The Legitimacy of "Love Interests" In Plot

[saeva]

Over here ataniell93 talks about love interests, canon, and female characters. The post has spoilers for potential plot developments in Supernatural, to warn anyone who might want to click, but you really don't need to read the post to understand what I'm objecting to. About one third in ataniell93 says this and this about says it all: "New female character? Awesome.

Comments

[lasultrix]

wrt Half-Blood Prince, I'm guessing you're talking about the H/G Chestmonster Wank That Ate Fandom, but it's the Remus/Tonks thing that actually struck me first when you mentioned OotP. Everybody complained that Tonks hadn't had a chance to develop a character of her own in OotP before she was shunted into nothing but a love interest in HBP. I see where they're coming from to a certain extent, but after all, Remus didn't do much in HBP except be the object of Tonks' affection.

The prejudice against love interests in general is, I think, overactive feminism rather than internalised misogyny. People don't trust a show's writers to give a new female character a fleshed-out personality. If the writers have been told "OK, she's a love interest" viewers fear the writers won't bother with anything else. Including why she's attractive and well-suited enough to be that love interest.

It does extend to not giving new female characters a chance, though.

[saeva]

To be honest, I think that the second you start positioning a character dynamic as the new female character must be worthy of the pre-existing male character you've hit internalized misogyny on the head. You don't see that -- and I'd love for you to give an example of seeing it -- with new male characters being introduced with established female characters.

It isn't feminist, it isn't wanting the female characters to be well-written -- either the show you like is well-written or it's not, and that's going to be across the board regardless of the gender of the characters. People don't trust writers to write female characters they'll like and that's all about having higher standards for female characters than for male characters. It's all about proving the female characters's worths.

And if anyone tries to sell me that as a feminist position, let alone an overreactive feminist position, I think I can legitimately reserve the right to giggle to myself.

- Andrea.

[ravenclaw_devi]

You don't see that -- and I'd love for you to give an example of seeing it -- with new male characters being introduced with established female characters.

I was going to say, "But wasn't there lots of debate about whether Angel or Spike deserves to be with Buffy?" and then I remembered how much of the debate was in terms of whether Buffy was worthy of being with Spike. In other words, what you said.

Well, maybe in the SG-1 fandom, there's the sentiment of, "Pete doesn't deserve Sam, she should be with Jack!" (I'm a S/J shipper myself, but that's beside the point), but otherwise, most if not all shipping debates in whatever fandom are about which woman is "the real love of [male character]," aren't they? It's usually not what makes him worthy of either of the potential love interests that's the subject of debate, and yes, that does make you think, from a feminist perspective.

[agnes_bean]

You don't see that -- and I'd love for you to give an example of seeing it -- with new male characters being introduced with established female characters.

Ooo! It totally happened om Gilmreo Girls with both Jess and Logan...a lot of people thought they weren't good enough for Rory! And most people thought Chris wasn't good enough for Lorelai, too. (Still I think your point is a good one in general. I was just proad of myself for having and example).

[kattahj]

either the show you like is well-written or it's not, and that's going to be across the board regardless of the gender of the characters.

This is actually the first thing you've said in this post where I vehemently disagree with you. Yes, a show that has poorly developed female characters will often have other problems as well, but there are strengths and weaknesses to every writer. Someone can have great dialogue skills but poor plotting skills, for instance. And, unfortunately, someone can write pretty good men, yet shunt the women off to the sidelines. I don't think I'm setting a higher standard for women if I'm not too happy about, for instance, "The Stand" from a gender perspective.

About everything else, though, I'm pretty much going "word".

[saeva]

"...but there are strengths and weaknesses to every writer. Someone can have great dialogue skills but poor plotting skills, for instance. And, unfortunately, someone can write pretty good men, yet shunt the women off to the sidelines."And if a television show had A writer, I'd be completely going along with that. Every writer has strengths and weaknesses. However, television shows don't have one writer. They don't even have one executive producer typically. And the chances that, say, eight writers, four producers, three executives, and whatever actor input is contributed all consistently suck at specifically women, and on particularly women, with no issues towards bad writing of men or trouble with characterisation in general regardless of gender is

[kattahj]

You've got a point there with the inclusion of more writers complicating the issue. (There are TV shows with "a" writer - Press Gang comes to mind - but of course they're rare.) Still, shows have some sort of overarching idea, and sometimes that idea can prove problematic for women

[saeva]

Heroes is a perfect example of a show which has problems across the board, some intentional and some not. First, it's based off the comic book genre intentionally and as such relies on stereotypes far more than even the average sci-fi piece. But secondly, it has huge, textual issues

[kattahj]

At best Heroes is an example where white men are written better than anything else -- but that's hardly the same comparison to what I'm talking about here, in this post, about love interests and the way people judge women -- in general.

My mistake, then. I thought you were arguing that a show cannot write one type of characters better than another type of character. Which it seems you're not. Because, I fully agree with your assessment that Heroes has lots of other problems as well, but my point was that the problems don't hit equally. And since you seem well aware of that... uh... I don't even know why I'm still talking.

And yeah, if someone claims that a show is all hugs and puppies and fabulous in every way except the portrayal of women, I'd probably find that shady too.

[saeva]

"And yeah, if someone claims that a show is all hugs and puppies and fabulous in every way except the portrayal of women, I'd probably find that shady too."

Welcome to the current discussion in the Supernatural fandom. That's exactly the problem. That's the same thing we saw with Jo and now again. That's how people are talking now and how I've seen them talk about Stargate: Atlantis at points or Stargate: SG-1 at points. It's why I'm so vehement on this subject because I have seen that and not just from a crazy, vocal, small corner of fandom. It'd be nice if it were just a tiny, loud but ignorable portion.

- Andrea.

[kattahj]

In all honestly, I think for a show with only male main characters, SPN has dealt better with female characters than it has with a lot of other issues. Even if the introduction of Jo was a bit cringe-worthy.

[kattahj]

Women today are often still seen as lesser than men but it's not socially acceptable to broadcast it across the world and, so, no.

Adding to my previous comment - it is "socially acceptable" to the point of being unnoticeable to broadcast across the world something like Batman Begins. A brilliant film in so many ways, which has lots of heavy names of male actors, and one woman of importance, played by an actress with much lighter background than the men in the film. Unlike a majority of the men, she ends up needing rescuing. Also, there's the case of the hero's mother, who is killed at the same time as his father, but while the father is mentioned over and over again as motivation for Bruce's actions, the mother never is.

"Lesser"? I guess that depends on the definition of the word. In my opinion? Hell yeah.

[saeva]

I'm sorry, I'm a little ... stare-y here. I'm very, honestly confused as to why you would use Batman Begins as an example towards anything about modern thought and approach, or modern acceptability. Using comics in general tends to be iffy but Batman (or Spiderman, or Superman) in particular is strange. Batman Begins, which I wasn't fond of as a movie but did what it was intended to do, is the telling of a story that first appeared in May 1939. The background mythology, which this movie merely retells, was established in the 1940s essentially.

To look at a more modern example of a telling of a comic book, you might look at Sin City which -- while it certainly had its moments -- had a serious message about the treatment of women and the autonomy of women. But to use Batman, to use a mythology established in the 1940s, in a movie marketed to people who grew up with these stories in the 80s and further back who are looking into the original mythology. Well, I don't understand that.

- Andrea.

[kattahj]

I used Batman Begins because it's brilliant, and because the film itself is new. That the concept is old I don't see as that important, since the same is true of a lot of stories turned into film, and adaptations do bring in their own storylines. Rachel is, as far as I can tell, not in the comics in the first place, so there's no particular reason to make her a damsel-in-distress. Nor is there any particular reason to include only male characters from the ones who were in the comics, or to pretend that the death of a mother is completely insignificant compared to the death of a father. For that matter, one could ask why "male" stories are repeatedly turned into high-concept films in a way "female" stories are not

[saeva]

With Batman, it isn't just that the concept is old but that the entire mythology, down to who dies and who's a mentor and who's an ally, was established a long time ago. Bruce Wayne traditionally focused more on his father's death than his mother's. You see the same thing popping up in Smallville, which at least attempts to address it the longer the show goes on (though not always terribly well

[kattahj]

With Batman, it isn't just that the concept is old but that the entire mythology, down to who dies and who's a mentor and who's an ally, was established a long time ago.

That's not quite true, though - there's more than one Batman canon even in comics, and the previous Batman films have made several changes. As has this one; like I said, Rachel wasn't even in the comics. The origin story, the ally of villains, etc. is not 60 years old, but specifically chosen for this adaptation