You and me are done professionally.
I have the clear-headedness of Bikram yoga and the courage of a large margarita and it is time to say this shit out loud. Um, if you want something less profane, I suggest you read this, you'll have an idea of what I mean without any of the cussing and a lot more of the sense-making.
Here's the thing. In real life, grown-up land, pretty much everything I do is motivated by a sense of social justice, especially for women. I volunteer at Planned Parenthood. I write letters about shit like this. I bitch out members of Congress. I refuse to vote for any candidate that does not support my right to choose abortion, because my right to abortion is my right to my own body. That's just facts. That is how I roll. And maybe it's because I'm no longer willing to take shit from anyone at this stage in my life. But I've been pissed since I watched last night's episode. I'm pissed. And it's over. And maybe it's been over for a while.
Seriously, that link up there is actually relevant. Because: are you a woman on an episode of Supernatural? were you good? were you once good and have been turned evil? and now you're dead, too? Then it's your fault for showing up in a Supernatural episode. If you'd just thought ahead and visited some OTHER show, you wouldn't have to die. Sucks for YOU.
The beginning of 5.13: Dean watches a private strip show, a devil and then an angel. Moral opposites, no grey area, objectified and sexualized for his pleasure. And I realized that this is not Dean's wet dream--or at least not JUST his. It is the writers'. This is how women are to them: sexualized objects that are either good or bad and just as disposable as any fiction in Dean's head. They come, they go, sometimes they die bloody, and it's all the same. And while the gender issues have always been squicky, it took this year to kill it for me. Anna's just the death that broke the camel's back. THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME. Because all the strong women are AWOL or dead.
Mary Winchester: Dead.
Missouri: AWOL
Bela: Dead.
Ruby: Dead.
Pamela Barnes: Dead, killed to save Winchesters
Jo Harvelle: Dead, killed to allow Winchesters time to completely an ultimately worthless mission.
Ellen Harvelle: Dead, ditto.
Anna: killed because she turned evil because it was convenient for the writers.
Meg: at large. I expect she'll be killed by the season finale. By a man.
If you are a woman on this show, you can expect to die. If you're a white dude, you might just be recurring character quality. And the point of this last episode was: MARY IS DESTINED TO DIE BECAUSE A DUDE SAID SO. That was my take-away, which is very subjective, but...I think it's a fair reading of the episode.
Other things that have pushed me over the edge: cougar jokes, jokes about people in psychiatric hospitals, replacing fangirls with fanboys, seriously there's ONE FEMALE ANGEL and she has to fuck Dean AND go bad so she can be killed? SERIOUSLY?
I've tried really hard to stay good with Show. I have closed my eyes and plugged my ears and pretended this was just popcorn TV, so it was okay. But you know what? Even my popcorn TV doesn't treat women this badly. Leverage has now FOUR strong female characters (including Maggie), one of whom is Parker. And Burn Notice! That's popcorn TV. And Fiona, while occasionally called upon to be a damsel in distress, is the first in line to kick ass. And In Plain Sight. I don't even LIKE Jinx or Brandi, but at least they're full-fledged characters with plot points and something to say. Mary, of course, kicks ass. Gossip Girl for fuck's sake! Women taking destiny in their own hands! Sex positive sex! Ramifications of being Queen (B)ee!
And serious TV. Sons of Anarchy has a SHIT TON of gender issues inherent in the show. But the writers are AWARE of these things. They write scripts that SPEAK to these issues. When women die, they don't die for no reason. You don't see a woman getting stripped down to her musculature and then everybody shrugs and goes 'well, I sure wish she'd stayed good.' NO. When Donna dies, LIVES FALL APART. Ditto for True Blood, just watch the credits. This show says stuff about gender that makes me uncomfortable but they are AWARE of what they are saying. And despite the fact that the books are all about Sookie, the HBO writers have fleshed out all of the books' minor characters and given us Tara and Maxine and Arlene and Ginger and Amy and Pam and Daphne. And if Seasons 3 and 4 have any relevance to the books, Sookie will get to spend her time kicking ass instead of being a target. West Wing squicked me a few times, most notably Aaron Sorkin's trying to talk back to fans with the "make a good dog break his leash" bit. But I was able to work around that because, hey, women in power writing policy and making the world a better place.
And you can say yeah, yeah, but these are different shows with different premises. So what, our writers don't have to care care what the subtext or real take-away is. Supernatural is the Sam and Dean show, so they can kill as many women as they want to and it's fine. DON'T PISS ON MY LEG AND TELL ME IT'S RAINING.
I just...I can't pretend like the women stuff is okay because every now and then Jensen Ackles winks at me. Which is nice. But that don't cut the mustard anymore. 'Cause I don't really like the brothers all that much anymore. [Aside: speaking of things that must not be spoken of by real true fangirlz. Jensen Ackles is putting on weight. Yep. I said it out loud, because he's on TV.]
I'm going to finish Teufelshunde, of course. Because I want to and because now it's my mission to prove that the Winchester boys could handle the apocalypse without becoming total dicks. And that a writer can write an apocalypse where NOT EVERY WOMAN HAS to DIE.
So...yeah. I'm certainly not ditching the fandom. Y'all are eight kinds of awesome and I love you all dearly. But I can't keep watching the show and expecting Seasons 1 and 2 and getting...dead women on a plate and a wink from Jensen Ackles, courtesy of the same writers who kill off women like it's going out of style.
Here's the thing. In real life, grown-up land, pretty much everything I do is motivated by a sense of social justice, especially for women. I volunteer at Planned Parenthood. I write letters about shit like this. I bitch out members of Congress. I refuse to vote for any candidate that does not support my right to choose abortion, because my right to abortion is my right to my own body. That's just facts. That is how I roll. And maybe it's because I'm no longer willing to take shit from anyone at this stage in my life. But I've been pissed since I watched last night's episode. I'm pissed. And it's over. And maybe it's been over for a while.
Seriously, that link up there is actually relevant. Because: are you a woman on an episode of Supernatural? were you good? were you once good and have been turned evil? and now you're dead, too? Then it's your fault for showing up in a Supernatural episode. If you'd just thought ahead and visited some OTHER show, you wouldn't have to die. Sucks for YOU.
The beginning of 5.13: Dean watches a private strip show, a devil and then an angel. Moral opposites, no grey area, objectified and sexualized for his pleasure. And I realized that this is not Dean's wet dream--or at least not JUST his. It is the writers'. This is how women are to them: sexualized objects that are either good or bad and just as disposable as any fiction in Dean's head. They come, they go, sometimes they die bloody, and it's all the same. And while the gender issues have always been squicky, it took this year to kill it for me. Anna's just the death that broke the camel's back. THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME. Because all the strong women are AWOL or dead.
Mary Winchester: Dead.
Missouri: AWOL
Bela: Dead.
Ruby: Dead.
Pamela Barnes: Dead, killed to save Winchesters
Jo Harvelle: Dead, killed to allow Winchesters time to completely an ultimately worthless mission.
Ellen Harvelle: Dead, ditto.
Anna: killed because she turned evil because it was convenient for the writers.
Meg: at large. I expect she'll be killed by the season finale. By a man.
If you are a woman on this show, you can expect to die. If you're a white dude, you might just be recurring character quality. And the point of this last episode was: MARY IS DESTINED TO DIE BECAUSE A DUDE SAID SO. That was my take-away, which is very subjective, but...I think it's a fair reading of the episode.
Other things that have pushed me over the edge: cougar jokes, jokes about people in psychiatric hospitals, replacing fangirls with fanboys, seriously there's ONE FEMALE ANGEL and she has to fuck Dean AND go bad so she can be killed? SERIOUSLY?
I've tried really hard to stay good with Show. I have closed my eyes and plugged my ears and pretended this was just popcorn TV, so it was okay. But you know what? Even my popcorn TV doesn't treat women this badly. Leverage has now FOUR strong female characters (including Maggie), one of whom is Parker. And Burn Notice! That's popcorn TV. And Fiona, while occasionally called upon to be a damsel in distress, is the first in line to kick ass. And In Plain Sight. I don't even LIKE Jinx or Brandi, but at least they're full-fledged characters with plot points and something to say. Mary, of course, kicks ass. Gossip Girl for fuck's sake! Women taking destiny in their own hands! Sex positive sex! Ramifications of being Queen (B)ee!
And serious TV. Sons of Anarchy has a SHIT TON of gender issues inherent in the show. But the writers are AWARE of these things. They write scripts that SPEAK to these issues. When women die, they don't die for no reason. You don't see a woman getting stripped down to her musculature and then everybody shrugs and goes 'well, I sure wish she'd stayed good.' NO. When Donna dies, LIVES FALL APART. Ditto for True Blood, just watch the credits. This show says stuff about gender that makes me uncomfortable but they are AWARE of what they are saying. And despite the fact that the books are all about Sookie, the HBO writers have fleshed out all of the books' minor characters and given us Tara and Maxine and Arlene and Ginger and Amy and Pam and Daphne. And if Seasons 3 and 4 have any relevance to the books, Sookie will get to spend her time kicking ass instead of being a target. West Wing squicked me a few times, most notably Aaron Sorkin's trying to talk back to fans with the "make a good dog break his leash" bit. But I was able to work around that because, hey, women in power writing policy and making the world a better place.
And you can say yeah, yeah, but these are different shows with different premises. So what, our writers don't have to care care what the subtext or real take-away is. Supernatural is the Sam and Dean show, so they can kill as many women as they want to and it's fine. DON'T PISS ON MY LEG AND TELL ME IT'S RAINING.
I just...I can't pretend like the women stuff is okay because every now and then Jensen Ackles winks at me. Which is nice. But that don't cut the mustard anymore. 'Cause I don't really like the brothers all that much anymore. [Aside: speaking of things that must not be spoken of by real true fangirlz. Jensen Ackles is putting on weight. Yep. I said it out loud, because he's on TV.]
I'm going to finish Teufelshunde, of course. Because I want to and because now it's my mission to prove that the Winchester boys could handle the apocalypse without becoming total dicks. And that a writer can write an apocalypse where NOT EVERY WOMAN HAS to DIE.
So...yeah. I'm certainly not ditching the fandom. Y'all are eight kinds of awesome and I love you all dearly. But I can't keep watching the show and expecting Seasons 1 and 2 and getting...dead women on a plate and a wink from Jensen Ackles, courtesy of the same writers who kill off women like it's going out of style.