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Alright, so, I had to write a paper for my English Composition 102 class about an ideology shared by a community that I am part of that I would like to see change. I chose the Criminal Minds fandom as my community, and the way that female characters are viewed as my topic. I sent out a request for people on livejournal and tumblr to let me know ( Read more... )
hfc I love you for this. This isn't just a problem in CM fandom, either--it's a problem in all fandom. And it's hard to really enjoy fandom if I or someone else has to keep explaining feminism 101 to people who don't understaaaaaand why describing a female character (no matter how unsympathetic she is) as a bitch or slut is bad.
I will say the writing of CM is definitely flawed when it comes to its female characters. It tries, but it never seems to hit the mark. Despite being onto some really good things, like the way they play with gender roles and archetypes and whatnot, the women always come in second to the men when it comes to screentime, narrative weight, and plots. Or should I say the white guys, since of all the dudes on the show except maybe Rossi, Morgan has gotten the least attention, and he's been there from the beginning while Rossi only showed up in S3.But that is another can of worms I don't even want to open, so I'll just say that your observations of the fandom reception of the women is pretty dead-on.
Given how male-dominated popular media is, I expect this--I don't like it, but I expect it. But part of the problem, I think, is also the fact that fandom never challenges it but instead, enforces it. Basically, the fandom hierarchy of worthy characters is as follows:
tough men with swords/guns and/or pretty woobies > other men >>>>>>>>>> women with swords/guns but only if they're also feminine > other women > women with swords/guns who are not feminine enough > other women who are not feminine enough
And I don't get it, b/c as a woman, I want to see strong women on my TV screen doing badass things and being generally awesome. Maybe b/c so much of fandom is young, female, and straight they just want to stare at hot guys, but I have K-Pop for that. Now, I enjoy attractive people as much as the next person, and I won't deny that the ladies on CM are very nice to look at, but in TV fandom, my main consideration is the narrative. I want good storytelling and strong characters, and if some of those strong characters are women, even better.
I recently completed my Master's thesis on women in Arthurian legend, and this essay brings to mind a quote from an article on the 2004 film King Arthur: "Supposedly, we want strong, female characters, but we don’t want them to be too powerful. We want women to be equal to men, but not to the degree that norms of heterosexuality and male/female marriage are obliterated." Truer words were never spoken.
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