girl, you'll be a woman soon

[hkath]

I swear this started out as a legit contribution to the greater discussion going on in fandom at the moment about female characters (and that legit contribution is still on the way) but this one subject got quite specific and quite long-winded, so I'm going to give it a post of its own.

Comments

[redstapler]

::applause::

May I link this on my LJ and on Metafandom? It's pretty great.

[hkath]

Sure! Bring on the debate! I'm ready for it (I think)!

[emiliglia]

It's some weird learned behaviour, just like how we learn as kids to ask for the girl toy or the boy toy with our Happy Meals (this is the thing that makes me angriest in the WORLD, btw)I always asked for the boy toy - LOL. Fuck Barbie, I want a Hot Wheels

[hkath]

I liked both the cars and the Barbies, but I would always hold out for those cheaper non-name brand toys they always had in the back that were like flying tops. Just add a rubber band and you're good to go

[zekejojo]

This is ignoring the fact that Sam and Dean (and Bobby) DO talk like this, so it's totally in character for them. In fact, it would be more out of character for them NOT to make a remark like that. These characters spend all their time protecting people and killing things while also relying only on each other and in close quarters, so their language of distancing themselves from too much emotional expression says a lot about their character.

[hkath]

I do agree, especially for SPN which is such a manly men being men show, that they would use this kind of terminology and also much worse. They swear a ton in fic, and in the Ghostfacers episode, so obviously the "true" uncensored version of the boys that isn't cleaned up for TV is way less PC than the version we see every week.

I know this gets into a subjective area, but when a piece of dialogue feels true to the character, it rarely bothers me. The times when it pings my attention are when it actually feels (to me) like an artificial, knee-jerk author reaction to "correct" a male character's behaviour by having it pointed out in some way that he's acting like a girl.

I am probably reading *way* too much into what I read every day.

[fosfomifira]

Yes, yes, yes. Couldn't agree more

[hkath]

Gah, exactly! I stayed within a pretty narrow non-grahpic schmoopy example here, but all of those other things bother me, too. I see that all the time when reading sex scenes and it feels like reading coded messages about my own failings :(

The 'bitch' thing interesting. I can't tell if it's meant in a "you're acting like a woman" way or in a "gay people on TV talk like this" way. You know, the stereotypical gay dude calling his friends "she"?

[ficangel]

My God, the "this is SO MUCH BETTER than sex with a woman and COULD NEVER COMPARE" trope makes me want to kick things. It's not like most human beings bond to one human being forever and ever and all previous relationships/experiences have no value whatsoever.

[destina]

I agree, in part. I find the whole 'you're such a girl' thing troublesome IRL, and it irritates me when characters on TV do it. Especially because it's not always a keyword for schmoopy romantic; generally it equates feminizing with weakness in some way. It's poor writing; it often says something about the perspective of the writers of the show, overlaid onto the characters. However, and this is the key, to me: if a character has, in canon, done it, and a fanfic writer chooses to have the character say some version of it - I'm not going to be annoyed at the writer for writing the characters in character. I might continue to be annoyed at the original source for promoting what I find irritating, but I'm not going to shift that to the writer for essentially nailing what's already in the canon

[hkath]

Oh, totally. If it's in character, then there's obviously nothing insidious going on, apart from maybe "Dean is a clueless yet adorable jerk." I know what Dean's like, and I like him anyway, so that doesn't bug me. I remember the wank over the gay line. It sort of fizzled out before it got going, which I thought was too bad, but my take was pretty much along the same lines as yours - Dean would say that. Doesn't make it right or wrong, it just makes it Dean.

You're right in saying that it goes way beyond fanfic and into canon material. It just shows you how much time I spend here versus out in the real world, that I didn't even think about that when I wrote this. I think it just gets done so over-the-top in fic sometimes, it's hard to miss. Not just in my very narrow example, but in all kinds of situations, like fosfomifira pointed out. I often get halfway through a fic and then start feeling like I'm reading code instead of a story. So weird.

[mijmeraar]

I don't know off the top of my head, but I'd say I'm pretty notorious for this. That being said I write chracters who I identify as being the kind that would rather hit you in the face than explore what they're feeling. You have to get through a few 'you're such a girl's before you can get to the, 'okay, cut the shit, I love you'. Which I know you understand.

Curious, how often do we see the term being used as an OBVIOUS tool for men to be stupid, and how often is it purely them pigeon holing genders? I mean, I agree with everything you have said, but I guess I've never really read anything and seen it as a tender issue, you know?

I might just be blind to it like a lot of people are.

[hkath]

I do understand, and I always find your characters to be really authentic, so I'm glad my ranting hasn't made you worry too much about that. You're definitely in the "conscious of the choices we make while writing" camp.

I see it all the time, but it could just be that I read a ton of fic, and a lot of it by strangers. I don't even realize that I do it, I just sort of do, and then later I see recs lists and newsletters and realize how much of them I've already seen.