oh come on!
I'm eventually going to have to remake that vid, aren't I? MY GOOD GOD.
very spoilery pictures for SGA 5x15.
. . . also, someone commented on that John-on-his-knees vid of mine just the other day, and I responded with the whole set of statistics that goes with John-on-his knees. She said,
"You mentioned somewhere else that there are 14 episodes where he is forced to his knees... Seriously? 14 times?? o.O"
and I said:
At the time I was making the vid, right after season four had ended, there were thirteen episodes where John was forced to his knees: Thirty-Eight Minutes, Hot Zone, The Long Goodbye, Condemned, The Lost Boys, The Hive (he's forced to his knees twice in the two-parter), Progeny, Common Ground, Submersion, Lifeline, Doppelganger, Travelers, and Spoils of War. There was so much footage of it, in fact, that I didn't end up using the shots of him on his knees in Condemned, Common Ground, or The Long Goodbye, though I did use other footage from those episodes. I also didn't use, for example, shots of him being manhandled while unconscious, as when Ronon grabs him by the hair in Tabula Rasa, or when the wraith is holding him down in The Siege.
Since season five has started, he's already been on his knees twice - in Broken Ties and The Seed - bringing the total up to fifteen. Think about it this way: there have been 87 episodes of SGA, and 15 episodes with John on his knees; that means that John Sheppard is on his knees over 17% of the time, on this show. WTF. And this isn't even counting the times he gets held down (as in Rising) or the other times he gets tortured, tied up, etc.
. . . so now that total will be up to at least sixteen by 5x15.
And I mean, I love it and all, but one really does have to wonder what the show makers are thinking. On the one hand, I could do without the evil-sexual female villains (the Wraith, Larrin) and I could do without the suggestion that homosexual sex is the same as sexual violence (don't tell me that the replicators forcing John to kneel and take it in the face isn't explicitly homosexual violence) but at the same time . . . well. At the same time, I'm not sure what to make of a show where the hero (white male american flyboy hero, for all that he's a big weirdo to us) is the object of sexual violence. It's certainly more interesting than shows where women fill that role (hi, Supernatural!).
I just really wonder, because it's obvious, with John's comments to the Wraith queens in Spoils of War and Broken Ties, that the show writers think of it as a running gag of sorts - certainly they've noticed, and are writing for it intentionally, now. So . . . what's the intention behind this tendency to shove John to his knees, tie him up, make him take it in the face (which the Wraith queens also do, of course, with telepathy), to make him beaten and bloody and at the mercy of the bad guys, both male and female (and robot and vampire)? What do they think they're doing? Is it just that they like torturing Joe Flanigan? Is it that they only understand violence in sexual terms, even if unconsciously?
I know what kind of interpretation I do of these scenes - the show, in its effect, evinces an erotics of pain and power that is deeply disturbing because it seems to indicate that all physicality is rooted in violence: just as the wraith bodies and wraith ships are icky and fleshy and disgusting (they represent the gross awful body, as opposed to the Ancients' beautiful pure ascended minds), so any kind of on-screen sexuality is laced with power and violence. We have never, on SGA, seen a representation of physical sex that wasn't about power/domination/violence (but mindsex, as in John/Chaya, is okay). If the show is already convinced that bodies = bad and minds = good (c.f. Rodney eats too much, the replicators want to ascend), then I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that sex = violence and domination.
Or, to put it another way: yup, this show is just really really fucked up about bodies and sex.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll take an image of John on his knees any day, because within my particular fanon context of John, it's crazily hot. Also really really funny, because . . . oh John Sheppard. But sometimes I gotta wonder, you guys.
Thoughts?
very spoilery pictures for SGA 5x15.
. . . also, someone commented on that John-on-his-knees vid of mine just the other day, and I responded with the whole set of statistics that goes with John-on-his knees. She said,
"You mentioned somewhere else that there are 14 episodes where he is forced to his knees... Seriously? 14 times?? o.O"
and I said:
At the time I was making the vid, right after season four had ended, there were thirteen episodes where John was forced to his knees: Thirty-Eight Minutes, Hot Zone, The Long Goodbye, Condemned, The Lost Boys, The Hive (he's forced to his knees twice in the two-parter), Progeny, Common Ground, Submersion, Lifeline, Doppelganger, Travelers, and Spoils of War. There was so much footage of it, in fact, that I didn't end up using the shots of him on his knees in Condemned, Common Ground, or The Long Goodbye, though I did use other footage from those episodes. I also didn't use, for example, shots of him being manhandled while unconscious, as when Ronon grabs him by the hair in Tabula Rasa, or when the wraith is holding him down in The Siege.
Since season five has started, he's already been on his knees twice - in Broken Ties and The Seed - bringing the total up to fifteen. Think about it this way: there have been 87 episodes of SGA, and 15 episodes with John on his knees; that means that John Sheppard is on his knees over 17% of the time, on this show. WTF. And this isn't even counting the times he gets held down (as in Rising) or the other times he gets tortured, tied up, etc.
. . . so now that total will be up to at least sixteen by 5x15.
And I mean, I love it and all, but one really does have to wonder what the show makers are thinking. On the one hand, I could do without the evil-sexual female villains (the Wraith, Larrin) and I could do without the suggestion that homosexual sex is the same as sexual violence (don't tell me that the replicators forcing John to kneel and take it in the face isn't explicitly homosexual violence) but at the same time . . . well. At the same time, I'm not sure what to make of a show where the hero (white male american flyboy hero, for all that he's a big weirdo to us) is the object of sexual violence. It's certainly more interesting than shows where women fill that role (hi, Supernatural!).
I just really wonder, because it's obvious, with John's comments to the Wraith queens in Spoils of War and Broken Ties, that the show writers think of it as a running gag of sorts - certainly they've noticed, and are writing for it intentionally, now. So . . . what's the intention behind this tendency to shove John to his knees, tie him up, make him take it in the face (which the Wraith queens also do, of course, with telepathy), to make him beaten and bloody and at the mercy of the bad guys, both male and female (and robot and vampire)? What do they think they're doing? Is it just that they like torturing Joe Flanigan? Is it that they only understand violence in sexual terms, even if unconsciously?
I know what kind of interpretation I do of these scenes - the show, in its effect, evinces an erotics of pain and power that is deeply disturbing because it seems to indicate that all physicality is rooted in violence: just as the wraith bodies and wraith ships are icky and fleshy and disgusting (they represent the gross awful body, as opposed to the Ancients' beautiful pure ascended minds), so any kind of on-screen sexuality is laced with power and violence. We have never, on SGA, seen a representation of physical sex that wasn't about power/domination/violence (but mindsex, as in John/Chaya, is okay). If the show is already convinced that bodies = bad and minds = good (c.f. Rodney eats too much, the replicators want to ascend), then I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that sex = violence and domination.
Or, to put it another way: yup, this show is just really really fucked up about bodies and sex.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I'll take an image of John on his knees any day, because within my particular fanon context of John, it's crazily hot. Also really really funny, because . . . oh John Sheppard. But sometimes I gotta wonder, you guys.
Thoughts?