Tired old SF clichés

[vilakins]

Some further thoughts and a rant about the script of the Farscape episode Coup by ClamI was surprised to find this was written by a woman, Emily Skopov. There were some very good bits--the shellfish containing neurologically-linked bacteria which gave the people who ate them the same symptoms, and Crichton in drag which had me laughing out loud--

Comments

[tiamatschild]

Oh, I know. It bugged the heck out of me, because up until that point we hadn't seen any systemic discrimination in the series. It's really very stupid for a one shot, because in the rest of the series the conflict comes from very different sources.

I mean, Chiana's society isn't sexist, just repressed.

[tiamatschild]

Although it did mean that we got Chiana interacting with that darling tech, which was cute beyond words. (If I'm thinking of the right ep and not mixing two together.)

[vilakins]

You've got the right one!

[tiamatschild]

Oh, good. I hate thinking I'm just making things up. Especially when they were so dear.

[cdybedahl]

Babylon 5 wasn't that bad, was it?

[vilakins]

I almost cited B5 as an exception but there's Centauri society. it's a lot better than any other shows I can think of though, so kudos to JMS.

[daiseechain]

I think sometimes even the writers of a show like Farscape just need a quick and dirty idea. Although come to think of it, a lot of their ideas were dirty... That show would've been very tough on a working writer, with the fast pacing, and whiplash changes of alliance.

[vilakins]

That's no excuse. They could have had two cultures on the planet, or grades as in B7, slaves, political parties, or a suppressed religious group. There are lots of quick-and-easy ideas; they basically needed a disaffected group and a brothel belonging to it where the clams were kept.

[astrogirl2]

I rather like "Coup by Clam," just because it's so funny in a way that, I admit, appeals to the 12-year-old buried inside of me. :)

I don't mind the sexist society per se. Yes, it is a cliche, and a rather tired one, but Farscape has used a lot of other tired cliches and done interesting new things with them, or used them as good springboards for humor or character drama, or whatever. (And it's not like an extremely sexist society is a really out-there SF plot device, sadly.) It really isn't very well-developed in that ep, though, so as anything but an excuse for some goofy humor, it's really not very satisfying. You know what actually bothered me about it? The "drag" thing. Because, yes, Crichton in drag is priceless, but my suspension of disbelief snaps painfully at being asked to believe that the standard of dresses, long hair, bright colors, and makeup for women vs. short hair, trousers, and sober colors for men are galactic universals.

[vilakins]

Oh, yes. The men were even dressed rather like SS officers, hardly a style of dress that would occur to a lot of alien cultures (SG1's done that too, with military gear and business suits). Actually, women's clothing in Farscape can annoy me a lot. You usually get sensible or inventive clothes on most characters but the impractical and probably very uncomfortable hooker outfits Jool and Sikozu have to wear are obviously just for the drool-factor. Give me Aeryn's gear any day.

[astrogirl2]

Well, I do understand that costuming in SF shows is aimed at evoking certain associations in human audiences, and black uniforms say "evil police-state society" pretty effectively to a contemporary human audience. I can forgive that, generally. But, y'know, the female dress thing was a plot point, which makes it much harder to shrug off. I think it's less the lack of alienness that bothers me, though, as the assumption it seems to make that 21st century American gender norms are, well, norms, period. But that's a bit of a pet peeve issue with me.

It does actually seem fairly in-character to me for Jool to wear ridiculously impractical high-fashion clothing. It makes slightly less sense for Sikozu, although I guess her leather gear, although scanty, is actually pretty serviceable. Aeryn, IMHO, tends to leave a bit too much skin showing for a soldier, but given that she's a Sebacean and probably tends to overheat easily, it's forgivable. :)

[kerravonsen]

And having a different clothing design can do absolute wonders for a story, sometimes. The classic example of this is the Doctor Who story "Robots of Death", which, when you look at the bare plot, is another tired cliche -- the "robots run amok" story. But making the robots look like Art Deco creations and the humans all dressed up in confections that scream "decadent society" and it was transformed. If the humans had been wearing military uniforms it would have been deadly dull.

[kerravonsen]

I wonder if book-SF is more daring than TV SF because (a) they don't have to budget for SFX and (b) they have fewer Suits to deal with.

[vilakins]

I think that's definitely so.