The men's world that tv may be
I've been reading reactions to the last episode of Breaking Bad, and it's obvious that the audience is pretty much divided in two teams: the viewers who root for the good guy aka Hank, and those who love cool villains and root for the bad guys.
I have never been that intrigued by "cool villains" because I see them as tv tropes most of the time (my favourite villain this year was a mature woman in Justified! She was not "cool" but she was one of the greatest villains ever), and as much as I adore Hank, I find myself rooting for Walt these days.
As sammael77 said in a comment:
"It's almost unbelievable that a non “potentially sexual” relationship is able to convey so much attention. I can understand the criticism about the lack of female characters in the show, but frankly, lots of shows with a good number of women in them are too often focused on pairing these characters up with any male being showing up in the room. Shows for professional shippers, I call them. "
It's true that most tv shows revolve around romantic pairings or have romantic/sexual pairing as one of the strongest elements of the show, but Breaking Bad does not (neither did The Wire).
On the other hand, relationships don't have to be romantic or sexual to be interesting, engaging and moving, at least in my book.
To tell the truth, I'm not a big fan of romance in literature, and I don't watch tv to ship, even though I have taken a few tv romantic relationships at heart in the past (Spike/Buffy in BtvS, Desmond/Penny in Lost, Helo/Athena in BSG for instance). I know that male friendship (or bromance as they call it these days) or family relationships are much more my cup of tea. I just dig that stuff.
Male friendship, brotherhood or father/son stories captivate me, probably because I am a woman and there's some otherness in such relationships that fascinates me. That's the reason I love Bill Adama/Saul Tigh on BSG or Raylan/Boyd on Justified, or the buddy show that Terriers was. It is something that I can't experience myself in real life, something that I can only witness without being a part of, but art allows me to feel it, as it I were experiencing it myself, either in books or on screen. The otherness makes it compelling but those relationships also involve something universal -- a human element that resonates with anyone-- that does the trick.
So I do feel for Walter White because this amazing show, Breaking Bad, makes me feel the relationship between Walt and Jesse.
That said, I'm sure that they are people who sexualize such relationship, and I know that there are Walt/Jesse slash fanfictions online.
Where does I stand when it comes to slash? Well, it's a bit like for heterosexual pairings, I mostly am a canon girl. I can see sexual undertones (sometimes the slash writes itself!), but when they are not there I don't see the point of pairing two male characters up in a fanfiction...or even in my head. Tv characters are not barbies to play with...or in this case, they are not Kens.
And even when there are a sexual or romantic subtext on screen, I don't necessarily want it to happen, either on screen or off-screen. For instance the Raylan and Boyd relationship in Justified does have such undertones (a character even voiced it out loud , saying it was like a love story between them), especially given that both characters are charismatic and sexy. But I just like their story the way it is.
By the way, in Deadwood, Timothy Olyphant's character and John Hawkes' were good friends, sharing a bond that ran deep (still haven't seen season 3, don't spoil me!) and I wouldn't dream of sexualizing that relationship.
Alos, I loved the relationship between Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo in Rome, and it was great the way it was too, the perfect bromance. No slash needed. Vorenus and Antony on the other hand? The sexual chemistry was just unbelievable between those two! Some scenes just called for a X-rated fanfiction.
And there's the case of Joseph Adama and Daniel Graystone on Caprica. There was that bond born in grief, and later sparks between the once-almost-friends-now-not-quite-enemies antagonists/allies they had become; they often fight like a couple, had mixed feelings about one another and they were both so pretty, so I could totally picture them shagging their brains out in the V-world, but in the V-world only, the realm of fantasy (I knew it wasn't going to happen on screen though so reading it in fanfiction was rather...satisfying).
Actually, it seems that the deeper a non-sexual relationship look on screen between two males, the less I want the characters to end up in slashers' hands.
Of course, at the end of the day, the only true slash relationship that remains to my eyes is the one involving Rupert Giles and Ethan Rayne from BtvS. My beautiful British men, I miss you so.
Now I'm back to reading stuff on inquisition...
I have never been that intrigued by "cool villains" because I see them as tv tropes most of the time (my favourite villain this year was a mature woman in Justified! She was not "cool" but she was one of the greatest villains ever), and as much as I adore Hank, I find myself rooting for Walt these days.
As sammael77 said in a comment:
"It's almost unbelievable that a non “potentially sexual” relationship is able to convey so much attention. I can understand the criticism about the lack of female characters in the show, but frankly, lots of shows with a good number of women in them are too often focused on pairing these characters up with any male being showing up in the room. Shows for professional shippers, I call them. "
It's true that most tv shows revolve around romantic pairings or have romantic/sexual pairing as one of the strongest elements of the show, but Breaking Bad does not (neither did The Wire).
On the other hand, relationships don't have to be romantic or sexual to be interesting, engaging and moving, at least in my book.
To tell the truth, I'm not a big fan of romance in literature, and I don't watch tv to ship, even though I have taken a few tv romantic relationships at heart in the past (Spike/Buffy in BtvS, Desmond/Penny in Lost, Helo/Athena in BSG for instance). I know that male friendship (or bromance as they call it these days) or family relationships are much more my cup of tea. I just dig that stuff.
Male friendship, brotherhood or father/son stories captivate me, probably because I am a woman and there's some otherness in such relationships that fascinates me. That's the reason I love Bill Adama/Saul Tigh on BSG or Raylan/Boyd on Justified, or the buddy show that Terriers was. It is something that I can't experience myself in real life, something that I can only witness without being a part of, but art allows me to feel it, as it I were experiencing it myself, either in books or on screen. The otherness makes it compelling but those relationships also involve something universal -- a human element that resonates with anyone-- that does the trick.
So I do feel for Walter White because this amazing show, Breaking Bad, makes me feel the relationship between Walt and Jesse.
That said, I'm sure that they are people who sexualize such relationship, and I know that there are Walt/Jesse slash fanfictions online.
Where does I stand when it comes to slash? Well, it's a bit like for heterosexual pairings, I mostly am a canon girl. I can see sexual undertones (sometimes the slash writes itself!), but when they are not there I don't see the point of pairing two male characters up in a fanfiction...or even in my head. Tv characters are not barbies to play with...or in this case, they are not Kens.
And even when there are a sexual or romantic subtext on screen, I don't necessarily want it to happen, either on screen or off-screen. For instance the Raylan and Boyd relationship in Justified does have such undertones (a character even voiced it out loud , saying it was like a love story between them), especially given that both characters are charismatic and sexy. But I just like their story the way it is.
By the way, in Deadwood, Timothy Olyphant's character and John Hawkes' were good friends, sharing a bond that ran deep (still haven't seen season 3, don't spoil me!) and I wouldn't dream of sexualizing that relationship.
Alos, I loved the relationship between Lucius Vorenus and Titus Pullo in Rome, and it was great the way it was too, the perfect bromance. No slash needed. Vorenus and Antony on the other hand? The sexual chemistry was just unbelievable between those two! Some scenes just called for a X-rated fanfiction.
And there's the case of Joseph Adama and Daniel Graystone on Caprica. There was that bond born in grief, and later sparks between the once-almost-friends-now-not-quite-enemies antagonists/allies they had become; they often fight like a couple, had mixed feelings about one another and they were both so pretty, so I could totally picture them shagging their brains out in the V-world, but in the V-world only, the realm of fantasy (I knew it wasn't going to happen on screen though so reading it in fanfiction was rather...satisfying).
Actually, it seems that the deeper a non-sexual relationship look on screen between two males, the less I want the characters to end up in slashers' hands.
Of course, at the end of the day, the only true slash relationship that remains to my eyes is the one involving Rupert Giles and Ethan Rayne from BtvS. My beautiful British men, I miss you so.
Now I'm back to reading stuff on inquisition...