Basically it's either going to be The Handmaiden's Tale or it's going to be The Chronicles of Gor, and I'm not sure his best intentions are enough to move it into the former catagory (or that I'll want to watch it if it is; like Animal Farm, The Handmaiden's Tale wasn't something I'm dying to reread).
I think I was more optimistic before reading the interview, though. It comes off like the reactionary anti-political-correctness crowd, saying, essentially, "I want to tell this story. Why shouldn't I be able to?" It didn't sound like he was talking about the issues involved. His primary defense was the "I have female friends" defense, where because he talked to one woman's group somewhere (who apparently had reservations) it absolved him of responsibility. And then he comes out with: "Nobody says, if somebody puts a gun in her hand and she shoots someone, isn't that just as bad for a person as a sexual act that is not in any way physically harmful? Some people would argue it's not the same question, but for me, I think it is part of the same question."
The idea that essentially the equivalent of drugged date-rape is "not at all physically harmful" is pretty diminishing of the systematic violence in a culture where a woman too drunk to object is considered to consented. There was a disturbing article a while ago (which freaked me out) on a major news site that was this conservative talking about how women should stop using "I'm not in the mood" as an excuse not to have sex with their husbands, since having sex with their husband was a duty, obligation and the only way the marriage would ever work. Joss is trying to excuse the show by taking it out of the cultural context in which it is being played and I don't know that that is possible. I think the quote "[...]how much power we want to have over each other" is telling. What he is neatly glossing over is the reality that some people have that power right now.
Second, he completely ignores the viewer in his commentary. My problem is less with the story being told (I think it *would* make an excellent book) and much more with the participatory, vouristic invitation to a passive viewer to do the same thing to these women and men that he is (potentially) condemning this sci-fi organization for doing.
And then there is the nonsensical: "I'm not saying that nonconsensual sex is ever OK. This is, after all, a science fiction show." Yup, and in GTA you're beating up imaginary prostitutes. Art doesn't get a free pass just because it's not actual non-consensual acts on screen. Progressive science fiction uses its setting to talk about topics that would otherwise be censored or impossible (Star Trek, Left Hand of Darkness). Regressive science fiction uses its setting to promote beliefs otherwise rejected by society (Left Behind). Using science fiction as an excuse to ignore cultural context of what you want to talk about doesn't automatically put this show into the second, but it certainly doesn't automatically classify it as the first.
Fundamentally, I suppose, I don't think you need to go to a sci-fi setting in order to show a woman with no power take it back. You don't even have to go particularly out of your way to take the power away from her. How the show plays to me is going to have a lot to do with how aware of that it appears.
I think I was more optimistic before reading the interview, though. It comes off like the reactionary anti-political-correctness crowd, saying, essentially, "I want to tell this story. Why shouldn't I be able to?" It didn't sound like he was talking about the issues involved. His primary defense was the "I have female friends" defense, where because he talked to one woman's group somewhere (who apparently had reservations) it absolved him of responsibility. And then he comes out with:
"Nobody says, if somebody puts a gun in her hand and she shoots someone, isn't that just as bad for a person as a sexual act that is not in any way physically harmful? Some people would argue it's not the same question, but for me, I think it is part of the same question."
The idea that essentially the equivalent of drugged date-rape is "not at all physically harmful" is pretty diminishing of the systematic violence in a culture where a woman too drunk to object is considered to consented. There was a disturbing article a while ago (which freaked me out) on a major news site that was this conservative talking about how women should stop using "I'm not in the mood" as an excuse not to have sex with their husbands, since having sex with their husband was a duty, obligation and the only way the marriage would ever work. Joss is trying to excuse the show by taking it out of the cultural context in which it is being played and I don't know that that is possible. I think the quote "[...]how much power we want to have over each other" is telling. What he is neatly glossing over is the reality that some people have that power right now.
Second, he completely ignores the viewer in his commentary. My problem is less with the story being told (I think it *would* make an excellent book) and much more with the participatory, vouristic invitation to a passive viewer to do the same thing to these women and men that he is (potentially) condemning this sci-fi organization for doing.
And then there is the nonsensical: "I'm not saying that nonconsensual sex is ever OK. This is, after all, a science fiction show." Yup, and in GTA you're beating up imaginary prostitutes. Art doesn't get a free pass just because it's not actual non-consensual acts on screen. Progressive science fiction uses its setting to talk about topics that would otherwise be censored or impossible (Star Trek, Left Hand of Darkness). Regressive science fiction uses its setting to promote beliefs otherwise rejected by society (Left Behind). Using science fiction as an excuse to ignore cultural context of what you want to talk about doesn't automatically put this show into the second, but it certainly doesn't automatically classify it as the first.
Fundamentally, I suppose, I don't think you need to go to a sci-fi setting in order to show a woman with no power take it back. You don't even have to go particularly out of your way to take the power away from her. How the show plays to me is going to have a lot to do with how aware of that it appears.
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