Complaining About Shows I Don't Watch. Even Still? Dear Misogynistic Producer Dude: FUCK YOU.
I gave up on BBC's Merlin about halfway through the first season (or "series", you know, wtfever) because none of the characters were grabbing me, I didn't care for the story, and I thought it all just seemed kind of silly, in the kind of silly way where I'm not really interested in putting up with it.
Judging from things I've been hearing from my flist ever since, I'm glad I didn't stick around long enough to start picking up on the genderfail.
Courtesy of dollsome (and she has her own "WTF??" reactionary post, don't you worry, but it's f-locked), this little gem from a recent interview with Merlin executive producer Julian Murphy:
"[...]In the first two series with Gwen and Morgana it was hard to give them big and meaty roles. Now Morgana is evil it’s much easier to give her proactive, proper stories. And in Gwen’s case, now that she has a real status of being Arthur’s future queen - well, potentially - and her role a growing and increasingly important one, I think you can see what Angel really can do as an actress.”
So, in other words, if a woman is a villain, or a love interest, you can come up with Stuff For Them To Do. If not? Omg, it's really effin' hard, you guys. Like, what do women do if they're not girlfriends/wives or evil scheming temptresses?? If they're not somehow defined by their relationship to the male protagonist or just men in general? It's not like they can do all the same things guys can if they're not evil, or unattached. There's nothing at all for the writers to do with them, not anything at all, whatsoever. Clearly there is absolutely no role for them in the story. Sadface, oh noes!
W.T.F. I'm almost more stunned than I am mad, this is such a mind-boggling piece of fail.
Even the language of his response makes me start angry-twitching: Morgana being evil meaning she has "proactive, proper stories", Gwen being potentially Arthur's future wife giving her a "real status".
I don't want to oversimplify, but this all sounds almost disturbingly like it has shades of coming full circle back to the ol' Virgin Or Whore arguement in it, don't it?
And then, to get even better, it follows up with some stuff about how the actors for the two lady-characters keep wanting to get their own swordfighting scenes but he doesn't think it's going to happen because they want to "stay within the bounds of fantasy credibility", whatever the fuck that means. To me, it sound suspiciously like Asshole for "trying to find an excuse not to give the girrrls fight sequences". Of course, my Asshole is a little rusty (that's what she said), everyone knows I suck at foreign languages; so really, who knows.
If, like me, you need a palate clenser after all that ick to remind you how not everyone is Doing It Wrong, you know what? I'm just going to re-link to an interview with Michael DiMartino and Brian Konietzko, creators of the Avatar: The Last Airbender series, from this July:
"We just don’t subscribe to the conventional wisdom that you can’t have an action series led by a female character. It’s kinda nonsense to us."
Judging from things I've been hearing from my flist ever since, I'm glad I didn't stick around long enough to start picking up on the genderfail.
Courtesy of dollsome (and she has her own "WTF??" reactionary post, don't you worry, but it's f-locked), this little gem from a recent interview with Merlin executive producer Julian Murphy:
"[...]In the first two series with Gwen and Morgana it was hard to give them big and meaty roles. Now Morgana is evil it’s much easier to give her proactive, proper stories. And in Gwen’s case, now that she has a real status of being Arthur’s future queen - well, potentially - and her role a growing and increasingly important one, I think you can see what Angel really can do as an actress.”
So, in other words, if a woman is a villain, or a love interest, you can come up with Stuff For Them To Do. If not? Omg, it's really effin' hard, you guys. Like, what do women do if they're not girlfriends/wives or evil scheming temptresses?? If they're not somehow defined by their relationship to the male protagonist or just men in general? It's not like they can do all the same things guys can if they're not evil, or unattached. There's nothing at all for the writers to do with them, not anything at all, whatsoever. Clearly there is absolutely no role for them in the story. Sadface, oh noes!
W.T.F. I'm almost more stunned than I am mad, this is such a mind-boggling piece of fail.
Even the language of his response makes me start angry-twitching: Morgana being evil meaning she has "proactive, proper stories", Gwen being potentially Arthur's future wife giving her a "real status".
I don't want to oversimplify, but this all sounds almost disturbingly like it has shades of coming full circle back to the ol' Virgin Or Whore arguement in it, don't it?
And then, to get even better, it follows up with some stuff about how the actors for the two lady-characters keep wanting to get their own swordfighting scenes but he doesn't think it's going to happen because they want to "stay within the bounds of fantasy credibility", whatever the fuck that means. To me, it sound suspiciously like Asshole for "trying to find an excuse not to give the girrrls fight sequences". Of course, my Asshole is a little rusty (that's what she said), everyone knows I suck at foreign languages; so really, who knows.
If, like me, you need a palate clenser after all that ick to remind you how not everyone is Doing It Wrong, you know what? I'm just going to re-link to an interview with Michael DiMartino and Brian Konietzko, creators of the Avatar: The Last Airbender series, from this July:
"We just don’t subscribe to the conventional wisdom that you can’t have an action series led by a female character. It’s kinda nonsense to us."