[The Inside] VID: No Skin

[thuviaptarth]

Happy Valentine's Day.



Title: No Skin
Fandom: The Inside
Music: The Golden Palominos, "No Skin"
Length: 1:41
Warnings: Violence, including sexual violence against women and children; BDSM equipment used in situations of dubious consensuality and indubitably skeevy power dynamics. See "Background" for more information.
Notes: Thank you to elynross, geekturnedvamp, rivkat, and lithiumdoll for beta. All comments & feedback welcome.

Summary: Everyone I see is missing something.

"No Skin (The Inside)" (Watch on YouTube)

Download: AVI 640x360 (27MB) | Subtitles (2K)

How to use the subtitles
The subtitles are "soft subs": They'll show up in supported media players, such as VLC, as long as they are downloaded to the same directory as the vid and named the same name as the vid file (ex. - thuviaptarth_inside_noskin.srt).

To see subtitles on streaming, click the triangle then "CC" on the YouTube stream.


Lyrics
Burned with a cigarette
Some things you don't forget
Well trained in going numb
Well prepared for what's to come

This dark and secret crime
Cruelty masked as something kind
Sharp against the tenderness
Cold against the emptiness

You wouldn't notice I have no skin
You wouldn't notice I have no skin
You wouldn't notice I have no skin

And I can find you anywhere
Even if you run from there
Eyes closed, torn apart
Body separate from the heart

Everyone I see is missing something
Everyone I see is missing something
Everyone I see is missing something

Kiss her like this
Kiss her like this

Everyone I see is missing something

Background (optional and very long)
The Inside was a short-lived series which for years I remembered only as "Tim Minear's creepy serial killer show" (The show was produced by Minear and Howard Gordon). The charismatic and manipulative Virgil "Web" Webster (Peter Coyote) recruits Rebecca Locke (Rachel Nichols) to his team of FBI profilers, believing her experiences (an 18-month childhood abduction from which then-eleven-year-old Becky rescued herself) will give her an extra edge. Team member Paul Ryan (Jay Harridan), discovering her past, instead believes her experiences make her fragile, and keeps trying to rescue her from circumstances she doesn't actually need rescuing from. The supporting and guest-starring cast is like a mini-Who's Who of genre television: Adam Baldwin, Katie Finneran, Garrett Dilahunt, Amber Benson, Matt Keeslar, and probably other familiar faces I'm forgetting; the writing staff included David Fury, Jane Espenson, and Ben Edlund.

giandujakiss has been pushing the series for years. When I finally watched it late last year, I was disturbed and intrigued by the view the series seemed to take about recovery from abuse and by the parallels it drew between abuse and less violent and much more normalized patriarchal attitudes towards women. The triangular relationship between Rebecca (the series lead), Web, and Paul strikes me as a more critical and much more persuasive take on the relationship between Echo, Boyd, and Paul Ballard in Dollhouse; at times I felt like I was watching the same story told in two different genres, near-future science fiction and police procedural; it's hard to say which had a grimmer view of human nature. I had originally tapped "No Skin" as a potential Dollhouse song based on hearing the series premise before any episode aired; by the time I watched The Inside, I had no desire whatsoever to make a Dollhouse vid, so I guess you can take that as some kind of endorsement of The Inside. Some kind of.

The series isn't available on DVD, but you can find it in the usual places. Note that the episodes out there may be numbered in two different viewing orders, neither of which is the order listed on Tim Minear's site. I recommend going with Minear's order; unsurprisingly, the development of the relationships between the characters makes much more sense that way. If you watch, be warned for violence, sexual violence, extreme goriness, creative serial killers, violence against children, implied sexual violence against children, violence against pregnant women, and really really creepy power dynamics. In terms of the usual -isms, this is what I noticed: a serial killer and rapist motivated by repressed homosexuality, people of color mostly showing up as victims, a sympathetic but problematic episode on BDSM, and one episode which displayed such an extraordinary mix of fat hatred, ablism, and fear of the Internet as a dehumanizing communications mechanism that I am not sure I have ever else felt so hated and so invisible at the same time, and that includes when I was watching Supernatural Seasons Three and Five. There may be more I have forgotten or didn't pick up. The camera work was a lot less sexualized and fear-pornographic than I expected, much less, I would say, than the second episode of Fringe or some episodes of Dollhouse; there are, however, a few explicit scenes of gruesomely mutilated corpses.

This is sounding very negative, but my impression is that the show isn't worse than CSI or Bones in terms of explicitness and probably not worse than most procedurals in terms of -isms. And, as you can probably tell from the vid, I find Rebecca Locke incredibly fascinating. She's what makes the show for me. Web and Paul are fascinating, but I hate them, and not always in the "love to hate you" kind of way. Rebecca--intelligent, chilly, damaged, manipulative, and occasionally surprisingly kind--Rebecca I love. By the end, I wished there'd been more to see.

Comments

[giandujakiss]

OH MY GOD!!! This is absolutely gorgeous and creepy and the song is so perfect for Rebecca I could absolutely die. I loved the way you nailed the relationships - cruelty masked as something kind, sharp tenderness, cold against the emptiness -I mean, you have the most ideal choices there. And then at the end with the different men in her life chaining or attacking - it's just so incredibly powerful and gorgeous and thank you so much!!

Oh, also, your comparison of Paul/Web/Rebecca to Ballard/Boyd/Echo is scarily spot on except yes, I think the Inside did it way way way better with a far more compelling woman lead. But man, yes, that's exactly right!!

(psst - your second embed doesn't seem to work for me - dunno why)

[thuviaptarth]

:D I started this during the Festivids nomination process because I suspected I might get assigned you, and then put it on hold when I got assigned someone else. It is actually a coincidence that the Festivids Resolutions post went up on the same day -- I just wanted to get this done in time for (a) halfamoon; (b) Valentine's Day (I thought it was funny, okay?).

Not only is the lead more compelling, the two men are allowed to get much more overtly and directly frightening which -- works much. Sometimes I think one of the many problems with Dollhouse is that Whedon gravitates towards making you sympathize with the characters even when the story would work better if he didn't. Stop mugging to crowd, dude.

(Embed should be fixed, but I also, um, just changed my mind about one clip, so you may want to download again in half an hour.)

[giandujakiss]

Yes, in The Inside, it's very clear that the male characters are manipulative and problematic - particularly Web, of course. But yes, Dollhouse couldn't quite live with having evil characters as leads, and so they just got more and more sympathetic and sanitized, which made everything so horrible. The Inside makes the problem the point.

Hee - will download again later - and yay!! Thank you so much again!!!

[ide_cyan]

and probably other familiar faces I'm forgetting;

Yep, lots of names. Michael Emerson, aka Ben Linus on Lost, is the main guest star in one ep. Other appearances include Jenette Goldstein, William Mapother under several pounds of latex, etc.

Oh, and Nelsan Ellis, now widely known as Lafayette on True Blood, being the most underused of the series regulars.

my impression is that the show isn't worse than CSI or Bones in terms of explicitness and probably not worse than most procedurals in terms of -isms.

*nod*

Everytime instance of Criminal Minds's "we r srs drama, but, here, have your slice of over the top serial killer prurience for the week!!!" makes me miss The Inside a little bit for owning up to its prurience.

[lo_rez]

Oh my god, that is beautifully, fabulously creepy: Rebecca Locke, so massively fucked-up, and the equally twisted men who think they can maybe keep her for a (pretty, nasty) pet. Gorgeously done, and what a perfect song choice.

(via giandujakiss)

[thuviaptarth]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it.

[counteragent]

This is fantastic! SO creepy, and amazing transitions.

[thuviaptarth]

:) I was so fond of being able to play with noir conventions equating women's bodies to city streets in a visual way.

[ninhursag]

Here via giandujakiss.

I just wanted to tell you that this is amazing. I mean, argh, Rebecca, my love for her cannot be textually rendered, but apparently can come through in a vid.

[thuviaptarth]

:D Thank you! I am very glad to hear that. She is so fascinating.

[tearful-eye.livejournal.com]

wow. wow, this looks completely amazing!
so chilling & gorgeous - it really makes me wanna watch this series...

[thuviaptarth]

Thank you! I'm glad you tried it despite not knowing the source.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Yay! I still love it. Sorry I wasn't around for more, but I'm in the middle of a huge speech & debate tournament and am stealing time now.

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

No apologies! You more than did your duty. :)

[squigglepie.livejournal.com]

Ok, no clue about The Inside (I read the background after I watched the vid, then rewatched it) but your vid is completely and utterly fascinating. And creepy. So, so creepy. And beautiful.

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

Thank you for trying the vid despite not knowing the fandom! I'm glad you liked it. :)

[sol-se.livejournal.com]

(Eee! You made a vid for The Inside!!! I loved this show so much when it was on.) Wow, this vid is fantastic. Creepy and nuanced and fascinating. I love it.

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[danegen.livejournal.com]

Ooh, awesome! I don't really know the source, but this is very effective.

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

:) Thank you!

[bluerosefairy.livejournal.com]

giandujakiss sent me over here from "Strangelove", when I was bemoaning the lack of anything Inside-related, and oh, this is so short, but perfect. Rebecca Locke is such a fascinating character, one that most fans (as women, especially) don't want to admit they like and sympathize with, and you've portrayed her excellently. The introduction of Web into the narrative is perfectly sinister, and you use the clips of Paul from "Loneliest Number" well.

This is fantastic, thank you so much for posting it!

[thuviaptarth.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it.

[kore]

I thought I had posted feedback here before but apparently not - I've always loved this vid, and now I'm watching the show, due solely to your vid and G's posts about it. I love it. It's so much Rebecca's story.

[thuviaptarth]

Aw, thank you! Rebecca is wonderful.