ginger beer does not seem to have much of a shelf life
Re: The Unicorn and the Wasp...
According to redscarlach, this is the first episode they filmed with Catherine Tate, and it really shows - not just the snappy dialogue typical to Doctor Who, but a lot of good physical comedy. I quite liked it, really, and LOL'd at the ginger beer commentI did have one bone of contention, though: the death of Roger, which ( Read more... )
According to redscarlach, this is the first episode they filmed with Catherine Tate, and it really shows - not just the snappy dialogue typical to Doctor Who, but a lot of good physical comedy. I quite liked it, really, and LOL'd at the ginger beer commentI did have one bone of contention, though: the death of Roger, which ( Read more... )
When it approaches and views same-sex relationships, society already brings to the table negative characteristics that aren't endemic to its approach toward heterosexual relationships. For one thing, there's a historical trend in representation through the present of the Tragic Homosexual (Relationship) that is different from, and negative in comparison to, the concept of the tragic heterosexual relationship. Therefore, if (for example) a TV show depicts a member of a same-sex relationship who betrays her lover, threatens her lover's life, commits murder, and/or then dies, it has a different overall effect than a member of a heterosexual relationship who does exactly the same thing. One who doesn't understand that fact about the representation of non-privileged groups, doesn't recognize oppression or the effects of privilege. I find hth_the_first's post on "colorblind" casting to be a good explanation of the general phenomenon's effects, ableist metaphor notwithstanding. Bolded parts for emphasis:
My grandfather was red/green colorblind. His family also had a strawberry farm. His father used to beat him for not obeying instructions to pick only the RED strawberries and leave the GREEN ones on the bush.
Now, I'm not recommending regular beatings for the colorblind. That wasn't a nice thing to do (my great-grandfather was not a nice person in general, for oh so many reasons). But the thing is, my grandfather's colorblindness? Was a problem, because there is actually such a thing as color when it comes to strawberries, and it's easier to work on a strawberry farm when you can see it.
And there is actually such a thing as race. If you can't see it, you're not doing yourself or anyone else any favors. There are cases where you can give the EXACT SAME script/character arc/iconography/etc. to a white performer and to a performer of color, and the overall effect WILL BE DIFFERENT. Race is real. People respond to it, often on levels they aren't entirely aware of. So it actually misses the whole entire point of discussing race and racism if your sole defense is "but we're just treating them the exact same way we treat white characters!" It may be true, or it may not be true, but either way it's singularly useless.
Some fans seem to find gender easier to understand than race, so think of it this way: if there's a character that isn't very bright but always uses sexuality to manipulate other people, does it make a difference if that character is a man or a woman? Isn't it more of a stereotype in one case than in the other? And if some writer or producer said, "Oh, it's not sexist -- this is just what we were going to do, and we thought we might hire a male actor, but we went with a woman instead, so we kept the same stuff!" that doesn't magically make her not a sexist cliche, does it? If they'd cast a man, the character would read one way; when they do cast a woman, it reads differently. Same character. Different, because of the baggage we bring surrounding gender. If you were somehow magically oblivious to any and all gender issues, you might not notice that. But you wouldn't thereby be a better person than the rest of us. You'd just be oblivious. [...]
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Make the appropriate substitutions with respect to sexual orientation instead of race, and there you have it. The visibility of same-sex relationships on TW is a start; now both TW and the New Whoverse in general need more that aren't characterized by doom or psychosis.
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I think that with the famed Torchwood Lesbians, the thought behind that was further alienation between Jack and Torchwood. Like, these are the two creatures on the planet that Jack (supposedly) can't charm himself out of captivity with, but since we all know that all heterosexual women are completely gullible to this (never mind that they could just say, no), they therefore have to be Man-Hating Lesbian Minxes whose relationship seems not to exist for their own benefit, but for the sole purpose of taunting Jack. Which is, how you say - Also Not Cool?
The color-realizant thing is completely true, I hasten to say. However, in the strawberry-picking world of television and media, I think that it's not only hard to be non-discriminatory but not colorblind, it's often dangerous. In my experience at least, it's often the most offensive people that yell "racist!" first. QED, people sort of give up and do the easier thing, which is to say not much at all.
...Yes? I do not feel I was being coherent here, but whatev's.
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There were photos of Jack with men, too; people were speculating as to whether they were former Torchwood employees, or Jack's former partners, or both.
they therefore have to be Man-Hating Lesbian Minxes whose relationship seems not to exist for their own benefit, but for the sole purpose of taunting Jack.
So visible lesbianism (take the man-hating as read) is something that exists for male titillation and male sexual frustration. I gotta thank RTD for reinforcing the societal default that women's bodies are public domain, and that their desires should coincide with what men want for them. But only the men whom other men have elected are good guys, of course. Lesbianism is opposed to the forces of freedom and right and good, because it's inherently fascist to be uninterested in making yourself / your body available to Jack and his magic penis. The logical continuum between lesbianism and repeatedly torturing and killing innocent people (including that petty-criminal blowfish) in the name of the British Empire is crystal clear now!
in the strawberry-picking world of television and media, I think that it's not only hard to be non-discriminatory but not colorblind, it's often dangerous.
As lenadances commented in a different post, what's more dangerous is driving along with a blind spot and not doing something about it-by, say, getting other opinions from different people (who may have blind spots, but in different places). Together, get a better picture of what's going on out there and successfully navigate around most of those mailboxes, bumps, potholes, giant fissures filled with lava, and-oh yeah-fellow vehicles on the road.
Yes, what's more dangerous is the default, complacency. If a person were driving with that problem, not realizing or admitting it, she would continue to have wrecks and close calls until she grasped the issue and adjusted her actions to account for it (for example, having another passenger in the car with a better view check before changing lanes). If she were driving with that problem and refused to change her actions, her insurance would shoot up and eventually her license would be pulled, because she would be operating within the context of a community where a member's actions really can and do hurt other people, and where as part of civil society she's expected to have learned important things about how to interact with and treat others before getting behind the wheel.
Maybe it feels less risky, easier, less uncomfortable to go with the (heterosexist, sexist, racist) flow. Maybe it's less painful for someone to shield himself from scrutiny before he promotes and releases a product, and to deny his blind spot and dismiss the concerns of others after it's out. It's my experience that some of the worst offenses occur when the people who are hurt aren't even allowed to be angry or offended, when a dominant group suppresses the pain of others.
I've been meaning to post about oppression and intersectionality with respect to a group of articles that address these issues and others with particular eloquence, but until then, some excerpts from here:
I have heard people say of Professor Trask, “She would be much more effective if she weren’t so angry,” as though they expect a Native Hawaiian feminist to work in coalition without anger. There is a politics of anger: who is allowed to get angry, whose anger goes unseen, and who seems angry when they are not.
Once, when I intended to compliment an African-American woman on a powerful speech she had made, I said: “I admire your ability to express anger.” She looked at me coolly and replied, “I was not angry. If I were angry I would not be speaking here.” Another African-American friend of mine jumped into the conversation. “I’m disappointed in you,” she said. “This is what always happens to us when a Black woman speaks her mind. Someone calls us angry.”
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Would Professor Trask be more effective if she were less angry? ... On the simple, communicative level, failure to express the pain created by this legacy obscures the depth of one’s feeling and discounts the subordination experienced by one’s community. More significantly, the use of polite, rational tones when one is feeling violation is a betrayal of the self. [...]
I could shelter myself from conflict by leaving the conversation, but I have come to believe that the comfort we feel when we avoid hard conversations is a dangerous comfort, one that seduces us into ignorance about the experiences of others and about the full meaning of our own lives. [...]
We learn that while all forms of oppression are not the same, certain predictable patterns emerge:
* All forms of oppression involve taking a trait, X, which often carries with it a cultural meaning, and using X to make some group the “other” and to reduce their entitlements and power.
* All forms of oppression benefit someone, and sometimes both sides of a relationship of domination will have some stake in its maintenance.
* All forms of oppression have both material and ideological dimensions. The articles on health, socioeconomics, and violence i this symposium show how subordination leaves scars on the body. The damage is real. It is material. These articles also speak of ideology. Language, including the language of science, law, rights, necessity, free markets, neutrality, and objectivity can make subordination seem natural and inevitable, justifying material deprivation.
* All forms of oppression implicate a psychology of subordination that involves elements of sexual fear, need to control, hatred of self, and hatred of others.
As we look at these patterns of oppression, we may come to learn, finally and most importantly, that all forms of subordination are interlocking and mutually reinforcing. [...]
The way I try to understand the interconnection of all forms of subordination is through a method I call “ask the other question.” When I see something that looks racist, I ask, “Where is the patriarchy in this?” When I see something that looks sexist, I ask, “Where is the heterosexism in this?” When I see something that looks homophobic, I ask, “Where are the class interests in this?” Working in coalition forces us to look for both the obvious and non-obvious relationships of domination, helping us to realize that no form of subordination ever stands alone. [...]
The women of color movement has demanded that the civil rights struggle encompass more than anti-racism. There are several reasons for this demand. First, and most obviously, in unity there is strength. No subordinated group is strong enough to fight the power alone, thus coalitions are formed out of necessity.
Second, some of us have overlapping identities. Separating out and ranking oppression denies and excludes these identities and ignores the valid concerns of many in our constituency. To say that the anti-racist struggle precedes all other struggles denigrates the existence of the multiply oppressed: women of color, gays and lesbians of color, poor people of color, most people of color experience subordination on more than one dimension.
Finally, perhaps the most progressive reason for moving beyond race alone is that racism is best understood and fought with knowledge gained from the broader anti-subordination struggle. [I]t is simply not possible to struggle against racism alone and ever hope to end racism. [...]
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It is no accident that women of color, grounded as they are in both feminist and anti-racist struggle, are doing the most exciting theoretical work on race-gender intersections. It is no accident that gay and lesbian scholars are advancing social construction theory and the analysis of sexuality in subordination. In raising this I do not mean that we cannot speak of subordination second-hand. Rather, I wish to encourage us to do this, and to suggest that we can do this most intelligently in coalition, listening with special care to those who are actively involved in knowing and ending the systems of domination that touch their lives.
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The Doctor: Do you want to die?
Jack: This one's a little stuck.
The Doctor: Jack.
Jack: I thought I did. I don't know. But this lot-you see them out here surviving. And that's fantastic!
The Doctor: You might be out there somewhere.
Jack: I could go meet myself.
The Doctor: Well. The only man you're ever going to be happy with.
Jack: This new regeneration, it's kinda cheeky!
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...He really kind of has a point.
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...I feel pretty bad for Jack, with his relationship with the Doc. He's caught up in the classic Stockholm-Companion Syndrome; I mean, it's a pretty bad relationship they have going there, mostly for Jack - but he can't seem to kick it. Which makes me wonder if we're going to see him again this season. Despite his Big Goodbye at the end of last, I rather think we will.
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I feel pretty bad for Jack, with his relationship with the Doc. He's caught up in the classic Stockholm-Companion Syndrome; I mean, it's a pretty bad relationship they have going there, mostly for Jack - but he can't seem to kick it.
Stockholm-Companion syndrome is right; I feel bad for Jack, too.
Which makes me wonder if we're going to see him again this season. Despite his Big Goodbye at the end of last, I rather think we will.
What with the rumors of a big Companion reunion that were going around at the beginning of the season, I wouldn't bet against it.
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I laughed when I saw "love-struck minions." Oh, too true. I enjoy the image of Whack-A-Mole with Ten. Like a gopher in a video game!
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