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butterfly1. What are my thoughts on Supernatural? Particularly its portrayal of women?
Supernatural's portrayal of women is what made me stop watching the show. These days, if I want to watch a pair of brothers being awesome, I watch Numb3rs, because the show has always had interesting female characters. No, they aren't particularly spot-lit and if I were giving Numb3rs some sort of feminism grade, it would probably score around a 5 (out of 10), but considering that SPN regularly managed to scrape into negative numbers, it's a vast improvement.
The show actually didn't start out too bad. It had some nasty horror-genre tropes, but there were also some strong and interesting one-off female characters. Two female characters got introduced in S2 and the majority of fandom went, basically, insane with hatred. And, in response, both of those characters were gone at the end of the season (I've spoken before about admiring RTD for standing his ground when it comes to his writing and I think SPN is an excellent case of what happens when a showrunner isn't that strong). In Series 3, the female-hating language within the show ramped up. Someone actually went through and did an episode-by-episode analysis and it was... a very clear and sharp rise. "Whore" and "slut" were used a lot more in S3 than in the previous two seasons combined.
The entire reason that I came back to watch S4 was because I heard the character Ruby was coming back (they introduced two reoccuring female characters in S3 and both of them died -- Ruby happened to be a demon, so she could inhabit another body, which is useful) but even having her around wasn't enough to balance out the bad.
Starting in early S3, every single episode felt like a slap in the face. It felt like every episode was consciously attacking female viewers and saying that they didn't want them. So, I finally took the hint and left (this is also what happened with me and Prison Break). It had become too painful to watch. In seasons 1 and 2, while the show clearly operated within a casually sexist framework, it wasn't aggressive about it, so I was able to ignore it, because the emotional brother relationship was so appealing. In season three, the show started being aggressively sexist and hateful.
2. What makes Ten my favourite incarnation of the Doctor? How do I feel about the rest of his incarnations? Any least favourites?
OMG! What doesn't make him my favorite? He's, like, so totally awesome! *blows kisses in David Tennant's general direction*
*cough*
Sorry. Not quite sure what happened there. Let's try to do this one again.
What makes Ten my favorite incarnation of the Doctor?
Several things.
a) Character depth, which will probably end up relating to most of the other things on the list as well. David Tennant is an amazing actor. Not always perfect (*raises eyebrow at GitF* -- though really, the acting is fine on that, in a vaccuum. Just not in context. And he learned his lesson from that one time, I think), but incredible. He makes me feel all the twists and turns of the Doctor's emotions. For possibly the best raw example of his acting, I would offer up "Midnight", which was just a stunning piece of work. I think that Christopher Eccleston is a truly remarkable actor, but I can't imagine anyone but David playing the Doctor in "Midnight". He owned the fuck out of that episode.
So, yes. My feelings about David as actor will inevitably spill over (especially after seeing his Hamlet and Berowne) into my feelings about the character.
b) This vid does a really great job of showing one aspect of David's Doctor that's particularly effective -- because of his looks, it's a surprise when he's dangerous (this was also true of Five). Also, it's completely awesome. If you haven't seen Handlebars, you should.
c) His relationships -- with Rose, yes, but also with Donna and Martha and Sarah Jane and Jack and Jackie and Mickey. All that hugging (Jenny! His relationship with Jenny!). How everything after Rose is affected by losing her and we can see that in David's performance. The relationship that he ends up settling into with Martha, which is warm and lovely, and his friendship with Donna, painful and loving and necessary. The changes in his relationships with Jackie and Mickey. Explaining to Jack that he felt 'wrong'. All that stuff.
d) the way he bounds about. David's such a physical actor and it works so well for the part.
How do I feel about the rest of his incarnations? Any least favourites?
There's no regeneration of the Doctor that I don't like. My current order is Ten, Five, Nine, Six (*holds up banner of Six love*), Eight, Two, Four, Three, One, and finally Seven. So, I guess that makes Seven my least favorite. Still like him, though, manipulative jerk that he is. *pets him*
3. Nine/Rose vs. Ten/Rose? Would the relationship have progressed the same way without the regeneration?
I think that the relationship wouldn't have been as complex without dealing with what is possibly the most alien aspect of the Doctor. Having Rose go through that experience and come out the other side still loving the Doctor is, for example, what makes the ending in "Journey's End" work for me. Would "Journey's End" still work if it had been Chris all four years? I don't know. We wouldn't have that early experience of seeing Rose adapt to the Doctor changing bodies.
The relationship would have continued to progress, but I don't think that it would have been the same. They probably would still have pissed off Queen Victoria, so "Doomsday" would have happened, regardless. I'm not sure how well Nine and Donna would have gotten on. I actually don't think they would have meshed as well as Ten and Donna. And I can't imagine Nine actually taking Martha along either, so I think he would have been lonelier. Dunno how that would work out.
4. What do I think of Joss Whedon's brand of feminism? Specifically, his tendency to portray young, women with superpowers?
Interesting! Obviously, since I'm planning on watching Dollhouse, it's a theme that I'm still willing to explore via Whedon shows. I loved Buffy and River. I have an icon of Fred (and one of Illyria).
This actually... let me digress for a moment.
A movie came out a while back that got nicknamed 'the male Craft' (which is, btw, a movie that I perhaps love more than is good for me). Anyway, this other movie is called The Covenant and it's about 05% as good as The Craft (which, btw, has Fairuza Balk who played Dorothy in Return to Oz (far more true to the spirit of the books than the Judy Garland movie, though I love both) and Robin Tunney, who was Veronica in S1 of Prison Break (back when it was still good) and who was in the pilot episode of House). It does have some fun CG, though.
Right. The point of the digression is that women are powerless in The Covenant, in every sense of the word. The 'Sons of Ipswitch' have magic and they are explicitly always male. They can only will their power to other men. There are two young women in the movie who serve as love interests and bait, plus a mother who gets to talk the dad into sacrificing his power into his son to save him. That's the most proactive that a woman gets to be in the entire movie.
So, you know, I'm good with giving women powers -- that was the point of the digression. It's better than giving men all the power.
I don't think that Joss is a perfect feminist (I don't think that a perfect feminist exists). I think that he cares. He cares about how women are treated and he tries to do his part to make things better. He notices the issue that exist with the portrayal of female characters, the diminishment and he cares about it. He actively works to make many different kinds of women important in his work.
He does focus a lot on young women, probably because he's aware that they're the most vulnerable. I think that Dollhouse has the potential to be a very strong feminist statement. Because attempting to mold women into what other people need is exactly what culture tries to do, every day. Like he did with many things in Buffy, he's taking something that exists in society and making it obviously painful and monstrous and wrong.
5. What are my thoughts on this post?
I think (and this is a sentence that I say so much) that it's a bit of both. The media/audience relationship is both a business transaction and an emotional one. When your business is about selling emotion, that tends to happen. If the artist is doing even a half-way competent job, the audience is going to feel something (they may all end up feeling different things, but sometimes that's just how it goes). The particular post that I link to talks about comics fandom, but the specific point they bring up at the end (that it's fans currently making the 'product', as it were) is also very valid in Doctor Who. RTD, Phil C., David Tennant, etc. all grew up watching the show (which gets mentioned in comments in that post). It's audience interaction with source that creates fandom. We are built out of fannish entitlement and, as the original post points out, and as the example of RTD proves, this is not a bad thing.
6. Am I a "canon is canon is canon" fan or am I able to apply discontinuity to stuff I'm fannish about?
Oh, you do not know how much I wish I could apply discontinuity. I can't ignore canon. I can write AU, but even in the case of the Series 4 AU fic that I'm writing for Doctor Who, I'm keeping anything that wouldn't be directly affected by Rose coming back early/late (depending on who you're talking to). Astrid was still there and still had feelings for the Doctor because it happened and I can't ignore it (Astrid's a bad case, though, because I *hearted* her and might very well have put her in even if I didn't have such strong feelings about canon). Better example: I can't ignore Reinette or River Song or the way that Moffat screwed the characterization pooch in all his episodes. Because it's onscreen and I watched it and I can't unwatch it.
Note: Yet another excellent reason to not watch Series 5.
That said, I don't consider the S8 comics to be canon because Buffy isn't being played by Sarah Michelle Gellar (just as the Buffy movie isn't strict canon either... no SMG) and SMG is Buffy for me. Same with the new series of Being Human -- I don't consider the new series and the original pilot to be quite the same thing and, if the show said something that contradicted the original pilot, it wouldn't bother me.
And I should probably get some sleep at some point. Just to let y'all know, the meme is still open. Ask me anything (fannish) and I will answer at some point (probably over the weekend).
Supernatural's portrayal of women is what made me stop watching the show. These days, if I want to watch a pair of brothers being awesome, I watch Numb3rs, because the show has always had interesting female characters. No, they aren't particularly spot-lit and if I were giving Numb3rs some sort of feminism grade, it would probably score around a 5 (out of 10), but considering that SPN regularly managed to scrape into negative numbers, it's a vast improvement.
The show actually didn't start out too bad. It had some nasty horror-genre tropes, but there were also some strong and interesting one-off female characters. Two female characters got introduced in S2 and the majority of fandom went, basically, insane with hatred. And, in response, both of those characters were gone at the end of the season (I've spoken before about admiring RTD for standing his ground when it comes to his writing and I think SPN is an excellent case of what happens when a showrunner isn't that strong). In Series 3, the female-hating language within the show ramped up. Someone actually went through and did an episode-by-episode analysis and it was... a very clear and sharp rise. "Whore" and "slut" were used a lot more in S3 than in the previous two seasons combined.
The entire reason that I came back to watch S4 was because I heard the character Ruby was coming back (they introduced two reoccuring female characters in S3 and both of them died -- Ruby happened to be a demon, so she could inhabit another body, which is useful) but even having her around wasn't enough to balance out the bad.
Starting in early S3, every single episode felt like a slap in the face. It felt like every episode was consciously attacking female viewers and saying that they didn't want them. So, I finally took the hint and left (this is also what happened with me and Prison Break). It had become too painful to watch. In seasons 1 and 2, while the show clearly operated within a casually sexist framework, it wasn't aggressive about it, so I was able to ignore it, because the emotional brother relationship was so appealing. In season three, the show started being aggressively sexist and hateful.
2. What makes Ten my favourite incarnation of the Doctor? How do I feel about the rest of his incarnations? Any least favourites?
*cough*
Sorry. Not quite sure what happened there. Let's try to do this one again.
What makes Ten my favorite incarnation of the Doctor?
Several things.
a) Character depth, which will probably end up relating to most of the other things on the list as well. David Tennant is an amazing actor. Not always perfect (*raises eyebrow at GitF* -- though really, the acting is fine on that, in a vaccuum. Just not in context. And he learned his lesson from that one time, I think), but incredible. He makes me feel all the twists and turns of the Doctor's emotions. For possibly the best raw example of his acting, I would offer up "Midnight", which was just a stunning piece of work. I think that Christopher Eccleston is a truly remarkable actor, but I can't imagine anyone but David playing the Doctor in "Midnight". He owned the fuck out of that episode.
So, yes. My feelings about David as actor will inevitably spill over (especially after seeing his Hamlet and Berowne) into my feelings about the character.
b) This vid does a really great job of showing one aspect of David's Doctor that's particularly effective -- because of his looks, it's a surprise when he's dangerous (this was also true of Five). Also, it's completely awesome. If you haven't seen Handlebars, you should.
c) His relationships -- with Rose, yes, but also with Donna and Martha and Sarah Jane and Jack and Jackie and Mickey. All that hugging (Jenny! His relationship with Jenny!). How everything after Rose is affected by losing her and we can see that in David's performance. The relationship that he ends up settling into with Martha, which is warm and lovely, and his friendship with Donna, painful and loving and necessary. The changes in his relationships with Jackie and Mickey. Explaining to Jack that he felt 'wrong'. All that stuff.
d) the way he bounds about. David's such a physical actor and it works so well for the part.
How do I feel about the rest of his incarnations? Any least favourites?
There's no regeneration of the Doctor that I don't like. My current order is Ten, Five, Nine, Six (*holds up banner of Six love*), Eight, Two, Four, Three, One, and finally Seven. So, I guess that makes Seven my least favorite. Still like him, though, manipulative jerk that he is. *pets him*
3. Nine/Rose vs. Ten/Rose? Would the relationship have progressed the same way without the regeneration?
I think that the relationship wouldn't have been as complex without dealing with what is possibly the most alien aspect of the Doctor. Having Rose go through that experience and come out the other side still loving the Doctor is, for example, what makes the ending in "Journey's End" work for me. Would "Journey's End" still work if it had been Chris all four years? I don't know. We wouldn't have that early experience of seeing Rose adapt to the Doctor changing bodies.
The relationship would have continued to progress, but I don't think that it would have been the same. They probably would still have pissed off Queen Victoria, so "Doomsday" would have happened, regardless. I'm not sure how well Nine and Donna would have gotten on. I actually don't think they would have meshed as well as Ten and Donna. And I can't imagine Nine actually taking Martha along either, so I think he would have been lonelier. Dunno how that would work out.
4. What do I think of Joss Whedon's brand of feminism? Specifically, his tendency to portray young, women with superpowers?
Interesting! Obviously, since I'm planning on watching Dollhouse, it's a theme that I'm still willing to explore via Whedon shows. I loved Buffy and River. I have an icon of Fred (and one of Illyria).
This actually... let me digress for a moment.
A movie came out a while back that got nicknamed 'the male Craft' (which is, btw, a movie that I perhaps love more than is good for me). Anyway, this other movie is called The Covenant and it's about 05% as good as The Craft (which, btw, has Fairuza Balk who played Dorothy in Return to Oz (far more true to the spirit of the books than the Judy Garland movie, though I love both) and Robin Tunney, who was Veronica in S1 of Prison Break (back when it was still good) and who was in the pilot episode of House). It does have some fun CG, though.
Right. The point of the digression is that women are powerless in The Covenant, in every sense of the word. The 'Sons of Ipswitch' have magic and they are explicitly always male. They can only will their power to other men. There are two young women in the movie who serve as love interests and bait, plus a mother who gets to talk the dad into sacrificing his power into his son to save him. That's the most proactive that a woman gets to be in the entire movie.
So, you know, I'm good with giving women powers -- that was the point of the digression. It's better than giving men all the power.
I don't think that Joss is a perfect feminist (I don't think that a perfect feminist exists). I think that he cares. He cares about how women are treated and he tries to do his part to make things better. He notices the issue that exist with the portrayal of female characters, the diminishment and he cares about it. He actively works to make many different kinds of women important in his work.
He does focus a lot on young women, probably because he's aware that they're the most vulnerable. I think that Dollhouse has the potential to be a very strong feminist statement. Because attempting to mold women into what other people need is exactly what culture tries to do, every day. Like he did with many things in Buffy, he's taking something that exists in society and making it obviously painful and monstrous and wrong.
5. What are my thoughts on this post?
I think (and this is a sentence that I say so much) that it's a bit of both. The media/audience relationship is both a business transaction and an emotional one. When your business is about selling emotion, that tends to happen. If the artist is doing even a half-way competent job, the audience is going to feel something (they may all end up feeling different things, but sometimes that's just how it goes). The particular post that I link to talks about comics fandom, but the specific point they bring up at the end (that it's fans currently making the 'product', as it were) is also very valid in Doctor Who. RTD, Phil C., David Tennant, etc. all grew up watching the show (which gets mentioned in comments in that post). It's audience interaction with source that creates fandom. We are built out of fannish entitlement and, as the original post points out, and as the example of RTD proves, this is not a bad thing.
6. Am I a "canon is canon is canon" fan or am I able to apply discontinuity to stuff I'm fannish about?
Oh, you do not know how much I wish I could apply discontinuity. I can't ignore canon. I can write AU, but even in the case of the Series 4 AU fic that I'm writing for Doctor Who, I'm keeping anything that wouldn't be directly affected by Rose coming back early/late (depending on who you're talking to). Astrid was still there and still had feelings for the Doctor because it happened and I can't ignore it (Astrid's a bad case, though, because I *hearted* her and might very well have put her in even if I didn't have such strong feelings about canon). Better example: I can't ignore Reinette or River Song or the way that Moffat screwed the characterization pooch in all his episodes. Because it's onscreen and I watched it and I can't unwatch it.
Note: Yet another excellent reason to not watch Series 5.
That said, I don't consider the S8 comics to be canon because Buffy isn't being played by Sarah Michelle Gellar (just as the Buffy movie isn't strict canon either... no SMG) and SMG is Buffy for me. Same with the new series of Being Human -- I don't consider the new series and the original pilot to be quite the same thing and, if the show said something that contradicted the original pilot, it wouldn't bother me.
And I should probably get some sleep at some point. Just to let y'all know, the meme is still open. Ask me anything (fannish) and I will answer at some point (probably over the weekend).
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-13 01:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-13 01:52 pm (UTC)Sam and Dean were the reason that I got hooked on the show in the first place. I loved their relationship enough that I didn't really notice anything else until I saw "Women's Work (http://sisabet.livejournal.com/365275.html?mode=reply)", which woke me up.
The supernatural aspect is a bit odd for me, because very rarely does television scare me (Doctor Who's "Midnight" and BtVS's "Hush" are about it), so I mostly watch that part of it with a different viewpoint than someone who gets spooked (like my roommate).
How do you feel when women call other women bitches, sluts, whores, etc?
I don't say them myself. I'm not a big fan of hearing them, except in the context of reclamation.
It's very... gendered language, words that have a bite specifically because they're considered female. A woman is called a 'slut' because she sleeps around and it's an insult. A man is called a 'stud' because he sleeps around and it's something to be admired. Bitch is deliberately diminishing and demeaning and, historically, has been used to try to smack down powerful women when men felt that they were getting 'above their place'. It's ugly language, like any other language used to target a particular group.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-13 02:01 pm (UTC)And I'm like you with the supernatural things and how they rarely scare me but I do find it interesting and entertaining at least.
I do feel like Kripke at least did SOMETHING right though because I feel like Ruby, Bela and Jo were particularly strong characters, although you are free to disagree with me obviously. I do however think that Dean is an incredibly sexist character since he just seems to see women as sex objects and doesn't give them near enough credit.
As far as gendered language goes, don't you feel like words like "asshole" and "bastard" are also gendered? Would you call that sexist language as well? Granted women can be bastards too, but in the context that it's used these days it's geared more towards men and is less about parentage. I get as angry as anyone else when women are treated unfairly and poorly but I'm just curious about your opinions.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-13 02:39 pm (UTC)As far as gendered language goes, don't you feel like words like "asshole" and "bastard" are also gendered? Would you call that sexist language as well? Granted women can be bastards too, but in the context that it's used these days it's geared more towards men and is less about parentage. I get as angry as anyone else when women are treated unfairly and poorly but I'm just curious about your opinions.
Asshole is explicitly non-gendered -- we've all got one. "Prick" or "dick" is about the closest I can think of getting to an actual slur directed toward and about men (if we don't count homophobic slurs, which fall under a different category) and "cunt" is considered to be much stronger in most places.
"Bastard" (like "son of a bitch") is generally still an attack on women -- it's saying that the man is weak because of his non-married mother; going back in time, a bastard couldn't always inherit and it make everyone look at you funny. Sexist, yes, but not all that sexist toward men.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-13 02:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-13 02:46 pm (UTC)A lot of it seems to stem from when Ben Edlund joined the writing staff -- his episodes in S3 were also some of the most painfully sexist (he wrote an episode called "Malleus Maleficarum". All the women/witches in it died, but, don't worry, the boys managed to save the cheating husband from death! And we got the lovely tidbit that "all witches are whores." Yes. Thanks for that, show).
I mean, S4 could hardly have been worse. They didn't have any lower to go.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-14 08:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-13 02:32 pm (UTC)I think that the relationship wouldn't have been as complex without dealing with what is possibly the most alien aspect of the Doctor. Having Rose go through that experience and come out the other side still loving the Doctor is, for example, what makes the ending in "Journey's End" work for me.
Ooh, that's a really interesting point. On the other hand, I've wondered that if Ten HAD regenerated into Eleven at the end of TSL if it would have been even more difficult for them. I know they would have still loved each other (it is the Doctor and Rose), but Ten and Rose got on SO WELL that adjusting to a new personality and body after Rose had been gone for years was probably a terrifying prospect. At least, that's what Rose's reaction suggests to me.
So, you know, I'm good with giving women powers -- that was the point of the digression. It's better than giving men all the power.
Hmm, yes. I can get onboard with this! :D
I've loved RTD's portrayal of women so much in DW that I've been looking at Joss's portrayal more critically lately. And I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with being critical, but you're also right that at least he's making a conscious effort to change *something* which is better than most TV creators out there.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-13 02:52 pm (UTC)The boys' relationship is very shiny. I mean, I still remember it fondly.
women seem to fit into two categories. The victim or the slutty demon. Which means they're either being rescued or the show provides a way to excuse male violence against women. Even Ruby who is supposed to be "good" gets roughed up by Sam and Dean all the time, and I *think* we're supposed to believe it's okay because she's a demon. It's... very disturbing.
Exactly. In the earlier two seasons, we sometimes got strong, good women who could fight back. There weren't any of those in S3 (can't speak for S4).
Ten and Rose got on SO WELL that adjusting to a new personality and body after Rose had been gone for years was probably a terrifying prospect. At least, that's what Rose's reaction suggests to me.
It would be very scary. I mean, you search all that time to find a guy and he goes and changes himself all around. Even if you know that all the most important parts of him are still there, it's not exactly reassuring.
I've loved RTD's portrayal of women so much in DW that I've been looking at Joss's portrayal more critically lately. And I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with being critical, but you're also right that at least he's making a conscious effort to change *something* which is better than most TV creators out there.
*nods*
I mean, there are definitely things that I would have done differently, were I the one running the show, and I do think that it's important not to automatically give Joss a free pass because he's willing to call himself a feminist. That said, what I hear about Dollhouse sounds very positive on the feminism front (some people saw the first three episodes and gave very general, non-spoilery reviews).
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-14 01:17 am (UTC)This is why I loved Bela - and I'm one of the very few who did. When we first met her, she was neither of those. I was very disappointed with what happened to her; I know she was hated by a lot of fans and I wonder if that had something to do with it.
But when she first appeared onscreen? She was mysterious and strong and I liked that.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-13 11:17 pm (UTC)I didn't even think of the show that way. Damn it I can't wait to watch it now.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-14 02:00 am (UTC)*waits impatiently*
(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-14 08:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-14 04:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-14 07:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-02-16 05:15 am (UTC)Hmm, it never actually occurred to me that it could be both. :p But I completely agree with your thoughts, it kinda reminds me one of the reader letters to the Batman comics editors expressing their unhappiness about his characterization, saying that Batman has been a role model to the people in real life in many ways and they're destroying that. And they replied (but not unkindly or in a jerk way) that they don't think they should take comicbook characters as role models.
As for the discontinuity topic, man I WISH I could do that too. But in the end I'm always a "canon is canon is canon" kind of fan. And by extension, it's also why I dislike these double standards, selectively blocking out all the portrayals which you don't agree with one character and yet unwilling to do the same with others.