META: "Gossip Girl," Jenny Humphrey, and rape culture

[remindmeofthe]

Because apparently the best way to recover from writing three papers in a week is to write approximately 9300 words of meta. Thanks and hearts to lienne for doing a typo beta for me!

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I'd gotten back into Gossip Girl; I rewatched everything I'd seen before I drifted away, then proceeded to catch up from there. Now

Comments

[lienne]

<33333333333

you make the internet a better place.

[remindmeofthe]

♥ Thank you, my dear.

[ashen_key]

Fully informed, enthusiastic consent is not a concept that is generally well-understood in our culture. It's exactly what it says on the tin: A consenting person is a person who is clear about what they are agreeing to and actively wants to do it

[remindmeofthe]

Yeah, that's pretty troublesome. That kind of thing is another effect of misogyny and rape culture that I hate - when an abusive or otherwise problematic scene has a man as a victim and a woman as his abuser, it's glossed over or played for laughs, because of course a woman can't abuse a man! That hurts everyone because it teaches that women are weak and men are strong, that men can't be victims because women can't have the power to abuse them.

I'm glad you liked the post! Thanks for commenting. I spent a couple weeks thinking and letting it all work itself out in my brain, so when I sat down to write it it pretty much fell right out of my head. (The post, not my brain.)

[ashen_key]

Yeah, or it's romantic - a man tricking a woman into marriage might either be hilarious or outrage worth, but a woman tricking a man? Romantic Or, he consented to sex, didn't he? He consented to the mind-bonding. CLEARLY HE KNEW WHAT HE WAS GETTING HIMSELF INTO. 43wlkjfslfjsd -_- But the awful thing is, that if he DID know what he was getting himself into, he was betraying HER. It's such a clusterfuck.

It...yeah, I think I saw bits of one episode where one girl was nearly raped, and I went 'fuck this' (was it the pilot? was it Jenny? I have no idea). But this essay is brilliant, and it explains things well enough that I could follow them. (and ahahah, well, given MY brain ATM? I wouldn't surprised either way)

[mercuriazs]

This is so, so well written. Wow. Thank you for this.

[remindmeofthe]

♥ You're welcome. Thank you for commenting.

[remindmeofthe]

Thanks! I'm glad you were able to follow it, then. The plots get really convoluted and I was writing with fans of the show in mind, so I mostly tried to keep the summarizing to a minimum where I could. *g*

[littlestclouds]

I don't watch this show, but I like your meta.

[remindmeofthe]

Thanks! It always surprises me when non-fans from my flist read my fannish stuff. *g*