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May. 19th, 2008 08:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labellementeuseSo, someone just posted the usual rant about how SPN isn't sexist, even if it is it's just a tee vee show, it's a show about BROTHERS not about WOMEN, what does it matter if Dean is disrespectful to women, it's totally in character, blah blah. Anyway, I saw RED (but I'm not defriending, person who wrote this post, if you're reading) and worked this up as a comment to that post, but thought better of it. I am going to replicate it here, though, because it's kind of like SPN Feminism 101. (ETA: I wanted to add some clarification just in case. Although the original post did make me angry, nothing in it was material that was new to me, and I intended that this post be read more broadly than as a specific response to that post - more as a specific response to these criticisms, which I have heard over and over and over.)
The show is about brothers, not women!
Uh-huh. So, how come Bobby is alive (I assume: I did indeed stop watching the show after it pissed me off so much.) and recurringly present, while Ellen (&Jo) vanished into the ether, Bela was killed, and - OK, I still don't know Ruby's fate so I can't go for a trifecta. It's pointless to say that Bobby is a "good" character and Bela is "pointless and annoying" because these things are subjective - Bobby drives me crazy with his fake dadliness. How come in the witch episode, the only surviving guest character was the asshole cheater who started the whole thing? How come 9 times out of 10, the vic of the week is a woman, a hot woman, whose violent death is then portrayed in as sexy a manner possible? Don't say to get male viewers. You, me, and everyone in the world know Supernatural's main audience is women and that's probably not going to change - if dead women was really going to bring them in it would have brought them in after the second season.
In other words: if you want to defend the viewpoint that the show's just about Sam & Dean, you also have to defend the contradictions between the way the show treats guest and recurring characters of either gender.
Why does it matter if Dean's disrespectful to women? Mostly they're demons anyway. And anyway, Dean's like the lowest common denominator, he's not going to be all polite. Plus, bitch isn't offensive, lots of women I know use it all the time.
When most people use the word bitch that's true. When Dean uses the word (especially when he talks to Sam) he means bitch like "my bitch": someone submissive & sexually available to him. It's sexually degrading. Pretending that it's just like calling someone a dick when Dean says it is, well, pretending: there are no words like this for a woman to use to describe a man. (There is an increasing gender neutrality of the use of bitch in this context, but chiefly to describe feminised men like Sam.)
Frankly, as tired as you are of reading feminist posts, I'm three times that tired of reading about, hearing about, and experiencing anti-feminism - not only in posts like the one I'm writing about, but when women insist to me that they aren't feminists because feminists are all dykes and "feminism isn't important anymore"; when men tell me all feminists hate men; when my boss tells me I should shave my legs "so I can get a man" and when I say that that's sexual harassment and I really don't like it, as well as pointing out that he wouldn't shave his legs for his girlfriend, he tells me "not to get my knickers in a knot." It's shows like this - shows with ordinary guys saying rude and disrespectful things to and about women, actively and consciouly objectifying them, and perpetuating through itss portrayal of almost every woman that women are useless objects - that made this guy so surprised when he was a dick to me and I bit back. It's seeing guys talk to this like women all over the goddamn television: he thinks it's OK, and why wouldn't he? But it's not OK. It's not OK IRL and it's not OK on the show - not because it isn't appropriate for Dean's character to say these things, but it is inappropriate for the show to commend Dean (or at the very worst, not condemn him) for them.
The show is about brothers, not women!
Uh-huh. So, how come Bobby is alive (I assume: I did indeed stop watching the show after it pissed me off so much.) and recurringly present, while Ellen (&Jo) vanished into the ether, Bela was killed, and - OK, I still don't know Ruby's fate so I can't go for a trifecta. It's pointless to say that Bobby is a "good" character and Bela is "pointless and annoying" because these things are subjective - Bobby drives me crazy with his fake dadliness. How come in the witch episode, the only surviving guest character was the asshole cheater who started the whole thing? How come 9 times out of 10, the vic of the week is a woman, a hot woman, whose violent death is then portrayed in as sexy a manner possible? Don't say to get male viewers. You, me, and everyone in the world know Supernatural's main audience is women and that's probably not going to change - if dead women was really going to bring them in it would have brought them in after the second season.
In other words: if you want to defend the viewpoint that the show's just about Sam & Dean, you also have to defend the contradictions between the way the show treats guest and recurring characters of either gender.
Why does it matter if Dean's disrespectful to women? Mostly they're demons anyway. And anyway, Dean's like the lowest common denominator, he's not going to be all polite. Plus, bitch isn't offensive, lots of women I know use it all the time.
When most people use the word bitch that's true. When Dean uses the word (especially when he talks to Sam) he means bitch like "my bitch": someone submissive & sexually available to him. It's sexually degrading. Pretending that it's just like calling someone a dick when Dean says it is, well, pretending: there are no words like this for a woman to use to describe a man. (There is an increasing gender neutrality of the use of bitch in this context, but chiefly to describe feminised men like Sam.)
Frankly, as tired as you are of reading feminist posts, I'm three times that tired of reading about, hearing about, and experiencing anti-feminism - not only in posts like the one I'm writing about, but when women insist to me that they aren't feminists because feminists are all dykes and "feminism isn't important anymore"; when men tell me all feminists hate men; when my boss tells me I should shave my legs "so I can get a man" and when I say that that's sexual harassment and I really don't like it, as well as pointing out that he wouldn't shave his legs for his girlfriend, he tells me "not to get my knickers in a knot." It's shows like this - shows with ordinary guys saying rude and disrespectful things to and about women, actively and consciouly objectifying them, and perpetuating through itss portrayal of almost every woman that women are useless objects - that made this guy so surprised when he was a dick to me and I bit back. It's seeing guys talk to this like women all over the goddamn television: he thinks it's OK, and why wouldn't he? But it's not OK. It's not OK IRL and it's not OK on the show - not because it isn't appropriate for Dean's character to say these things, but it is inappropriate for the show to commend Dean (or at the very worst, not condemn him) for them.
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Disclaimer: I've never watched SPN
Date: 2008-05-18 10:36 pm (UTC)Actually, I think you'll find Picasso is criticising the American military-industrial complex rather than Americans as a people, but point taken. So if Dean's sexism were shown in a more harsh light, perhaps with more attention to how unpleasant it is to be on the recieving end of it, it wouldn't be so bad? I can agree with that, but your initial criticism focused on whether he was condemned or praised after the act, not on the way the act itself is portrayed. I felt that was simplistic.
Additionally, shows that are called "gritty" or "realistic" can get away with this kind of criticism - often it's the raison d'etre of that kind of show. SPN is not a realistic show: it's not realistic about relationships, portrayal of women, portrayal of men....
Maybe not for you, but what is and isn't realistic is something on which there isn't much consensus, particularly when it comes to gender relations. Some people (on both sides of the feminist/non-feminist divide) feel that it's realistic to show women as innately more nurturing and less violent, other people don't.
It's like a sitcom portraying yet another gorgeous woman ending up with yet another average or downright unattractive man. Yup, that kind of thing can and does happen in real life regularly, but portraying it doesn't help to criticise it: it helps to perpetuate it.
You say that like you think a gorgeous woman getting together with an unattractive man is a bad thing.
I agree and think that that can be very fine work (but tricky work, too, especially if you're putting it in the mouths of your heroes.) However, I don't think it's work that SPN is doing.
It can be, but unfortunately for every film/book/play/whatever that does unflinchingly portray sexism (or anything else unpleasant, for that matter) in an attempt to confront it and shatter complacency, there's multiple that actually glorify and glamourise the unpleasantness, and tack on a bit of token tut-tutting at the end to look conscientious. Admittedly it may be that the line between glamourisation and neutral depiction isn't as clear to others as it seems to me, or might lie somewhere different to where I see it.
Re: Disclaimer: I've never watched SPN
Date: 2008-05-19 09:48 am (UTC)Er... how else would the show condemn or praise Dean, other than portraying his actions with greater depth and sensitivity? I'm not suggesting that the show feature a Feminism Fairy who beats up on Dean for being a jackass!? Sorry, not to be all up in your face, but what the hell did you think I meant?
Maybe not for you, but what is and isn't realistic is something on which there isn't much consensus, particularly when it comes to gender relations. Some people (on both sides of the feminist/non-feminist divide) feel that it's realistic to show women as innately more nurturing and less violent, other people don't.
Sorry. In that I wasn't clear: I was trying to distinguish between the rare "realist" show, like, I dunno, Carnivale, with the thousand-times-more-common fantasy show like Supernatural. Or Friends. Or, you know... whatever.
You say that like you think a gorgeous woman getting together with an unattractive man is a bad thing.
It's a symptom of the Hollywood Double Standard: men come in all flavours, women only come in one (http://thehathorlegacy.com/if-male-actors-had-to-be-as-blandly-perfect-as-female-ones/).
It can be, but unfortunately for every film/book/play/whatever that does unflinchingly portray sexism (or anything else unpleasant, for that matter) in an attempt to confront it and shatter complacency, there's multiple that actually glorify and glamourise the unpleasantness, and tack on a bit of token tut-tutting at the end to look conscientious.
I'm not sure if you're making a statement of sympathy here or if you're trying to make the "it's everywhere so shut up about this unimportant case" argument, so I won't respond until you clarify ;)
Re: Disclaimer: I've never watched SPN
Date: 2008-05-19 10:31 am (UTC)Well, off the top of my head, one could condemn Dean by showing him being rude or dismissive to a woman, only to find he later needs her help, thus condemning him by 1) showing that his denigration of her was inaccurate and 2) showing its negative consequences. Similarly, one could praise him by having his put downs of a woman result in her changing her ways for the better. Although a magical feminism fairy is an interesting idea.
It's a symptom of the Hollywood Double Standard: men come in all flavours, women only come in one.
Ah yes, the notable lack of a female equivalent of Bill Murray or Willem Defoe. I presumed when you said 'gorgeous' you meant 'gorgeous as defined by Hollywood'. What threw me was that, by mentioning relationships, you made it sound like the issue was not the relative diversity of male or female looks, but the relationships between look-havers (to coin a phrase).
I'm not sure if you're making a statement of sympathy here or if you're trying to make the "it's everywhere so shut up about this unimportant case" argument, so I won't respond until you clarify ;)
Neither really, I'm just bitching about self-satisfied directors who like telling people they're depicting tough issues unflinchingly when they're actually just indulging people's desire for vicarious thrills. Quentin Tarantino is a good example. Still, it is to some degree a personal thing. I consider Seven Samurai to be a pretty realistic look at violence and its consequences, but other people see it as katana-porn.