Leave a comment

relique February 10 2009, 17:30:17 UTC
I hated A Doll's House. In high school, I had a long argument in which I thought the ending was almost bordering on fantasy, rather than the realism everyone else perceived it as. Might have had something to do with having recently escaped an abusive relationship at that point ( ... )

Reply

sylvanstargazer February 10 2009, 21:37:14 UTC
Thanks for the response!

Ah, none of the men were shown in the clips I saw. I saw one female doctor who was going to give Echo a massage and otherwise all the people in the know were men and all those that weren't were women. The dynamic may change my impression (Dark Angel, despite all the other ways it was bad, had relatively equal-opportunity objectification for example).

What was great about Deadwood is that it was a naturalistic story with this believable character who was also subversive. Because it's a frontier town where a bunch of other norms (like, oh, laws) aren't enforced, though, I suppose its more believable that gendered norms are also flexible in the specific ways they portray as accepted by the people around her.

Reply

relique February 10 2009, 22:56:42 UTC
I totally think that the ways in which the female active are treated compared to how the male actives are treated (and the reactions/responsibilities of the other characters to the dynamic) may make or break the show ( ... )

Reply

tahnan February 10 2009, 22:04:44 UTC
Doctor Horrible was a story about one guy. He met some people, but he didn't really understand them, and as it was through his perspective, we didn't get the full story. That makes it a story about one (flawed) human, not an attack on women. It may be a good story or a bad story, we may or may not like it, but he should be able to tell a story that's not centered around feminism or the lack thereof.No, no, no, the thing is this. Of course not every story Joss writes has to be a masterpiece of feminism. And of course not every story can be everything it should be (where were the people of color in Dr. Horrible?(*) Ah well ( ... )

Reply

relique February 10 2009, 22:48:17 UTC
Both of the guys in Dr. Horrible view her as... not exactly part of the equation. And because she's not involved, their stupidity kills her. I don't believe we see enough of the character to know enough about her at all. I guess I just don't see how the story would be fundamentally different if they were fighting over a cute boy, other than you wouldn't be able to call it anti-feminist ( ... )

Reply

tahnan February 10 2009, 23:00:38 UTC
I guess I just don't see how the story would be fundamentally different if they were fighting over a cute boy...

...except they aren't. Joss needed a prop for them to fight over and ultimately destroy, and rather than using a bag of money or a stone idol, he used a girl-who sings better than a stone idol, but has as much depth. (Well, and if it were a boy rather than a girl, that would (a) at least be a variation on the tired theme and (b) avoid having the only woman in the story be defined by her relationship to the men. Ah, right, other than the groupies...also defined by their relationship to the men ( ... )

Reply

relique February 10 2009, 23:38:04 UTC
I've never thought about the lack of diversity in Buffy before, and now that it's been pointed out, I do find it troublesome. I find it less troublesome, however, having seen Firefly.

The actors I've mentioned make up two or three (depending on if we're counting Morena) of the eight main (human) characters. There are a few other characters associated with the tv series and movie of color (including my fav, Chiwetel Ejiofor), but it is odd that there aren't as many Asians throughout. I wonder if it was planned as a later plot point, since I have this itching that there were Asians in the occasional sea of extras. Time to break out the DVDs.

Reply


Leave a comment

Up