on gender fail, in general. And tv renewals.

[prozacpark]

So, apparently, Dollhouse has been renewed. I...shouldn't be depressed by this news because I can always just, you know, not watch. But...sigh. It's hard to put in words, but this, along with the new wave of Gender Fail on "Supernatural" is depressing me. Who wants to bet "Supernatural" is totally getting renewed, too

Comments

[abrakadabrah]

They didn't have to make Ruby turn out to be evil.

Yeah, they did.

In the SPN verse, there is no category like Season 5-6 Spike, let alone Season 7 Spike and Angel. Things aren't ambiguous - like Clem. Demons are always going to be evil. Hell, half the angels we've seen are evil sons of bitches on SPN. So I don't think it would have been a twist, it would have been outside the rules of their verse. When you don't know what it is on SPN, it's evil. It's a horror genre, so things end badly. Just like we saw on Jump the Shark. You knew Adam was going to turn out to be evil, the only question was how.

The same rule applies to Lilith - and, really, after what Lilith did to Sam and Dean last year, how could she be anything but evil? Now it's true that they didn't have to off all of them at once, or have them be allies - I actually thought Ruby was working directly for Lucifer, rather than for Lilith, and that's how she got that knife - but if Ruby had remained next year - after her cover was blown - what would have been her role?

Now the one place I've been disappointed a bit in SPN is the follow up role for Anna, 3 seconds here and there and that is it - but that's me. I loved Anna and I thought she was great for Dean because she gave Dean what no one else ever had when he needed it most - solace and complete understanding.

But I think they gave her so little follow up in part because a lot of the fans were very vocal about not liking her at all. I, actually, found that fan reaction a complete turnoff. Like any female who touches Dean must be reviled. I'm hoping she shows up again next year since we got so little resolution for her, but I'm not counting on it.

People were also upset that Pamela was killed off because she was a great female character - yeah, that bothered me, but it also bothered me that Alastair was killed off so quickly, because he was maybe my favorite minor character of the entire show. So I don't think it is just a thing that happens to female characters - I think it happens to characters all the time on SPN. That's why it's so hard to be Sam and Dean - because people around them are always being killed off (though of course they don't mind when it is demons.)

Plus, I think a lot of people wanted Ruby to be good, because they weren't seeing the story straight on, so they could find a way to justify Sam's behavior.

(Or Lilith, for that matter. Wouldn't it have been a bigger twist ending to have Lilith be good? And Sam kills her anyway by mistake? Of course that would have undermined their apparent running theme this year of "Bitches that had it coming get what they deserve".)

But they are not bitches - they are demons - just like Azazel had it coming for 25 years and, one imagines, Lucifer will have it coming in Season 5. And Alastair, my favorite, for a few paltry months - plus 40 years in Hell. It's your choice to see them as bitches, instead of demons. Like all the other demons who happen to be male. Why should the female demons get special treatment?

But even if one accepts that as a storytelling choice for dramatic purposes (which I can, I don't have to like it but I can see it as valid to some extent) the staging of the actual killing shot was very disturbing. The visual picture of Sam holding Ruby while Dean twisted the knife, like a proxy for sex, and the way the camera lingered on it while the light was flashing - it was very sexualized. Let me ask this - why couldn't Ruby have been fighting back? Why did they decide to stage it this way?

Well, the whole Sam/Ruby relationship in the last few months was a proxy for sex, as well as a proxy for brotherhood - Ruby taking over Dean's role when Dean wasn't around - and also a proxy for motherhood - Ruby being the source of the fluids Sam was sucking from her body by way of demon nourishment and strength, something he was dependent on for these things, as he let himself be convinced. In the last episode, when he threw her on the bed and got on top of her - just like they were having sex - and then started sucking on her arm, both of their body language was entirely sexualized.