You know, it scares me when I have to say that comparatively, DW/TW/SJA fandom is so sane, but it is, especially in comparison to the antics over in Supernatural fandom ("let's send RPS to the actors" and "let's call security on the actors' gfs") and now SGA fandom (poor bastard). Of course, I know not to tar whole fandoms with the crazy brush, and I'm sure it will be my poor little fandom's turn soon, but perhaps, oh perhaps, we will heed these cautionary tales of batshittery. At least our bad boundary stuff has mostly happened in private. Christ.
Saw the SyFy name change ads on the bus this morning. STILL WRONG.
Forgot to mention I saw the preview for the new Trek when we saw Watchmen the other day. It looks AWESOME.
Orson Scott Card has joined the board of NOM or 2M4M or whatever the anti-gay marriage gathering storm bigots are calling themselves this week. No, I'm not surprised. And at this point, one can hardly even be disappointed. But I am, just a little, because at a given point you just run out of ways to boycott the work of someone that objectionable. That's right, I'm annoyed because I can't find a way to reject Card and his work enough.
Working my butt off. Lots of wacky freelance writing and deadlines for the Germans. In limbo on various creative/criticism projects. Fighting pothos.
Woo! Hey, got a CoT nomination for that Jack/Andy/Ianto porn I wrote the other day. Meanwhile, trying to finish a ton of small stories and feeling increasingly dubious I will make the Tardis Big Bang deadline. IHNIIHBT and one of its installments (The Most Beautiful Girl in the World) also won some other awards a couple of days ago. Yay.
Patty, still in Atlanta. Cool things there yesterday, but for her to tell.
Regarding Supernatural, at least, I think that the qualities of the show (mysogyny (sp), producer!fail) have a tendency to attract a higher quotient of batshit fans (or at least mysoginistic, entitledment oriented ones). Which doesn't mean all SPN fans are like that, of course but still.., craptastic behavior by producers and in the show's basic themes must influence those who watch it. I know my response to what I saw was to stop watching it.
OSC .... god, so strange. One of the more memorable books I read as a kid was his and titled (I think) 'Lost Boys' or similar. Mostly what I remember were the several post-apocolyptic explicit young boy/young boy masochistic sex with, among other things, vics vapor rub as lube. I imagine he's very glad that books is long out of print and mostly forgotten.
I don't think I can; finding 'lost boys' by OSC is a different thing than I remember. I read a collection of short 'sci-fi' stories over 28 years ago, I thought it was 'lost boys' by OSC and I clearly remember a scene in some sort of grimy bathroom with two pre-pubescent boys doing sort of exploratory but pretty explicit sex.
I was pretty young myself. It stuck with me because a; It was weird. and b; I was also pretty young but kind of sexually fucked up due to RL.
Obviously, so long ago, I could be totally wrong so I can't claim facts on this one.
I don't think it's evil, per se but I do think it's hugely mysogynistic, and that the producers are having both the problem of catering to the fans vocal, but not very nice, wishes to get rid of female characters who migh interfere with the main slash pairing and also disliking or mocking the very same fans.
I can say I watched the first two seasons and - despite the fact that so much of it is my favorite type of stuff - I found it so offensive I stopped watching. I do think that the show's mysogyny (god, spelling) reinforced fans who also dislike women, espeically since one of the more common themes of the show is 'female charcter looks like they might be a romantic interest for one of the brothers but turns out to be evil/killed off/leaves because they can't compete with the brotherly love and the brothers ride triumphantly off into the sunset together'. That's not an uncommon bad slash trope.
Oh ew. I mean, I don't mind slash, but when it gets to be misogynistic like that, it fails miserably. I mean, that is worse than, "oh no, slashers are taking over our leads, let's paste on yay a het pairing!" for no good reason
Yep, between that and the equally swift speed with which any person of color introduced on the show dies, it's definitely on my to avoid list. I continue to find it disturbing that shows filled with racism and misogyny like Supernatural and Heroes keep getting renewed, while far more progressive shows like The Dresden Files or Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles usually get canceled.
Because, I think, that the tropes and underlying themes and messages are ... reassuring. They fit with what still underlies a lot of our cultural baggage.
Then again, look both how far and how not far we've come in comparison to 'Forbidden Planet'.
Excellent point. It's also very sad that it wasn't until the 1990s that there were regularly TV shows where female characters could reliably be something more than eye-candy, victims, or sidekicks. There were exceptions before this, but very rare ones.
Supernatural is awesome. It's epic, myth-y and narratively has such a stylistic grasp on fandom, it boggles the mind. I don't think, truly, it's any more misogynistic than any other show that's about dudes, frankly and I've been watching it since it aired. Or any more misogynistic than we all are.
Leverage, Burn Notice, Torchwood - even Dr. Who. due South ... few female characters but they didn't kill them off on a regular basis. Dresden Files ... there are, and were, a great many shows that are better than Supernatural in treatment of women and POC.
And, really, shows that emphasize men or male friendships/relationships don't have to be inherently misogynistic. And I certianly won't buy that I am that misogynistic.
I've seen neither Leverage, Burn Notice nor due South, so I can't comment. I bet however that if there are few female characters in them, an argument for misogyny on their part could be made, as it is frequently for both Torchwood and Doctor Who, some of which I agree with and some of which I don't.
SPN is about only two characters, both of whom are male. Supernatural kills almost everyone who isn't them off on a regular basis! (It actually kills the brothers off too... they just get to come back.) Almost every character we meet who isn't one of them dies horribly... Is that necessarily a sign of sexism? Ought the women and people of color be spared, when the white male characters also die horribly?
The main writer -- Eric Kripke is a straight white dude, true, and his biases certainly show through, and as far as I am aware everyone who writes for the show is white (though there are many women on the writing team as well.) But I'd argue this is vastly the case in the Whoniverse as well... For instance, is there one single S. Asian character in that universe who is depicted in a strong and positive light? Who lives? I think right now on that front, we're at a clear zero. Where as in SPN, I could point to several females & poc who are shown as both, and live...
Women's Work (http://www.imeem.com/luminosity/video/MubmmEnZ/spn-womens-work/) by luminosity and sisabet is a fabulous visual argument for the point you raise... and it's a spectacular vid. I love it.
But I think it ignores the point that you do have incredibly strong female characters who are flawed (because everyone in SPN is flawed) and while they frequently die, so does everyone not named Sam and Dean (and they die, but get to come back). Now it's also true that because of certain sections of fandom, it's been hard to incorporate women into the show, because people bitch. But are we to accuse the show of being misogynistic because it caters to women who don't want to see women on a show they love?
I don't think I'm making personal accusations about misogyny, but I do think there's a greater sense of interest in the stories of men, or rather, stories about what in our society are generally coded as peculiarly masculine forms of honor and heroism and adventure. Is that misogyny? I don't know. But those are the stories we have on the table now, and I think it's possible to enjoy them without being a misogynist. I still love Torchwood and Doctor Who, and I don't think I'm a traitor to my people.
Is there misogyny in the show? Sure, probably, insofar as our entertainment industry is misogynistic. (Do I think SPN is more misogynistic than that? I absolutely do not.) Not to say there isn't interesting stuff about the interaction between women and men, fandom and authors on the show -- there is, and I find it fascinating, actually. Picking it apart, pointing it out -- all valuable.
Thing is, I'm not about to give up on stories I love because our culture sucks! Plus, even when they try and "reform", frequently they do it wrong, as the latest cultural appropriation drama shows us. Consider Buffy or Dollhouse, both by self described feminist Joss Whedon (who I love!) It failed at being feminist so hard. I still love Buffy though. It was a great television.
Perhaps it's more valuable to try to add more voices to the conversation. Get stories out there that more accurately reflect what OUR ideals are, whether we're queer, feminist, or poc. That doesn't mean we have to chuck the other ones though -- 'cause there goes an entire two centuries of fantasy and sf.
For instance, is there one single S. Asian character in that universe who is depicted in a strong and positive light? Who lives? I think right now on that front, we're at a clear zero.
Did you get that email I sent you about the TW radio plays?
The thing about SPN is that when it’s good, it’s really, really good, but when it’s bad it’s awful, and some of the bad stuff involves race and gender. For example, I’m bothered by the fact that of the three recurring characters played by black men (an FBI agent, a hunter, and an angel) two of them turned out to be villains and all three died. The show has also racked up quite a tally of dead blondes. That said, I do think some writers make an effort to subvert the women=victim paradigm. For example, the original backstory was that Sam and Dean’s father, John, became a hunter after his wife, Mary, was killed by a demon; however, early this season we learned that Mary was a hunter before her marriage (and successfully hid this from her husband, since the whole supernatural thing caught him completely off guard). I also fondly recall a season 1 episode in which Sam and Dean ran into a teenage couple in a haunted sanitarium; when asked if either of them could handle a shotgun (in the SPNverse you can fend off ghosts with rock salt), the girl was the one with a hand up.
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 04:13 pm (UTC)OSC .... god, so strange. One of the more memorable books I read as a kid was his and titled (I think) 'Lost Boys' or similar. Mostly what I remember were the several post-apocolyptic explicit young boy/young boy masochistic sex with, among other things, vics vapor rub as lube. I imagine he's very glad that books is long out of print and mostly forgotten.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 04:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 04:48 pm (UTC)I was pretty young myself. It stuck with me because a; It was weird. and b; I was also pretty young but kind of sexually fucked up due to RL.
Obviously, so long ago, I could be totally wrong so I can't claim facts on this one.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 04:49 pm (UTC)The OSC thing though is, indeed, fascinating.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 05:04 pm (UTC)have some links:
http://giandujakiss.livejournal.com/777953.html
http://giandujakiss.livejournal.com/775313.html
I can say I watched the first two seasons and - despite the fact that so much of it is my favorite type of stuff - I found it so offensive I stopped watching. I do think that the show's mysogyny (god, spelling) reinforced fans who also dislike women, espeically since one of the more common themes of the show is 'female charcter looks like they might be a romantic interest for one of the brothers but turns out to be evil/killed off/leaves because they can't compete with the brotherly love and the brothers ride triumphantly off into the sunset together'. That's not an uncommon bad slash trope.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 08:06 pm (UTC)Then again, look both how far and how not far we've come in comparison to 'Forbidden Planet'.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 08:04 pm (UTC)Leverage, Burn Notice, Torchwood - even Dr. Who. due South ... few female characters but they didn't kill them off on a regular basis. Dresden Files ... there are, and were, a great many shows that are better than Supernatural in treatment of women and POC.
And, really, shows that emphasize men or male friendships/relationships don't have to be inherently misogynistic. And I certianly won't buy that I am that misogynistic.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 09:43 pm (UTC)SPN is about only two characters, both of whom are male. Supernatural kills almost everyone who isn't them off on a regular basis! (It actually kills the brothers off too... they just get to come back.) Almost every character we meet who isn't one of them dies horribly... Is that necessarily a sign of sexism? Ought the women and people of color be spared, when the white male characters also die horribly?
The main writer -- Eric Kripke is a straight white dude, true, and his biases certainly show through, and as far as I am aware everyone who writes for the show is white (though there are many women on the writing team as well.) But I'd argue this is vastly the case in the Whoniverse as well... For instance, is there one single S. Asian character in that universe who is depicted in a strong and positive light? Who lives? I think right now on that front, we're at a clear zero. Where as in SPN, I could point to several females & poc who are shown as both, and live...
Women's Work (http://www.imeem.com/luminosity/video/MubmmEnZ/spn-womens-work/) by luminosity and sisabet is a fabulous visual argument for the point you raise... and it's a spectacular vid. I love it.
But I think it ignores the point that you do have incredibly strong
female characters who are flawed (because everyone in SPN is flawed)
and while they frequently die, so does everyone not named Sam and Dean
(and they die, but get to come back). Now it's also true that because of certain sections of fandom, it's been hard to incorporate women into the show, because people bitch. But are we to accuse the show of being misogynistic because it caters to women who don't want to see women on a show they love?
I don't think I'm making personal accusations about misogyny, but I do think there's a greater sense of interest in the stories of men, or rather, stories about what in our society are generally coded as peculiarly masculine forms of honor and heroism and adventure. Is that misogyny? I don't know. But those are the stories we have on the table now, and I think it's possible to enjoy them without being a misogynist. I still love Torchwood and Doctor Who, and I don't think I'm a traitor to my people.
Is there misogyny in the show? Sure, probably, insofar as our entertainment industry is misogynistic. (Do I think SPN is more misogynistic than that? I absolutely do not.) Not to say there isn't interesting stuff about the interaction between women and men, fandom and authors on the show -- there is, and I find it fascinating, actually. Picking it apart, pointing it out -- all valuable.
Thing is, I'm not about to give up on stories I love because our culture sucks! Plus, even when they try and "reform", frequently they do it wrong, as the latest cultural appropriation drama shows us. Consider Buffy or Dollhouse, both by self described feminist Joss Whedon (who I love!) It failed at being feminist so hard. I still love Buffy though. It was a great television.
Perhaps it's more valuable to try to add more voices to the conversation. Get stories out there that more accurately reflect what OUR ideals are, whether we're queer, feminist, or poc. That doesn't mean we have to chuck the other ones though -- 'cause there goes an entire two centuries of fantasy and sf.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 09:47 pm (UTC)Did you get that email I sent you about the TW radio plays?
no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-24 05:50 pm (UTC)I don't remember that scene, but it's also been over ten years since I read it.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-25 06:18 am (UTC)