the world is about to see you for who you really are

May 10, 2013 23:30


Dear CW: There is nothing like pairing Nikita and Supernatural together on the same night to highlight just how sexist SPN is.





I’ve heard all the reasons why women are disproportionately fridged, especially on a show like SPN. Namely:

Killing off innocents pulls the audience’s heart strings more - so that means women and children. And children are tricky to work with in the film industry because of labor laws and unions - hence, women.

And Nikita calls B.S. on that. How many times has this show placed men in the damsel-in-distress situation? How many times has its audience gasped and cried when a male character was kidnapped, tortured, reprogrammed and / or killed? And tonight, the show did it again with Michael.

Michael. This male character who was key in training Nikita to become the assassin she became so he is obviously no innocent. Yet it works for the audience because the show has other ways to make you feel for his safety - he’s the heroine’s love interest, and we want her happy. But also, he’s good guy and we like good guys. Dammit. We don’t want to see him die!

And let’s look at other men who’ve been in danger:
Birkhoff: Amanda torturing him was terrifying because Amanda is terrifying. Holy shit, she goes there with torture! Owen / Sam: His awakening from sleeper cell status as Owen, he really wanted to be a good guy and it is a terrifying thing to learn that Amanda was just programming him all along for years before the events of this show. Sean: The only true innocent in this show. Gave Alex manpain because she wanted to save everyone but ended up losing the one person she cared for and trusted the most. Fridged but at least the audience got two years of him being a boy scout no matter which side he was naïvely on.
And it’s not just not-so-innocent men who get killed off sympathetically. Didn’t we feel for Rachel when she co-led the mutiny with Alex to leave Divison because who wouldn’t want to leave a situation where they are basically slave soldiers who will probably be trained if not programmed to be horrible people? Even though it’s known that every Division recruit has a shady past, the show has built up the dysfunction and abuse of Division that it totally makes sense no one would choose to be trapped under it. If only Rachel had made it out instead of forcing Alex to kill her.

As for SPN. I do really really feel for Sarah Blake’s death. But, I hate that the feeling is tainted by knowing she’s just another dead woman statistic in the show. I’m sure the show’s writers didn’t mean to spend eight years cheapening a big important death. But that doesn’t negate that that’s what they totally did.



So. Dear Supernatural: A show doesn’t need to kill off innocents to pull its audience’s heart strings. It just needs to kill off the characters the audience cares about. And if is possible to kill off not-so-innocent men and not-so-innocent women in ways that are sympathetic and forward the story and aren’t purely for titillation, then all I can conclude about all the deaths of women on SPN is that they’re cheap.

And when there are too many cheap deaths, the one that is supposed to mean a lot and break the audience’s heart doesn’t when it’s reduced to just another of the show’s statistics.

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