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) 

OUTLANDER MINI SURVIVAL GUIDE: Episode 15/Wentworth Prison

April 4th  2015:

Life begins again.

  

With Season One/Part Two, Starz opens its doors and lets us back into the dining room because the rest of the meal is now ready and well, we have been good girls and boys and rather do deserve dessert. Dessert meaning Jamie dripping wet and holding his…breath underwater. *Yea…you know what I’m talking about. *everyone breaks out into a spirited rendition of ‘He’s got the whole world, in his hands….he’s got the whole wide world, in his hands…*

I am sure Sam is not offended by millions of women wishing they were a trout.

*WARNING: for those who find Jamie's rolling R's and smooth voice orgasmic, either stock up on truck loads of cigarettes (whether you smoke or not) or buy industrial strength ear plugs because Jamie does the voice-over/narration. I think Starz wanted to show that Jamie's tongue could match Frank's...

May 16th 2015:

In Episode 15, Starz opens its floodgates and raw emotions will rage back into our lives with such life-changing ferocity, that there are only three possible outcomes: 

1) you will weep with an intensity normally reserved for watching Dumbo being rocked by his imprisoned mother or Simba trying to wake up the murdered Mufasa after the stampede 

2) you will become so angry that you will smash your extra-large wine glass against the wall and proceed to systematically rip every curtain, table cloth and napkin in the room with your bare hands and teeth whilst screaming FREEEEEDOM like Mel in Braveheart

3) you will vomit into the garbage can you readied next to you just in case (on which you painted the Fraser tartan colors {and bedazzled for flair} to match the Scottish themed room, weeks before the show).

Yes, I am talking about the Jamie/BlackJack Wentworth Prison scenes. 

True, there is a lot to look forward to in Season One/Part Two, like Jenny and Jamie reuniting (I hope TVJenny is as feisty as BookJenny), the Duke of Sandringham being portrayed by the Pure Delight that is Simon Callow, and the b̶i̶t̶c̶h̶  witch Geillis becoming a marshmallow at a weekend campfire, but if we are honest, it is the rape/torture/abuse of Jamie we are on edge about. I refuse to say ‘excited about’ because I cannot be excited about any sexual abuse, even the pretend kind, but that part of the book is important to the story and therefore necessary. How Starz treats it will make or break a lot of fans.

The whipping scene, way-back-when in a more innocent time, caused such outraged opinion and horrification that I am all a-shiver to think what the prison scenes will evoke! I, for one, hope the #OMGDHJ scenes aren’t too explicit (that's: hashtag Oh MY God Don’t Hurt Jamie). Sometimes less is more (and yes, I KNOW where your naughty minds went there...) as we see in gems like The Age of Innocence, where one witnesses cinematic genius wherein the sexiest sex scene EVER made, plays out before our mesmerized eyes…and both actors remain dressed and dry (which is more than I can say about my hubby and I after watching it, but I digress…)

Starz has scored some great hits and some huge misses on its Outlander adaptation so, regardless of which is your particular viewing Fate, here is a Survival Guide to weathering SEASON ONE/PART TWO~ Episode 15:

WENTWORTH PRISON SCENES VIEWING CHECKLIST: 

                             TOP 12 NECESSITIES  

         

If alone: 

1) 12 boxes triple-thickness facial tissue; brand of choice (or **truckload)

2) hot or cold beverage of choice; enough for 3 days because that hour will feel like it 

3) comfort food; enough for 6 days because 7 days sounds piggish 

4) adult diapers; extra absorbent 

5) air freshener 

6) remote control/dental floss 

7) cell phone/regular phone 

8) telephone book/yellow pages 

9) blanket and pillow 

10) laptop/computer 

11) any DG book

12) vitamins

**If viewing with family/friends: 

1) the same as above but add ONE crowbar.

DETAILS: 

Part Two will have its fair share of ups and downs but the emotional roller-coaster of Episode 15 demands these specific Survival Tools. 

The horde of Kleenex is obvious as is the vast amounts of food and drinks (alcoholic or not…laced coffees/teas or not) but the diapers need a wee bit of explanation. They are necessary, but not just for an explosive outburst of emotion made tangible, but for the simple fact that you will NOT want to miss a second of the show and will choose to shityerpants rather than move the 10 feet to the nearest toilet. This explains the need for the air freshener. Might I suggest Sunny Fields or Pine Forest. NOT Lavender Floral.

The dental floss can be replaced with twine or thread etc…anything that can be attached to the remote because you WILL throw it at the TV more than once and it will save you having to get up and find it. Make sure the other end is attached to your wrist. *one may train a pet to fetch and retrieve if so inclined. This doesn't mean your child, who should not be watching this episode and however politically incorrect this may be for me to say, you are totally screwed in the head if you let your child watch this. By child, I mean anyone not old enough to drive you to the hospital after you throw yourself down the basement stairs so Jamie doesn't have to suffer alone.

The phone will come in handy for 2 reasons:

a) to call a friend or loved one who loves Outlander too, just talk to and feel human again after the show ends and 

b) to have 911 on Speed Dial in case you hurt yourself destroying your room in your #OMGDHJ grief.

The yellow pages will get you a therapist's name and number quick. This may be done beforehand to save time. Do not choose anyone named Jack. Or Randall. Or anyone who has a penis.

You will not be able to manage moving your physically and mentally exhausted body off the couch/chair post-show, so the pillow and blanket will be your bed for the night. Choose wisely. A soft, Scottish themed blanket with rolling green mountains and butterflies wearing kilts is your best chance of ever sleeping that night. A pre-bought pillowcase with Jamie's face on it with accentuated blue eyes saying 'Sassenach' in a white speech bubble would be a bonus.

The laptop or computer close by is mandatory, to see these clips. Do it as soon as possible after the show ends. There are 3 choices to cater to all tastes:

 MIND'S EYE CLEANSER #1: Cute Wee Puppies 

MIND'S EYE CLEANSER #2: Cute Wee Kittens

   

MIND'S EYE CLEANSER #3: Cute Wee Snake

Any book by Diana will help you relax and remember why you want to keep living, and last but not least, the vitamins will help make you healthy and ready for the next episode. Not that it is will match the intensity of the last one, but because it IS the last one until about 2078 and you’ll need all your power to 

1) endure the pain of knowing you are now engaged in the #LFWKTM (hashtag Longest Fucking Wait Known To Man) and 

2) resist jumping in your TV set and grabbing the nearest Starz executive by the throat for not ending it the way you wanted it to/the way the book ended.

**For those watching with friends or family etc...the crowbar is for them to pry you off the TV set.

Let us all wish Diana Godspeed and Good Health in her writing adventures to come, and offer her husband a place on our rec room couches, because it will hit him sooner or later after Episode 15 that he is, actually, sleeping next to BJR, and those hammers and nails in the tool box will take on a whole new meaning. 

As corn did.


                                                      **Kleenex delivery:

*click on pics to enlarge