On Girl Cooties in SF
You know, I'm terribly sorry for men who are threatened by the fact that the SF Clubhouse is getting bigger. I understand clinging to your guns and your religion (guilty! myownself), but to dismiss other voices out of hand simply because they're Other strikes me as being...
I dunno. Hidebound? Narrow-minded? Monumentally Stupid?
Now. It's one thing to actually examine those voices and find them lacking. The marketing idiots at SyFy are a case in point. Apparently they're attempting to appeal to EveryWoman. What they don't realize is that EveryWoman does not care for Our Chosen Genre and won't care for Our Chosen Genre no matter how much "moronic relationship crap" you put in it. And GeekWoman (which is the demographic they should be aiming for) watches SF because of the exploding spaceships, not in spite of them. So, SyFy is full of idiots, and you will get no argument from me on that.
That being said, why put all your entertainment eggs in one basket? I can think of six shows, right off the bat, that I currently watch (or will be watching when they start up again) on network TV with an SF element: Heroes, Dollhouse, Flash Forward, Fringe, Lost, and Chuck. Are these shows "chick-i-fied"? My gun-toting, plane-flying, jeeping, racecar-driving Hubby has something to say on that. For a genre that seems to get sneered at a lot, we seem to have numerous choices for entertainment.
And there's been plenty of other shows as well. Whine all you like about Starbuck being a woman (although she smokes cigars, drinks the guys under the table, plays poker, and punches superior officers in the face--I'm not sure how "feminine" that makes her; other than the fact that she has, you know, breasts, I don't know how different her character actually was from the original), but BSG was a damned fine show that took on deep issues like What Makes Us Human and How Do Wars Start, not to mention That Pesky Slavery Question. Firefly and Farscape were awesome too. Terminator! I'll even tip a hat to "My Own Worst Enemy" and "Life on Mars." How about "Pushing Daisies" (which was, yes, more fantasy than SF, but still absolutely brilliant).
Someone explain to me how these shows are "feminized." While you're at it, why don't you tell me what that even means. Where are the Girl Cooties?
I saw someone bitching that Starbuck tortured a male Cylon for information, he didn't give it to her, then Roslin got the information by asking politely and immediately shot him out the airlock. He seems to think that there was a "moral message" that there was nothing wrong with this--and if that's what he took from that scene, I think he's not even on the same planet as the actual point. He then said "OMG THEY WOULDN'T TORTURE A FEMALE PRISONER THAT WAY," pounding his fist all the while--and completely forgetting that, hey... they kind of did. I guess he forgot about the fact that Six got beaten up in prison, by her captors, on numerous occasions. And Boomer did too. Oops. Argument go Boom.
And movies. "Moon" and "District 9" come to mind, right off the bat. Star Trek. Terminator: Salvation (which was a bad movie, sorry, no cookie for those writers). "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs." Wolverine (I loved it, sue me, I'm shallow). Transformers (okay, that was a really bad movie, but what did we expect?). SURROGATES OMG.
Seriously, there is not a dearth of entertainment out there for Manly Men. Also, Manly Men do not Whine. They Man Up and Do Something. Instead of crying in a blog, write the networks and advertisers. Buy the DVD sets of the shows you like. Write your own scripts and books and get them produced if you're such Hot Stuff.
And, if you think my ovaries are an impediment to writing blood, guts, and pain, Jake O'Dell would like a word with you. And I'm pretty sure Ben's* right in line behind him.
----
*Ben may be a bad example. This entire second novel is really about his relationships with the women in his life, isn't it? In between the blood, guts, and pain.
I dunno. Hidebound? Narrow-minded? Monumentally Stupid?
Now. It's one thing to actually examine those voices and find them lacking. The marketing idiots at SyFy are a case in point. Apparently they're attempting to appeal to EveryWoman. What they don't realize is that EveryWoman does not care for Our Chosen Genre and won't care for Our Chosen Genre no matter how much "moronic relationship crap" you put in it. And GeekWoman (which is the demographic they should be aiming for) watches SF because of the exploding spaceships, not in spite of them. So, SyFy is full of idiots, and you will get no argument from me on that.
That being said, why put all your entertainment eggs in one basket? I can think of six shows, right off the bat, that I currently watch (or will be watching when they start up again) on network TV with an SF element: Heroes, Dollhouse, Flash Forward, Fringe, Lost, and Chuck. Are these shows "chick-i-fied"? My gun-toting, plane-flying, jeeping, racecar-driving Hubby has something to say on that. For a genre that seems to get sneered at a lot, we seem to have numerous choices for entertainment.
And there's been plenty of other shows as well. Whine all you like about Starbuck being a woman (although she smokes cigars, drinks the guys under the table, plays poker, and punches superior officers in the face--I'm not sure how "feminine" that makes her; other than the fact that she has, you know, breasts, I don't know how different her character actually was from the original), but BSG was a damned fine show that took on deep issues like What Makes Us Human and How Do Wars Start, not to mention That Pesky Slavery Question. Firefly and Farscape were awesome too. Terminator! I'll even tip a hat to "My Own Worst Enemy" and "Life on Mars." How about "Pushing Daisies" (which was, yes, more fantasy than SF, but still absolutely brilliant).
Someone explain to me how these shows are "feminized." While you're at it, why don't you tell me what that even means. Where are the Girl Cooties?
I saw someone bitching that Starbuck tortured a male Cylon for information, he didn't give it to her, then Roslin got the information by asking politely and immediately shot him out the airlock. He seems to think that there was a "moral message" that there was nothing wrong with this--and if that's what he took from that scene, I think he's not even on the same planet as the actual point. He then said "OMG THEY WOULDN'T TORTURE A FEMALE PRISONER THAT WAY," pounding his fist all the while--and completely forgetting that, hey... they kind of did. I guess he forgot about the fact that Six got beaten up in prison, by her captors, on numerous occasions. And Boomer did too. Oops. Argument go Boom.
And movies. "Moon" and "District 9" come to mind, right off the bat. Star Trek. Terminator: Salvation (which was a bad movie, sorry, no cookie for those writers). "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs." Wolverine (I loved it, sue me, I'm shallow). Transformers (okay, that was a really bad movie, but what did we expect?). SURROGATES OMG.
Seriously, there is not a dearth of entertainment out there for Manly Men. Also, Manly Men do not Whine. They Man Up and Do Something. Instead of crying in a blog, write the networks and advertisers. Buy the DVD sets of the shows you like. Write your own scripts and books and get them produced if you're such Hot Stuff.
And, if you think my ovaries are an impediment to writing blood, guts, and pain, Jake O'Dell would like a word with you. And I'm pretty sure Ben's* right in line behind him.
----
*Ben may be a bad example. This entire second novel is really about his relationships with the women in his life, isn't it? In between the blood, guts, and pain.