On my post iZombie: how skin tones appear to have affected shipping ...
On my post iZombie: how skin tones appear to have affected shipping
I can’t reblog this comment by @preachersdaughtersthief, but it goes:
#this is really like a superficial analysis but it hits the nail in the head#you sure AS FUCK know if Ravi was white they’d be the biggest ship in this fandom#as if platonic relationships have ever stopped people from shipping#see FS in AOS#lmao people are SO TRANSPARENT#I’d see her make out with Ravi or Clive a thousand times over her love interests#ANYWAY#reblog: izombie
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The deeper analysis was in the thread over at previously.tv called Why the Demarcation? - Liv’s Love Life. That thread delves in deeper and is written by someone smarter and more articulate than I am but I did deliberately want to keep the commentary in my post lighter because I think the message can be lost in a more dense passage.
I do want to stress again that I am not saying that Ravi and Liv should get together and that life is just about people hooking up. For me it’s whether canon presents something as a viable relationship or puts up a barrier from the outset.
Let’s face it, we’re fans, we have imaginations. We can ship anything. We can ship together characters together who don’t exist, who have never met …Canon (usually) does not constrain us. We can bring characters back from the dead, we can transpose characters across distance and time.
Canon does provide certain constraints though. It can point us in the direction of what the creators of the show want/intend. Think back to these shows, right from get-go it was clear that there was supposed to be sexual/romantic tension between certain characters who work together even if the show did not actually go there and make it a romance.
- Castle: Rick Castle and Kate Beckett
- X-Files: Mulder and Scully
- The Mentalist: Patrick Jane and Theresa Lisbon
- Lucifer: Lucifer Morningstar and Chloe
- Bones: Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth
- The Listener: he has a number of possible canon-supported ships. With Detective Charlie Marks in earlier seasons, Sergeant Michelle McCkluskey in later seasons, Dr Olivia Fawcett (because woman of colour love interest with a white male is much more common). You could potentially slash him with his partner and friend Oz as well given that they give you enough there.
- In Plain Sight: Mary Shannon and Marshall Mann. They never actually go there, but it was definitely flirted with in canon.
- Life: Charlie Crews Jr and Dani Reese. They never actually go there, but it’s very much a viable ship given the looks and the tension.
- Chase: Annie Frost and Jimmy Godfrey
- Battlestar Galactica: Starbuck and Apollo. Apollo is her boss, she’s in his chain of command. They should not be involved in a relationship but you can hand wave that away because it’s sci fi …
- Almost Human: John Kennex and Dorian. There was enough in canon to support a viable M/M ship even though from the episodes i watched, they were pushing Kennex/Valerie Stahl.
- Standoff: Matt Flannery and Emily Lehman. This was canon from the get-go. The whole thing was that she was his partner, he was sleeping with her and this was a workplace relations issue.
Basically any cop/fire rescue/medical drama where attractive people are working together. Scrubs, Grey’s Anatomy, Code Black, Trauma, Chicago PD, Chicago Fire, Third Watch, Sirens (the old police drama) .. the list goes on. All of these have multiple combinations of partners hooking up (potentially hooking up), subordinates and bosses hooking up (or potentially hooking up).
It doesn’t mean they don’t have other relationships with other people, but the thread between the co-workers/partners always remains. Not so in iZombie - Liv seems to just hook up with one white dude after another … and I wouldn’t complain if they were compelling, but they’re just not…
So it’s a little disingenuous in the context of iZombie to claim that Liv/Ravi or Liv/Clive doesn’t work becuase:
- they work together
- x is older than Liv
- Ravi is Liv’s boss
Ravi and Liv have killed people (zombies), they go grave digging, they do all sorts of things that are considered odd and inappropriate … but getting involved in a romantic relationship when they have such a rapport is weird? If Ravi was a hot white dude, there would still be people saying:
- can’t they just be friends
- I don’t see anything romantic
but canon wouldn’t be pushing that line. Canon would be throwing in long and melting looks, double entendres and all sorts of things to tantalise the audience. Instead, as far as Liv is concerned, Ravi is not a sexual being. I don’t think that’s a particularly realistic portrayal of how it would be. Someone like Liv would probably find someone like Ravi extremely attractive and be drawn to him. From an aesthetics perspective, I totally love that he’s so tall and big and she’s so small and delicate but he never looms over her …
Maybe. Maybe Liv has decided that Ravi is too good for her. She doesn’t want to screw things up and ruin the one good relationship she has with romance. That’s fine - but that’s a fan interpretation, not what canon is putting out there for us.