Supernatural and its women
The unfair treatment of women on Supernatural is obviously a never-ending point of discussion. Amongst fans, it's a time to bitch. Amongst the writers/creators/actors of the show it's cause for wibbly hand-wringing. I've complained about it before, but falling_dominos brought it up on her journal and got me all worked up, so of course I had to come here and flail about it some more.
If only to just clarify my own feelings on the subject.
1. This show is about two brothers who are heavily involved and desperately codependent on one another. Bottom line. They are the protagonists, and as the audience we're trained to sympathize with them, first and foremost, and learn to hate anything that might come between them. I feel this is the reason the women on this show have fared so poorly. It's been unconsiously ingrained in us that the opposite sex is a threat, and when they continually go and kill off, or throw away after one episode, every female character, we've learned to believe that this is the only acceptable way to treat them. We love the brothers, so we hate the women around them and must immediately see them eliminated from the picture.
Women are, by nature, threatened by other women. Stick us in a room together long enough and we will kill each other. So when you give us something like Sam and Dean that we get unhealthily attatched to and protective of, the sight of another women in their lives makes us hiss and spit and get all freakin' territorial.
That's the psychology (as I see it) behind the unfair treatment of women on Supernatural, and quite frankly it seems the most obvious, so I'm always baffled by the confusion of the writers and actors when it comes to this particular topic. They all seem to genuinely have no idea why women are given such a hard time in this fandom when it's so glaringly obvious!
2. As far as how my personal views affect this topic....I'm generally very brutal towards female characters in anything. I rarely find a woman in a movie/book/tv show/whatever that I like. I'm picky beyond reason, because when we have the likes of Bella Swan in the world we must learn to be extra particular about the quality of our female characters in our lives. Am I right?! Yes. So, mostly my personal problem with the women on this show is that they're just of really piss-poor construction. It's like the writer's have no idea how to write good women, which is insane because at least one of the primary writers on the show IS A FREAKING WOMAN! o_O
There's been only a handful of good women on the show (my own personal opinions, not a definitive compartmentalization):
Jo and Ellen (My two favorites. I love them both to little bits)
Anna (Who I don't particularly like, but she never bothered me and I never felt threatened by her--even with her little romp in the backseat of the Impala with Deano--and it was nice to see a female angel who could hold her own against the boy!angels)
Ava (I liked her a lot. She's quirky and adorable, even though she went dark-side. There's nothing wrong with going dark-side. She was well-written, I thought.)
Meg (She's snarky and overtly sexual, but not in a threatening way, just in an "I'm a demon so I'm habitually naughty" kind of way. And I like her in all forms...especially Sam!Meg *grins*)
Season 3 Ruby (because Katie Cassidy was awesome and decidedly not Genevieve Cortese....*ahem*....)
Then there are those who I want to like, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to:
Lisa (I think she's a good strong female, but she's been handled too ambiguously and I'm not sure what her deal is.)
Jessica (Okay, so I really have nothing against Jess at all. I think she's sweet and pretty and perfect for Sam, but we were never given the chance to know her, so really just comes off as sort of getting in the way of the boys)
Pamela (I want to like her so bad. And really I have nothing against her, there's just something about her that rubs me the wrong way. She's one that's right on the line for me between not-so-sure, and totally-fucking-in-love, though.)
And then there are those who have no redeeming qualities whatsoever:
Season 4 Ruby (Mostly because of Genevieve, and I apologize for that. My dislike towards her is completely unfounded, and I have no excuse. I just don't like her, and I don't like what she brought to the character)
MADISON (Because what the everloving FUCK was the person writing that episode thinking?!)
Bella (Again, I think this has more to do with the actress playing her and not the actual character herself....so on that note...
3. The casting department needs to really step up their game when casting the women on this show. If I really thought about it, the primary reason I like the women I do is because of the actresses playing them. Shitty acting can break a good character (I wonder if we'd still like Dean as much if it wasn't Jensen playing him...)
Bottom line is, casting can make or break a character. This is general knowledge. So really, I blame the casting mostly, and the need to turn all the girls into flouncy-haired, skinny, pretty, sexual objects...but whatever....
4. And last, but not least, girls scream way too freaking much on this show. The little one-episode plot device female characters are such freaking pansies I can't even stand it. WRITE STRONGER FEMALES AND THEN MAYBE WE'LL LIKE THEM!!!!!
I just don't understand how we can have all these awesome male characters like Sam, Dean, John, Bobby, Ash, Crowley, freaking ALASTAIR, Lucifer, Michael, GABRIEL, Chuck, Cas, YED, Adam, even adorable little Andy, and then have such shitty women flailing all over the place. IT DOES NOT COMPUTE!
Ugh *sigh*. I should stop there before hurt myself.
So ends my rant on the women of Supernatural.
If only to just clarify my own feelings on the subject.
1. This show is about two brothers who are heavily involved and desperately codependent on one another. Bottom line. They are the protagonists, and as the audience we're trained to sympathize with them, first and foremost, and learn to hate anything that might come between them. I feel this is the reason the women on this show have fared so poorly. It's been unconsiously ingrained in us that the opposite sex is a threat, and when they continually go and kill off, or throw away after one episode, every female character, we've learned to believe that this is the only acceptable way to treat them. We love the brothers, so we hate the women around them and must immediately see them eliminated from the picture.
Women are, by nature, threatened by other women. Stick us in a room together long enough and we will kill each other. So when you give us something like Sam and Dean that we get unhealthily attatched to and protective of, the sight of another women in their lives makes us hiss and spit and get all freakin' territorial.
That's the psychology (as I see it) behind the unfair treatment of women on Supernatural, and quite frankly it seems the most obvious, so I'm always baffled by the confusion of the writers and actors when it comes to this particular topic. They all seem to genuinely have no idea why women are given such a hard time in this fandom when it's so glaringly obvious!
2. As far as how my personal views affect this topic....I'm generally very brutal towards female characters in anything. I rarely find a woman in a movie/book/tv show/whatever that I like. I'm picky beyond reason, because when we have the likes of Bella Swan in the world we must learn to be extra particular about the quality of our female characters in our lives. Am I right?! Yes. So, mostly my personal problem with the women on this show is that they're just of really piss-poor construction. It's like the writer's have no idea how to write good women, which is insane because at least one of the primary writers on the show IS A FREAKING WOMAN! o_O
There's been only a handful of good women on the show (my own personal opinions, not a definitive compartmentalization):
Jo and Ellen (My two favorites. I love them both to little bits)
Anna (Who I don't particularly like, but she never bothered me and I never felt threatened by her--even with her little romp in the backseat of the Impala with Deano--and it was nice to see a female angel who could hold her own against the boy!angels)
Ava (I liked her a lot. She's quirky and adorable, even though she went dark-side. There's nothing wrong with going dark-side. She was well-written, I thought.)
Meg (She's snarky and overtly sexual, but not in a threatening way, just in an "I'm a demon so I'm habitually naughty" kind of way. And I like her in all forms...especially Sam!Meg *grins*)
Season 3 Ruby (because Katie Cassidy was awesome and decidedly not Genevieve Cortese....*ahem*....)
Then there are those who I want to like, but I'm not sure I can bring myself to:
Lisa (I think she's a good strong female, but she's been handled too ambiguously and I'm not sure what her deal is.)
Jessica (Okay, so I really have nothing against Jess at all. I think she's sweet and pretty and perfect for Sam, but we were never given the chance to know her, so really just comes off as sort of getting in the way of the boys)
Pamela (I want to like her so bad. And really I have nothing against her, there's just something about her that rubs me the wrong way. She's one that's right on the line for me between not-so-sure, and totally-fucking-in-love, though.)
And then there are those who have no redeeming qualities whatsoever:
Season 4 Ruby (Mostly because of Genevieve, and I apologize for that. My dislike towards her is completely unfounded, and I have no excuse. I just don't like her, and I don't like what she brought to the character)
MADISON (Because what the everloving FUCK was the person writing that episode thinking?!)
Bella (Again, I think this has more to do with the actress playing her and not the actual character herself....so on that note...
3. The casting department needs to really step up their game when casting the women on this show. If I really thought about it, the primary reason I like the women I do is because of the actresses playing them. Shitty acting can break a good character (I wonder if we'd still like Dean as much if it wasn't Jensen playing him...)
Bottom line is, casting can make or break a character. This is general knowledge. So really, I blame the casting mostly, and the need to turn all the girls into flouncy-haired, skinny, pretty, sexual objects...but whatever....
4. And last, but not least, girls scream way too freaking much on this show. The little one-episode plot device female characters are such freaking pansies I can't even stand it. WRITE STRONGER FEMALES AND THEN MAYBE WE'LL LIKE THEM!!!!!
I just don't understand how we can have all these awesome male characters like Sam, Dean, John, Bobby, Ash, Crowley, freaking ALASTAIR, Lucifer, Michael, GABRIEL, Chuck, Cas, YED, Adam, even adorable little Andy, and then have such shitty women flailing all over the place. IT DOES NOT COMPUTE!
Ugh *sigh*. I should stop there before hurt myself.
So ends my rant on the women of Supernatural.