Thoughts: Is What I See What You See, Too?
So, I may be in the Merlin fandom, but that doesn't mean I'm in love with the show. In Torchwood, I was; I loved it, I believed in it, I breathed it and thought the planet was better for it existing. Merlin, not so much.
Here's how I see Merlin. A cheap, badly produced, badly directed, badly written, badly lit piece of television that the actors will look back on and say about, "Yeah, well, it paid the bills and got me my name in lights," when asked why they did it. Merlin is one of those shows that has we're here to make money off you because you're gullible written all over it.
Don't get me wrong, in case you hadn't figured it out from my writing, I love Arthur and Merlin. I love Uther. I could love Morgana. But this show... yeah, not so much the whole of it.
Here's the thing, though, and the lead in to the real question of this evening. When do I see ghosts where there are none?
Yeah, that didn't make any sense, did it?
Okay, here it is. I watched an episode of Merlin this evening, one I hadn't seen yet. And before we even started, I asked my sister (whose dvd box it is) if this was one of those 'heterosexist' eps. She rolled her eyes at me and said, "well, a little," and added, "take a deep breath. Don't go yell at the screen now, yeah?"
She thinks I'm overreacting when I say that Merlin is some of the most sexist crap I'll allow myself to watch. Basically, for me, Merlin places characters squarely within the gender dichotomy, whereby male is manly, heroic, and powerful, and female is feminine, soft, and powerless. And yes, Merlin (the character) isn't classicly male, and you know what? That's why Arthur keeps calling him a girl. Morgana wants to swordfight? Sure, but don't let that get in the way of how pretty she looks, so while Merlin gets chainmail, she gets... silver reflective fabric. Also, let's not actually give her the power to make decisions over her life. No, let's keep things that are about her, like her magic a secret from her herself.
Yeah, so I have issues with this show.
Point is, are these issues of my own making? If I see sexism, where's the objective standard that that is or isn't sexism? What's the definition? What makes me right or wrong?
I read a lot of feminist blogs, and betimes, I think they're a little over the top. Except, you know, I used to think that calling racefail 'wank' was not a bad thing, until someone explained to me why it was, and now I realise that I was wrong and they are right. The last thing I want to do is deny my own fallibility.
Except my sister can't convince me to just watch Merlin without seeing a heterosexist agenda in every corner of the screen. (I yelled, at the kiss between Arthur and Gwen in ep 2.02, that the director was clearly male since the shot was the most disadvantaged to Bradley James I'd ever seen a camera angle. She looked at me though I'd suggested we adopt devil spawn.)
And at which point, really, do I start seeing things?
Because, let's face it, this is a sexist world. I live it, I work in it, I get patronised to so often it's frightening. When am I paranoid? Is Merlin enough to be paranoid over? Because plenty of respectable women on my flist seem to like it without these reservations.
I miss the days of Torchwood, when these weren't questions I had to ask because it was fairly evenly balanced. The men got more screentime, sure, but the women who were there weren't stereotypical (when concerning gender, at least) and everyone was appropriately openminded.
And no one called anyone a girl.
There are days when I don't know what I'm doing in Merlin fandom, because I'll read a fic where a character, who's never met the character he's speaking about or knows her at all, in a modern AU, says about a female character, "She's going to quit her job. Because she's getting married." And I blinked at the screen at that one and went, "What? How did we wind up at that conclusion?"
And there are days when I do know it; because the fandom can be gorgeous and there's this fic I'm writing that's all about masculinity in Merlin, and what that does to the characters, and I'm doing exactly what fanfic is all about: reinvent the narrative to include the other side of things; the woman's view, if you must.
I don't know. Maybe I'm trying too hard; I want to make sure my slash isn't about 'the gay' and has enough women in them, but I won't tell women's stories. I'm burnt out, too, on the politics of my country, where a second election race is taking place in the wake of a first, and really, the wrong, wrong people are going to win and I can't stop it. Complacency is a dangerous thing, and it does feel from time to time like we are complacent, about sexism. It seems so prevalent to me on tv; is it?
Here's how I see Merlin. A cheap, badly produced, badly directed, badly written, badly lit piece of television that the actors will look back on and say about, "Yeah, well, it paid the bills and got me my name in lights," when asked why they did it. Merlin is one of those shows that has we're here to make money off you because you're gullible written all over it.
Don't get me wrong, in case you hadn't figured it out from my writing, I love Arthur and Merlin. I love Uther. I could love Morgana. But this show... yeah, not so much the whole of it.
Here's the thing, though, and the lead in to the real question of this evening. When do I see ghosts where there are none?
Yeah, that didn't make any sense, did it?
Okay, here it is. I watched an episode of Merlin this evening, one I hadn't seen yet. And before we even started, I asked my sister (whose dvd box it is) if this was one of those 'heterosexist' eps. She rolled her eyes at me and said, "well, a little," and added, "take a deep breath. Don't go yell at the screen now, yeah?"
She thinks I'm overreacting when I say that Merlin is some of the most sexist crap I'll allow myself to watch. Basically, for me, Merlin places characters squarely within the gender dichotomy, whereby male is manly, heroic, and powerful, and female is feminine, soft, and powerless. And yes, Merlin (the character) isn't classicly male, and you know what? That's why Arthur keeps calling him a girl. Morgana wants to swordfight? Sure, but don't let that get in the way of how pretty she looks, so while Merlin gets chainmail, she gets... silver reflective fabric. Also, let's not actually give her the power to make decisions over her life. No, let's keep things that are about her, like her magic a secret from her herself.
Yeah, so I have issues with this show.
Point is, are these issues of my own making? If I see sexism, where's the objective standard that that is or isn't sexism? What's the definition? What makes me right or wrong?
I read a lot of feminist blogs, and betimes, I think they're a little over the top. Except, you know, I used to think that calling racefail 'wank' was not a bad thing, until someone explained to me why it was, and now I realise that I was wrong and they are right. The last thing I want to do is deny my own fallibility.
Except my sister can't convince me to just watch Merlin without seeing a heterosexist agenda in every corner of the screen. (I yelled, at the kiss between Arthur and Gwen in ep 2.02, that the director was clearly male since the shot was the most disadvantaged to Bradley James I'd ever seen a camera angle. She looked at me though I'd suggested we adopt devil spawn.)
And at which point, really, do I start seeing things?
Because, let's face it, this is a sexist world. I live it, I work in it, I get patronised to so often it's frightening. When am I paranoid? Is Merlin enough to be paranoid over? Because plenty of respectable women on my flist seem to like it without these reservations.
I miss the days of Torchwood, when these weren't questions I had to ask because it was fairly evenly balanced. The men got more screentime, sure, but the women who were there weren't stereotypical (when concerning gender, at least) and everyone was appropriately openminded.
And no one called anyone a girl.
There are days when I don't know what I'm doing in Merlin fandom, because I'll read a fic where a character, who's never met the character he's speaking about or knows her at all, in a modern AU, says about a female character, "She's going to quit her job. Because she's getting married." And I blinked at the screen at that one and went, "What? How did we wind up at that conclusion?"
And there are days when I do know it; because the fandom can be gorgeous and there's this fic I'm writing that's all about masculinity in Merlin, and what that does to the characters, and I'm doing exactly what fanfic is all about: reinvent the narrative to include the other side of things; the woman's view, if you must.
I don't know. Maybe I'm trying too hard; I want to make sure my slash isn't about 'the gay' and has enough women in them, but I won't tell women's stories. I'm burnt out, too, on the politics of my country, where a second election race is taking place in the wake of a first, and really, the wrong, wrong people are going to win and I can't stop it. Complacency is a dangerous thing, and it does feel from time to time like we are complacent, about sexism. It seems so prevalent to me on tv; is it?