Sorkinitis
I’m trying to pull myself together to do the 30 Days of Awesome Ladies meme, because, WE’VE ALL MET, RIGHT? (I can’t bring myself to start posting it until my ramblings on Tara, Darla, and maybe Dru are actual respectable posts because I haven’t ever actually put together my thoughts on my girls and I want to try to do them justice, so we’ll see)
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Comments 75
This is just brilliance--and I didn't even read the BSG part! Which--thank you! I swear I'm going to watch BSG sometime soon.
And I know this was just a little grace note in your essay--but How I Met Your Mother. You hit the nail on the head. As much as I love that show--and that is a pretty healthy amount--I'm finding the misogyny to be less and less tolerable. Because holy crap do I love me some Robin Sherbosky. She is HANDS DOWN my favorite woman on television right now (or at least that I'm watching)--And I almost went on a killing spree during the episode where Ted tells her that she doesn't need dudes enough, and that's why she's not desirable. I know--the point of the episode was supposed to be that too much neediness is bad, and that Barney loved Robin's independence. Yadda yadda yadda. BUT THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH. So the fuck what Barney liked Robin's independence? They already figured out that they can't be together. So the only dude in the world (who--by the way ( ... )
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That Dr. Who plot sounds SO OBNOXIOUS!
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Hahaha! Don't worry--you're not alone. 99 times out of 100 I choose napping over social change.
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like she got smacked in the face with a cold misogynist fish
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JIZZ ALL OVER HER FACE FOR FOUR SEASONS STRAIGHT
*cringes* You speak TRUTH, but your VIVID IMAGERY... WHY, POCO, WHY? *tosses remainder of pastrami sandwich*
But that doesn’t change the fact that the more awesome a lady is on AtS, the more likely she is to die of that foulest of black magics, pregnancy (her own or someone else’s), and given that all the ladies are awesome, they’re also ALL DEAD by the end. SERIOUSLY, THOUGH?
Lol. I had fun explaining this to someone who didn't watch the show: "Wait, that's just an exaggeration right?" "No, LITERALLY all the female main characters die. Every. Single. One."
The gay tokenism and the awfulness of the patterns thereof in BSG are also their own post, but really, we could just change character names and move around a few words and have the basic idea.
Token minorities too.
It’s telling us, this is all we can hope for. That even beyond the stars, a world without misogyny is not just ( ... )
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UGH. And they all die to serve the men's narratives.
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I had fun explaining this to someone who didn't watch the show: "Wait, that's just an exaggeration right?" "No, LITERALLY all the female main characters die. Every. Single. One."
QFT.
I think it's more of a downer that BSG is what trying looks like, to be honest. I mean, they obviously weren't trying ALL THAT HARD, but still.
Edit: I completely hit post too soon, but yes, there are SO MANY issues with race on BSG. I think that's another Stealth Bullshit thing, where we got to hear all about how ethnicity was all about what planet someone was born on, but then the characters played by actors of color with what, two exceptions? were totally fucked anyway. Even in-universe, the silencing of Dee and the fact that the only other person from her maligned planet was THE WORST, that's a huge problem.
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And though that thought is terribly painful, it very much matters. It matters, because we matter, and we deserve this thing that we cannot even conceive.
Oh damn. Just damn. The way you ended this was brilliant in that way where I feel sick.
[eta] Also WTF 30 Rock! That Pete-rape thing has totally ruined his character for me. I just... I never really liked him all that much anyways and I always got a bit of a creeper vibe (ick ick gross gross) and now it's just like WTF NO GET AWAY. The #2 example is the worst to me. It was like they were smacking us in the face with it.
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♥
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You're very right about BSG. I'm not entirely unconvinced Jane doesn't get the problem here, though Moore is almost certainly unaware of it; Deadlock is a mess but is very much in Ellen's headspace and I can very much see the whole thing as being subversive in a way I don't think other episodes are. Joss Whedon (obviously, yes, a flawed flawed flawedy man) has described the show as the most subversive thing I've ever seen, which makes me wonder if he reads it as puncturing the ostensibly egalitarian society deliberately? Well, who knows. (At least he has strongly implied he dislikes the finale. THANK YOU.) I mean, there are men who get mistreated on BSG, too, but the only one who gets fridged, if you don't count Zak who was in a fridge before the show started, is arguably Anders; compare for Ellen, Cally, Dualla, TORY UGH. Zarek possibly could be said to die for Gaeta's story? And you're absolutely right about the inappropriateness of the coed shower under the circumstances many of these women live ( ... )
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I totally didn't see it but I love that idea, TEL ME MORE, because Ellen makes my heart sing. Or at least she did, until she got a second chance at life just so she could kiss Saul's boo-boos over having killed her.
Joss Whedon (obviously, yes, a flawed flawed flawedy man) has described the show as the most subversive thing I've ever seen, which makes me wonder if he reads it as puncturing the ostensibly egalitarian society deliberately?
....has to be. Because really, Dollhouse is the most subversive show I've ever seen, I think, but it wasn't subtle about it in the least. It yells THE DOLLHOUSE IS REAL, FUCKING LOOK AT IT, and puts one of those Clockwork Orange things on your eyes and makes you deal, and I'll always think that was fascinating and brave ( ... )
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yeah. I think I was less impressed with that than everyone on screen was because OH MY GOD, SHE WAS A PRISONER HE COULD HAVE HAD TORTURED, consent in that situation is presumptively suspect; her being a second-generation robot was hardly a blip on the radar. Which is another flawless but horrifying microcosm of the show's complete lack of understanding of what it was dealing with. (Especially given that she was a Six. Not Gina but still, WHAT?) Turning that into SAUL DO YOU LOVE ME played totally straight is basically validating the symptoms of Stockholm syndrome as perfectly reasonable romantic interest. Which actually works much better through Ellen's POV, because she worked so hard to minimize the Cavil situation which was just about exactly the same thing, but there's never textual acknowledgment of that.
there is basically no other effort in season four to acknowledge that Six is responsible for genocide and that this is a bad thing, so.oh, this. ( ... )
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However, she didn't leave politics for Danny. Real life senior staffers become burnt out
But for her to be the one to burn out, while, say, Josh - Josh with his fucking PTSD - that's a conscious choice. And she did make a big deal in the last few episodes going on about Danny specifically. And for her to walk out of the White House pretending the last eight years hadn't happened - that exchange with the tourist about how it must be something to work there - that's problematic in context of her being the one to be done with politics. It's not just about CJ, even though it is about CJ, it's about the whole pattern, which is troublesome.
Danny better adjust. I don't see CJ retiring so she's on call to go on inane, unannounced walks to find hot dogs vendors.
snerk.
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