadist is, her explanation, that it means one who derives sexual pleasure from making people hurt, makes him smile. Laugh even. This, coming from a man who has the Jackson Pollack of all Sadistic Scar Masterpieces permanently carved on his back from a flogging that nearly killed him and gave Black Jack a hard-on that lasted longer than Kim Kardashian's first marriage. He even joked about being turned on by violent sex: 'I cannae fault your observations." I guess he and Captain Randall have more in common than we thought?

Just eeewww...

  

The lack of sexual chemistry between Mr and Mrs JAMM Fraser and the love-talk, metered out with script-reading blandness, topped a thoroughly disappointing romp that should have us all panting with desire and craving a cold Rhenish and a hot water bottle for our aching arses. Did that happen? Tobias?

      Nope.

 The infighting and conflict between The Merry Men was a surprise as well. If it was in the books, I don't recall, and seeing the MacKenzie and Fraser minions bumping nose-to-nose and ready to kill each other after fighting the enemy as Team Highlander, seemed bizarre. But what do I know...apparently the every character is Multiple Personality and can switch them up at will. It's a freakin' Crap Shoot to see who comes out next!

 

Well...yep.

Finally, the man that didn't come out and tell LegHair* (*Laoghaire, who I am now forced to feel sorry for for being purposefully mislead) that his marriage was something he wanted and still wants, and didn't tell LegHair that he was madly in love with his wife and didn't tell LegHair that his hand shouldn't be on her boob...for so long...and didn't tell Leghair to Piss Off is NOT the Jamie I love. Bloody Hell! He makes Black Jack look honest!

 Ooooh...burn!

But in all sincerity, the show continues to be a separate entity from the book and because I embrace that (and find solace in my wonderful BookJamie and BookClaire heroes as always), I take back all the aforementioned snark and claim Episode 9 a roaring success...feeding the masses (Misses and Mrs) who are pleased with the adaption and are still able to justify watching sanctioned soft-porn (however stilted and sweat-free it is) on TV (sometimes with scary sharp objects and sometimes not) 2, 4, 6 and sometimes10 times over again....in slow motion...and backwards. Yes backwards.

uuuuhhhh....

I look forward to the next show with great excitement, but I confess it's only because there is a chance Frank will return. He doesn't in the books but.. pffft! THAT is where Adaptation and I can be become friends again. 

#BringBackFrank

 Now you're just being cheeky...


My new meme (someecards)