Comments | prozacpark: on gender fail, in general. And tv renewals.

prozacpark

on gender fail, in general. And tv renewals.

May 15, 2009 22:16

So, apparently, Dollhouse has been renewed. I...shouldn't be depressed by this news because I can always just, you know, not watch. But...sigh. It's hard to put in words, but this, along with the new wave of Gender Fail on "Supernatural" is depressing me. Who wants to bet "Supernatural" is totally getting renewed, too ( Read more... )

women in fiction, supernatural, gender fail, dollhouse, gender issues

Comments 52

lyssie May 16 2009, 03:23:45 UTC

I'm keeping my fingers crossed about NCIS and its spinoff (that they'll keep that fine line and not slide further over into "women are just objects" thing so many shows tend to have). I'm very hopeful in that the spinoff is headed by a woman, and one of her subordinates is a woman. If NCIS manages not to kill Ziva (or pair her with Tony), I might even have more hope.

At least In Plain Sight is still giving us Mary, Brandi, Eleanor and Jinx?

I'm not speaking to Criminal Intent, though, so Eames and Wheeler may be down for the count (and Rodgers, while awesome, never had much to do anyway).

AND LEVERAGE WILL BE BACK. And if they love me fully, Maggie will also hang around.

Network TV, otoh, I got nothin'.

prozacpark May 16 2009, 03:52:24 UTC

I'm not watching any of those, but need to be, obviously. So few shows seem to stay consistently good these days that I've mostly been sticking with DVDs lately. Really, this season was kind of a first for me in watching so many things as they were airing, and look how BSG turned out. And "Dollhouse" always failed, anyway. And I went in *expecting* the fail, but it failed even more.

But...you should tell me if those shows get renewed because I can totally use some faith in humanity. ;)

Also, "Leverage." I liked the girl in your icon (Parker?), and was possibly going to watch more for her.

lyssie May 16 2009, 04:08:44 UTC

I sort of liked your original comment. ;]

Anyway, NCIS is less problematic if you ignore the producers. But it still has issues.

In Plain Sight is all about broken people, they just happen to be women.

AND PARKER IS MADE OF WIN. And Sophie is also awesome personified.

prozacpark May 16 2009, 22:22:22 UTC

My original comment failed at English, but there was possibly some Freudian slip there.

In Plain Sight is all about broken people, they just happen to be women.

Why has no one described that show to me in those words before? <3

Sophie is sort of still Jane from "Coupling" to me, but Parker's brand of insanity amused me muchly.

Thread 5

meganbmoore May 16 2009, 03:30:06 UTC

OH CURSE IT WHISKEY AND SIERRA ARE GOING TO FORCE ME TO WATCH AUGH!

prozacpark May 16 2009, 03:33:12 UTC

TAKE THAT BACK!

Or I'll be forced to shun you.

If the show suddenly changes its premise so it's Dr. Whiskey running a counter operation with volunteer dolls to infiltrate the real Dollhouse in an attempt to recover all the original personalities? Let me know.

(The comment has been removed)

prozacpark May 16 2009, 22:51:39 UTC

I'm a lot more likely to ignore issues given that the writing is excellent (Carnivale comes to mind), but I've possibly become a lot more sensitive to these things lately because I can't remember the last time I liked a female character who wasn't utterly screwed over by canon on TV. There's Nicki, but that's pretty much the only one I can think of?

People reading thing into the "Dollhouse" are still sometimes reading feminist things into it, but "Supernatural?" No room for anything but the constant hatred of women in the fandom.

"30 Rock" is definitely on my list, and maybe "Parks & Recreation" needs to be, too.

philstar22 March 13 2010, 02:12:59 UTC

This comment is way late, but Castle is awful in terms of women? House certainly is, though I still watch hoping they'll go back to the awesomeness of the early seasons. I haven't seen any misogyny in Castle yet, though.

lafemmedarla May 16 2009, 04:04:15 UTC

So much word.

prozacpark May 16 2009, 22:27:25 UTC

Dude! You have a Cinderella icon! <3 <3 <3

lafemmedarla May 16 2009, 22:32:49 UTC

I have 11 Cinderella icons.. Can you tell she's my favorite Fables character?

prozacpark May 16 2009, 22:43:26 UTC

MINE TOO! <3 My dream is to have a spin-off based all on Cinderella and her various spying/espionage assignments for Fabletown. That would be the best comic book ever. Sigh. "Fables" really doesn't have enough Cinderella.

Thread 8

arby_m May 16 2009, 04:24:29 UTC

I used to love Supernatural, but it just doesn't love me back and in fact has been hurting me for a long time. I'm quitting ( ... )

abrakadabrah May 16 2009, 15:14:46 UTC

PPS I just defriended someone because their reaction to SPN finale was "It was so satisfying watching Dean twist the knife in Ruby" and "Thank God the brothers are back together, that's all that matters". I am sickened by my fandom. Ex-fandom now I guess. I can't be a fan of this show in good conscience anymore. So how would you have preferred him to dispatch her? Of course he was going to twist the knife - she had just spent two years successfully undermining and debauching and ruining Sammy and exulting in it secretly until this point and enjoying the hell out of it. That's Dean. That's how Dean acts. Is the only objection that she is a female demon? Should he have done it in a more mannerly way? He twisted the knife when he was torturing Alastair as well - was that all right because Alastair was male? But it's not when it's Ruby ( ... )

arby_m May 16 2009, 20:10:04 UTC

A couple of things -

They didn't have to make Ruby turn out to be evil. (Or Lilith, for that matter. Wouldn't it have been a bigger twist ending to have Lilith be good? And Sam kills her anyway by mistake? Of course that would have undermined their apparent running theme this year of "Bitches that had it coming get what they deserve".) But even if one accepts that as a storytelling choice for dramatic purposes (which I can, I don't have to like it but I can see it as valid to some extent) the staging of the actual killing shot was very disturbing. The visual picture of Sam holding Ruby while Dean twisted the knife, like a proxy for sex, and the way the camera lingered on it while the light was flashing - it was very sexualized. Let me ask this - why couldn't Ruby have been fighting back? Why did they decide to stage it this way?
Look at Alistair's torture vs. Lilith's and the nurse's - he was sitting up, they were always lying down, bent back in again a very sexual posture, and they moaned and writhed about in a way I find very ( ... )

abrakadabrah May 16 2009, 20:56:48 UTC

They didn't have to make Ruby turn out to be evil.

Yeah, they did.

In the SPN verse, there is no category like Season 5-6 Spike, let alone Season 7 Spike and Angel. Things aren't ambiguous - like Clem. Demons are always going to be evil. Hell, half the angels we've seen are evil sons of bitches on SPN. So I don't think it would have been a twist, it would have been outside the rules of their verse. When you don't know what it is on SPN, it's evil. It's a horror genre, so things end badly. Just like we saw on Jump the Shark. You knew Adam was going to turn out to be evil, the only question was how ( ... )

Thread 18