proprietary fannish love; or, who "ruined" my female character

[pellucid]

Yesterday I participated in a discussion about what this whole fanfic thing is all about, anyway. Yesterday and today I participated in two different discussions about female characters. I propose that there are some similar principles underlying both sets of discussions.

Comments

[gabolange]

Between the angle, the distance, the lighting, and the fact that I have yet to see a picture of your current hair color (*ahem*), you are absolutely right: I can't find you in that picture!

I'm not sure I have any further thoughts on the questions you raise about fanfic and women in fandom, at least not at this point. I want to see what other people say, because this kind of discussion is informed so totally by fannish history, personal culture, fandom circles, and what our personal identifiers for "strong" and "weak" may be. What I can see as an example of extreme effort, someone else can see as a demonstration of idiocy, and it's all rooted in how we view the character--which will come from so many different places.

So I take up my place as spectator for now, but I'll be back to see where this goes. :)

[pellucid]

Place saved. :) I'm curious to see where, if anywhere, this discussion goes. On one hand it could explode and become really interesting, but on the other hand, I could also see it being the kind of question-raising thing that makes everyone go "hmm" and not really have much to say. And it may be too long to expect anyone to read it!

And startlingly enough, kernezelda spotted me: third from the right in the pink cami/tank top thing. Her eyes are good: I'm not sure I would have spotted me if I hadn't known where I was sitting and what I was wearing!

[gabolange]

Ah, I've been bested! Perhaps I'll just blame the hair. And the lighting! Yes, yes . . . ::grin::

[pellucid]

One of these days I'll get a decent picture of the hair in its current state and send it to you. Or possibly I will actually see you in person in rather short order and save myself the trouble of uploading a picture. Not that I know any more about when I shall next see you than the last time we spoke about it (the relevant decision-making people still being spread all over the place without their calendars), but soon!

[kernezelda]

I think you're the third from the right, with the low-cut back and light reddish hair.

Thoughts on actual topic of post may or may not occur after work. *g*

[pellucid]

Wow! You're right. I'm not sure I would have spotted me if I hadn't known where I was sitting and what I was wearing! ;)

[surreallis]

This is something I've been thinking about for a while too. Because I've had some extensive discussions about Sam Carter, and in many of the debates I kept running into people using the term 'strong female character' and 'weakness'. And when I would then ask them to define those terms for me and tell me what, exactly, it means to be 'strong' or 'weak', and which traits would be assigned to each state, I almost never got an answer. Instead they'd either just quit the conversation or just repeat the terms 'strong' and 'weak'. Which... was incredibly frustrating. But perhaps simply through that question i was making my point anyway

[beanpot]

You show me one person who hasn't gotten emo over a man/woman/piece of really good pie and I will show you a human being who needs to live a little. Or a lot.

[pellucid]

It's always all about the definitions. Most things are, in fact. Not only about what the definitions are but also where they come from: is shooting things "strong" and "weak" by many people's common definition? Why or why not? Is that in itself a sexist, patriarchal distinction to make, and by using that definition are we buying into the very binaries we want to undercut? But it's complicated because very often when there are skeevy gender issues with a character, they manifest themselves in traditional tropes coming out--so how to critique certain uses of traditional tropes without denying the right of a character to be "strong" while, say, going emo over a man? It gets tricky, obviously, and I think my main point here is not to hold up one particular set of definitions but just to call attention to the fact that we need to be really careful about how we use them.

[beanpot]

That sounds like a fantastic evening

[pellucid]

There are reams and reams to be written about pregnancy on these shows (well, all shows, but sci fi can be especially bad with the whole miracle baby trope), and I think that so often the problems lie in the amount of emphasis reproduction gets: like suddenly the only plot this character is allowed to have revolves around pregnancy, and it's unquestioningly assumed that pregnancy is the greatest thing evar and the only thing this woman has ever wanted to do with her life. But then on the flip side I get really uncomfortable with the kind of language that refers to women being "reduced" to pregnancy, as if it were some small thing or some kind of indication of "weakness." BSG has no stellar track record with issues surrounding reproduction, but I do commend them a) for presenting Sharon as both a devoted mother and also as an entirely competent individual and soldier who continues to be really good at her job (more or less), and b) for never even hinting that Laura Roslin is odd or diminished or lacking in any way for not having had

[beanpot]

if a fan finds herself hard-pressed to like any female characters, well, I spy a red flag...

Yes, of course! Especially when the reasons they don't like the females is the same reasons why they adore the males.

[suzycat]

Do you think the whole notion of the pregnancy being "the only thing that mattered" reflects writers' own experiences/preconceptions about pregnancy, either their own or someone else's? When you think about it - and I say this as a female who has never been pregnant - our whole society tends to speak about pregnancy as a massive huge lifechanging THING, so huge it cannot be talked around. I know I find it difficult to relate to pregnant women without constant consciousness of their pregnancy, the fact they are having a baby soon, how they feel, do they know what it is, what can/can't they eat/drink, have they got names planned etc. Even if I don't ask those questions on purpose, I will still have them simmering away, and I don't know whether that's some "barren woman projection" of mine going on - since I am not consciously deliberately without children, it just worked out that way - or just the sheer weight of social fascination with pregnancy. To be fair, most friends have talked of little else during their pregnancies, and these

[danceswithwords]

I find that it's easier to view female characters through the lens of agency than through fuzzy definitions of strong or weak. Or, rather, that I define strength in female characters in terms of their agency. That agency can come in many forms, from the more badass soldier/kickass model to much more stereotypically feminine focus on relationships.

So, I find that I get really disappointed with the way female characters are written not because of particular storylines themselves (i.e. pregnancy, romantic entanglements, whatever) but because writers seem to have a really hard time writing those storylines for female characters without robbing them of their agency. So, for example, during Season 4 of Farscape, my feelings about Aeryn's pregnancy storyline tend to vary wildly from episode to episode because of the way it affects her agency--which thankfully, ended up not being that much overall, but was a real problem in a few episodes. And the whole Pete Shanihan mess did not have to go the way it did, because I think the writers

[pellucid]

I don't much like the terms "strong" and "weak," no--hence the scare quotes--but decided to adopt them from the discussions I was responding to. I like agency a lot as a lens. I'm not sure it's my primary lens for viewing female characters, but it definitely figures in--and particularly so when it comes to storylines that have to do with romance and pregnancy.

The problem with Aeryn in season 4 was partly inconsistent agency but partly also the loss of her point of view. Everything in s4 became so John-centric (and even John's motivations didn't always make sense), and I think I could have been more okay with the pregnancy if I could see how Aeryn felt about it. And I suppose that is a kind of agency problem--not that Aeryn's agency was always removed but the rationale for her character (the things she was doing and the things being done to her) was obscured. (Someday I may or may not write the fic where Aeryn thinks about becoming a mother through thinking about her own mother and where her notions of motherhood come from. Because