Women, fiction, and authorial intent. And Battlestar Galactica.

[prozacpark]

Between the end of "Battlestar Galactica" and the recent Classica discussions, I’ve been finding myself discussing and thinking about authorial intent…in terms of romantic arcs, entertainment value, etc. I mentioned before how I had issues with Ron’s reading of Kara in the finale, but then Karen analyzed the thing for me in a way that worked, and I

Comments

[lyssie]

by having her pregnancy arc given to us almost completely from Tigh’s POV.

Fixed that for you. Caprica's baby was never about her.

eta: Sigh, I’m glad it was cut. And I wish I could find it again on youtube to see if my original interpretation of the scene holds.

This scene is in one of the making of video things.

[prozacpark]

Caprica's baby was never about her.

Oh, the arc was never about her, but I do think we got her POV briefly in that one episode? It was still in the context of a lot of other problematic stuff, of course. Or maybe you're right. Sometimes, I get really confused between all the loving of the female characters as to what I'm projecting and what's intended.

And that helps. But it also means that now I have to go through the crap on DVDs to find it.

[lyssie]

We got her reaction in... one of them, yeah. Where she was happy. But only because Tigh was there so they could be Cute together. Or whatever. But on her own? Never saw a "btw, you're pregnant" scene, or even a "one day, I want children" scene. hell, I'm still not entirely certain we ever saw any motivation for her sleeping with TIGH.

[prozacpark]

We didn't. Ever. We know Tigh slept with her because of some weird Ellen substitute sexing, but what exactly drew Caprica to Tigh? Or Boomer to Cavil? As much as I think that a lot of character arcs just sucked in season 4, I do think that women's arcs sucked mainly because the writers never bothered to give us any motivation for much of their actions and relied on us being able to project whatever on to them the way they were. And as much as I loved Caprica's ending, it didn't redeem all of the crap they put her through before that. And between Caprica, Athena, and Boomer, I really can't decide who got screwed over the most.

And, um, I totally got the "One day, I want children!" vibe from her when she killed that baby in the miniseries? Didn't you?! ;)

[missrogue]

I think the biggest problem BSG had was that they had so many characters, female or male, that when they tried to focus a little on any one, it seemed to take over (or shadow out) another character. Even what I call "background characters" ended up getting into main story arcs. While it was nice, because it expanded our knowledge of the world they lived in, it almost allowed the plot lines to be messy. Unless it was the main "find earth" plot, or "kill the cylons" plot, both of which became almost unnecessary after they found Earth (the first one), and it sucked, and they stopped fighting the cylons (well, some of them anyways).

[prozacpark]

See, I would be a lot more likely to buy this excuse if I hadn't been watching "Big Love" this season, too. Where they have just as many, if not more, characters, and everyone got treated well and all the women have clear, specific arcs that made sense. I think it can be done, but BSG chose to focus on plot arcs. And these plot arcs often included women being given random things to do without ever explaining their motivations to serve the plot. I think men got this treatment too, but for not to a degree where we were having to speculate on their motivations. Gaeta got a whole miniseries explaining his mutiny arc, and Boomer got one scene before she decided to forgive Ellen in a fake-out, and then two before she betrayed them, etc.

I do agree that they had too much to tackle, and every character suffered. I just think women got screwed over in specific ways, though.

[blighted_star]

There was the bit with Tess on “Roswell,” where the Tess fans outright rejected “Departure” because to accept it would mean that we agreed that Tess was evil all along.

Departure? But Roswell ended with Off the Menu.

I enjoy the fact that you like female characters who are supposed to be hated. I'm trying to like the "bitch" characters more even though I know in the end liking them will do me no good. They're just more fun.

[prozacpark]

Heh. I do love that you consider "Off the Menu" also canon. Most of my Rebel fans put that with "Departure" and don't consider it a part of canon. But! That episode gave us the lovely "I remember you" scene. *ships* I just insert it in continuity, exclude the annoying Maria prologue, and pretend that "Baby, it's you" is the last episode.

I don't intend to like characters others hate, but my response to fandom's totally unneeded hatred of female characters is often to end up liking those characters. Besides that, I'm generally drawn to morally ambiguous characters with bitchy tendencies who are preferably also a little insane.

[blighted_star]

What annoys me about OTM is that Max was a total fucker in it. Really! He was a dick to Tess. But the "I remember you" is too great to totally write off that episode.

I always like characters that have no chance of succeeding. I just end up feeling bad for them. And insanity is always interesting to watch.

Do you watch Damages, btw?

[prozacpark]

Max was also a bit of an asshole, though. I never could get past his willingly to sacrifice his sister, his bestfriend, his entire planet and possibly Earth, too, just so he could be with Liz. Meh. He might have been a great ruler in his past life, but in this one, he is kind of a stupid teenager with an incredibly narrow world view.

And no, I don't watch "Damages." What is it, and should I be watching it?

[ariadnequinn]

Wow...this was really interesting. I have every intention of writing an intelligent, articulate response to some of what you said...but not tonight. Perhaps not even tomorrow night. This week is totally sucking the life out of me, and it's only Tuesday...regardless, I just wanted to say that I think you made some excellent points, and I look forward to discussing this further.

But, for now, it's time for bed...

[prozacpark]

I look forward to seeing your thoughts when you get around to posting them. And! Good luck with what's left of this week. :)

[ariadnequinn]

Thanks...sorry for the delay. Between grades being due, preparing the students for a test (the first of the new marking period), and play practice, things have been insane...

The first thing I'd like to address is author intent (in general). It always bothered me when a teacher/professor told me that my interpretation of literature was wrong. "That's not what Shakespeare meant." Oh, really? Do you know Shakespeare? Have you had tea and crumpets with him and discussed "Hamlet"? No? Then, as long as I can back my position up...who the hell do you think you are? My interpretation is just as valid as anyone else's...and just because you're older/wiser/taken classes on this topic, it doesn't mean that you know everything about the text

[prozacpark]

Luckily, once I started college, I only had one professor who felt the need to point out that Milton didn't mean what I was reading into the text. Most of the professors I had let me run with whatever as long as I could support it. But yes: all readings should be equally valid given the text supports it. The thing is? Writers don't write in a vacuum, and because they're part of a culture and subscribe to mainstream and otherwise ideas, things creep into their fiction that they might not have intended. And I tend to believe that most of the problematic views of women we see in fiction result from exactly this: the writers not paying attention to exactly what's creeping into their words

My constructive post of the day!

[distractedone]

Well, when I was really little, I approached female characters as the way there were: mundane, annoying, and, worst of all, helpless.

There was no fanwanking, no fanfiction, and no imagination. To me, it was the way it was.

Thank you, Walt Disney and religion, for giving such negative connotations of women that it made me hate who I am/was..oi tense, help. (And I've really been meaning to write a post about my ultimate hatred for Disney.)

I hated female characters in most media because they were everything I was not, and I could not relate to them at all. I always ended up relating to the male characters because - now that I think about it - they were actually treated like normal human beings and were more fleshed out. (Oh, and they usually didn't end up dead every time

Re: My constructive post of the day!

[distractedone]

Wow...I reached the comment count. Here's the other part:

But since learning about Frank Miller’s general issues, I’ve been less fond of it. Which bugs me.

Oh god, I feel bad for you. Luckily, I was able to learn about Miller's assholery through http://girl-wonder.org. I hate Frank Miller. That guy is such a god damn sexist pig, and he's disgusting.

His females character usually end up raped or dead. And, this one time, there was this script he wrote of Allstar Batman and Robin, which was posted on girl-wonder: http://girl-wonder.org/girlsreadcomics/?p=13

Why should I have to change my opinion on things I like or don’t mind just because I’m now taking into consideration the authorial intent?See, for me, if I love a character and find out the author meant for a negative connotation of the character - that's it! I dislike the character and less and less and begin to hate on the writer. That's just me,

Re: My constructive post of the day!

[prozacpark]

I hate Frank Miller, too. In theory. The truth is that I've avoided him since finding out about him, but! I do need to read "All-star Batman and Robin." FOR THE GODDAMN BATMAN, if nothing else. We shall read and mock together?!

See, for me, if I love a character and find out the author meant for a negative connotation of the character - that's it! I dislike the character and less and less and begin to hate on the writer. That's just me, though. Whereas I'm more likely to reject the author's reading and continue to love my Emma Frost. Of course, you can only take so much of the crappy writing before Emma *becomes* a crappy character, but that's why I'm avoiding comics right now and avoided them before when they were doing this to Kitty. When I was reading Joss' run, I was, as the WORLD KNOWS since I posted about it only every day, I was very worried for Emma, but I knew that if Joss turned her evil, I was going to drop the comics. I also stopped reading the actual comics until he was done with the run so to not let him affect

Re: My constructive post of the day!

[distractedone]

PS...

Why should I let someone with a stupid Madonna/Whore complex get in the way of my Emma love? It would feel a bit like letting him win. Like he did with Cordelia and successfully did turn me into someone who couldn't stand Cordelia towards the end. And that still makes me so angry.

What exactly is a Madonna/Whore complex? I MUST KNOW!

Also, I think comic canon is completely different from actual literature (yes, I just sliced comic books from literature, but I didn't mean to). So, a writer's intentions in literature are much different than a writer's intentions in comics, because comic interpretation is always changing because of the never-ending cycle of writers.