Lady Business

You make a very good point about how the revelation that Regina does know she's the Evil Queen implies this may have been a role she picked for herself. But even then, there are uncomfortable echoes around the idea that this would be a position an "evil" woman would gravitate towards. Of course, we've had plenty of conversations before about how we don't want arguments like "this makes all women look bad!" to limit the roles available to female fictional characters, good or bad, and I still completely stand by that. The problem of women in power being depicted as evil isn't a problem with this show specifically, but a problem with the pattern. And the solution isn't to limit the stories that are told about powerful evil women, but - once again :P - to have All The Stories out there.

About Regina not being really humanised, I only saw 2 or 3 more episodes after the one you saw this week, so for all I know lots of exciting things that I have no idea about could have happened in the meantime. Also, it's all a matter of personal interpretation of course. I have to say I LOVE how you continued to empathise with her even when she killed Graham - I did as well, but I got the distinct impression that the show very much didn't want me to; that this was being framed as a situation in which she was the only one being cruel and which was meant to cement her as really, really evil. And this brings me to something else about her depiction that bothers me. First of all, there will be another story about Regina and a male character in a few episodes that I'm DYING to hear your thoughts about. What I felt that this story + Graham's did was kind of cast her as a man-eater sort of character, and I think this actually ties in with how she's visually presented: the sexy villain costume when she's in fairy tale land, and the dark lipstick + heavy make up look she has as Mayor of Storybrooke. This doesn't bother me in itself; it only does when I compare it with, for example, Snow as Mary Margaret, who's beautiful and very feminime but in a very demure, innocent sort of way, or even with Emma, who's portrayed as sexy but in a tomboyish, not much make up kind of style. What do you think? Do you think Regina's evilness is sexualised, or am I reading too much into this?

About Rumplestiltskin, I see what you mean about the way his character functions not being specifically gendered, but yes, the fact that he IS male and played by a male actor still has its implications. You said you think Regina is in charge in Storybrooke, but I thought there were some hints later on that this could not quite be the case... we'll have to see where they take this as the series progresses.