cu_sith: Feminism, queers, colour and othering.

The Girl with the Badges (

cu_sith) wrote,
@ 2009-03-01 22:59:00

Current mood:	uncomfortable, yet energised
Entry tags:	feminism, meta, rant

Feminism, queers, colour and othering.
Recently a few friends of mine were watching the extended Fellowship Of The Ring and afterwards one of them made a comment that got me to thinking.

It was (roughly paraphrased): "You know what I like about Lord Of The Rings? If it was written now there'd be a lot more female characters, a couple of non-white folks and they'd have to have some gay characters in there. This is just a story."

Everyone else agreed with him immediately; I was deeply uncomfortable. Because no, I don't think it's just a story. At least not in a way that stories about women and queers and POC aren't.

The idea that white/male/straight is a neutral, obvious choice distresses me. The idea that characters who aren't are political makes me angry.
These characters are not neutral. They are presented (viewed, intended) as such but they are as marked, as deliberate, as labeled as the 'political' choices - perhaps more so. We're just accustomed to seeing stories about them so often that they seem the obvious choice; Why should this character be female when they could just as easily be played by a man? What difference will there be if she's a woman? Well, none. That's the point. There's no good reason for them to be male either.

I'm tired of always being asked to empathise with male characters. I have no difficulty doing so (one glance at my DVD collection will show that) but I am starting to resent it. I'm tired of seeing my beloved women fridged, raped, pregnant because we can't think of any other stories for them. I'm fed up of watching shows and going 'well, she's a dyke so she's dead and I reckon one of the black women'll go too'. I'm even more fed up of being right.

Sure, there are shows I can watch if I want plenty of female characters. The L-Word, for example. Unfortunately when what you want is a comedic sci-fi with a buddy-pair of female leads I don't think 'upper-class american dykes have self-caused drama' is going to cut it.

I want to watch shows that pass the Bechdel Rule in every episode.

I want shows where the lesbians don't die or turn evil.

I want trans characters who aren't punchlines, who just are, because why not?

I just want Dykes In Space, damnit. With lasers. And self-aware genre parody.

I'm really angry that we're more comfortable with aliens than black people.

(40 comments) - (Post a new comment)

sara_in_england
2009-03-01 11:56 pm UTC (link)

I agree. Completely. And what really irks me is that Eowyn (who I think is one of the better characters in the Lord of the Rings, PERIOD, let alone among the female characters) was only added because Tolkien's daughter got noticed the fact that the only women in the entire story were wife/mother types, and more or less completely invisible - Galadriel, Arwen, Rosie - or complete bitches - ditto for Galadriel, and I'll count Shelob here because she's still a she even if a rather arachnid she, and then of course there's Lobelia of the Sackville-Bagginses - and asked him to write in a REAL female character. And even she ends up in the wife/mother role (although I do like the relationship between her and Faramir because she doesn't lose any of the qualities that made her kickass in the first place, and it's still based on mutual respect and understanding. Much more so than, say, Aragorn and Arwen, at least).I much prefer the Silmarillion for good female characters, but even there... ugh.

Anyway. Just figured I'd toss in my addition, just for good measure. ^^;

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	cu_sith 2009-03-01 11:58 pm UTC (link)
	Damn. Really? I didn't know that. And no apologising for saying interesting stuff. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	zoeiona 2009-03-02 12:05 am UTC (link)
	Entirely agreed. (Too full of a cold to say more.) (Reply to this) (Thread)

	cu_sith 2009-03-02 01:00 am UTC (link)
	Oh! Poor kitten. Hope you recover soon. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	zoeiona 2009-03-02 11:42 am UTC (link)
	So do I. :( I'm currently at the aggravating stage of being well enough to go to work but feeling like the top half of my face is about to fall off. Could I quote this post of yours/link to it on my Lj, pls? (is also writing a post on the same topic) (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	cu_sith 2009-03-02 01:22 pm UTC (link)
	Ugh. Nasty point to be at. Sure! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	cu_sith 2009-03-02 01:45 pm UTC (link)
	((Although if I'd thought someone would want to link to it I'd have done a much more careful job on writing it.) (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	zoeiona 2009-03-02 06:47 pm UTC (link)
	Don't worry at all. :) (Reply to this) (Parent)

inflatablefish
2009-03-02 12:38 am UTC (link)

This is largely what I took away from the Bechdel Test panel at Redemption - I think the main cause of the problem is the view that gender defaults to male, that a character being female is an extra detail which should be removed if not directly relevant to the plot. It leads to the unpleasant implication that you're either a person or a woman.

The same applies to race defaulting to white, or sexuality defaulting to straight. The only exceptions being token characters who happily preach messages of acceptance while sticking out from the fleshed-out actual characters like a sore thumb.

I'm reminded of Babylon 5's treatment of homosexuality - two male characters are given a cover identity of being a married couple, and no-one bats an eyelid. No preaching, no big message, no looking directly at the camera and saying "Remember kids, they're people too!", just simple acceptance of something that ought to be no fuss at all.
That was in 1997. Have we made any progess since then?

What we need is a series in which a woman is just a person. No big point to make, no big symbol of "womanhood" (or whatever the executives decide that means), just a person.

Question: How do we bring this about?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	zoep 2009-03-02 12:48 am UTC (link)
	> Question: How do we bring this about? Well I'd start with giving the various forms of the PC brigade a good old smack myself. They're the ones who have this nasty tendency to want to bring the points on these things home. More than a few people are intelligent enough to work these things out for themselves. I just wish writers would treat them like it... (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	cu_sith 2009-03-02 12:52 am UTC (link)
	It's possible the only way they can get those characters on shows in the first place is by selling it as a 'lesson'? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

zoep
2009-03-02 12:57 am UTC (link)

But when the lesson is repeated again and again (as some shows are wont to do, especially with Gay issues IME) it loses any impact and just becomes preaching. Also often you're preaching to the converted by that point (though I may well switch off; mentally or actually by then) so there is minimal point.

Also you gain the possibility of being called out for "pushing an agenda", whether you are or not.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	cu_sith 2009-03-02 12:59 am UTC (link)
	Oh, I'm not saying it's a good angle by any means - just that it may be the only angle they have access to. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	zoep 2009-03-02 01:09 am UTC (link)
	Sadly true. Also far more sadly true of the American market in many ways. Just wish we weren't heading so far that way in the British television system as well these days. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	cu_sith 2009-03-02 01:07 am UTC (link)
	It also occurs to me that this is close to what I was talking about. My point was that we feel like we have to come up with a justification for why that character isn't straight/white/male. How many of the characters we view as 'tokens' actually are? How many of them are just characters we didn't feel there was an excuse for? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

zoep
2009-03-02 01:23 am UTC (link)

I think it feels more like some kind of excuses by proxy syndrome, whereby the author has to come up with an excuse and make a point for what he feels is the benefit of the audience.

Tokenism is unfortunately (from my POV anyway) a very contextual thing. Was it purely that said actor was convenient? Were they the best for the role? Either option pretty much eliminating any personal details from casting. Or were they brought in to fill in a hole.
I think a good test is how much does the character jar with the surroundings. If they just fit in no matter the race/creed/orientation/sex then it's an irrelevancy.

Of course I could be jumping off at a random tangent as per usual of course...

(Reply to this) (Parent)

watervole
2009-03-02 08:24 am UTC (link)

In Tolkien's case, he was a straight white male and thus followed the basic rule of writing what was familiar to him.

Besides, you're making assumptions. How do you know all the Fellowship were straight? For several of them, sexuality is an open question.

The reason there aren't many female characters is mainly reflective of the genre and his source material. Old European myth does not run strong on female warriors (for the obvious reason that very few existed in real life and myth reflects the cultures it comes from) and thus Middle Earth did not either.

Tolkien said of Eowyn: "like many brave women she was capable of great military gallantry at a crisis"

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	cu_sith 2009-03-02 01:27 pm UTC (link)
	Very little of my post was about LOTR; a comment about it was used as a jumping point to talk about a more general problem. Outside of the quote and explaining its context I didn't mention it again. I have no and made no objections to the gender/race/sexuality in LOTR. Also, I didn't assume they were all straight - the person who made the original comment did. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	cu_sith 2009-03-02 12:54 am UTC (link)
	That's the problem. You have to get the show made, which means going through the networks, which means persuading them to take a risk. If you then manage to get it made and it does well, you have to convince them that it's not the exception that proves the rule. If it does badly... (Reply to this) (Parent)

	blademistress 2009-03-02 04:16 am UTC (link)
	I'm blanking on who the two in B5 were, can you refresh my memory? Clearly I should re-watch and remember just how awesome and ground breaking the whole thing was. I just wish the script the creator wrote where Londo and G'Kar get married still existed on the internet. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

inflatablefish
2009-03-02 10:50 am UTC (link)

It was when Marcus and Dr Franklin went on an undercover mission to contact the Mars underground, in series 4 - Jason Carter and Richard Biggs were good friends with plenty of chemistry between them, so it drew upon that to give thema great double-act.

Their in-character response to the whole business was to be very slightly uncomfortable and teasing of each other, but the whole scene could have been rewritten to show, say, Garibaldi and Ivanova pretending to be married, without changing a single thing. And that is what I love about it - it treats marriage as marriage, no distinction between gender relationship.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	grikmeer 2009-03-03 09:31 am UTC (link)
	There's also the lesbian relationship that was blooming between Talia and Ivanova in the first two series. I thought B5 handled that quite maturely. Although Talia did end up as good as dead that was because the actress wanted to leave, not because she was bisexual. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

inflatablefish
2009-03-03 11:56 am UTC (link)

That's true, though that was more a plot point than the marriage cover story - I chose that as being especially good precisely because it could have been so easily left out and because it was treated as being so commonplace.

Plus I'm a little leery of lesbian scenes; it's hard to know how much we can count them as really being progress due to their potential titillation value.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	grikmeer 2009-03-03 07:54 pm UTC (link)
	Well, Talia/Ivanova didn't so much titillate, I think that the production crew were aware of that as everything is done through suggestion and implication and the chmistry present between the two actresses, up until Ivanova admitting she loved Talia after Talia had been removed. Although I do concede your point that lesbian stuff is often used to hook the male crowd. (Reply to this) (Parent)

zoep
2009-03-02 12:43 am UTC (link)

I don't know if I can be bothered to really repeat everything I said to you in IM but:

In general, race/gender/orientation casting depends on circumstances. Sticking someone black/white/green/male/female/binnaum/gay/straight/pansexual/asexual into a cast of the opposite just so they can either fill a quota or "appeal to a broader audience" (because we're all morons who can't ever understand the motivations of someone similar to us nosireebob) irritates me more than it should. Mostly as this almost always jars to begin with.

In particular settings it will make no sense (ie a white bloke in deepest darkest Africa over a thousand years ago without a good explanation and vice-versa).

Also having a whatever/whoever in a cast and then going on about it continously, that jars just as much. Why is it never: "Oh. You're gay. And?"

And I did bring up the problems with similar things in Stargate...

But at this point I think I've diverged enough from your original point via various bits of an IM conversation already. :-)

(Reply to this) (Thread)

sabremeister
2009-03-02 03:06 am UTC (link)

There was a point somewhere in the early 90s, that you had to have a gay character or couple in there somewhere, because publishers were concerned that, what with the new higher levels of societal acceptance of gay men (there never seemed to be lesbian characters, unless they were sex objects) that were occurring at the time, an author might lose market appeal.

These days, it is more along the lines of, if you don't include someone who isn't white, male and straight, you are accused of being racist, sexist and homophobic, even if the story would no longer work with a non-white/male/straight.

LoTR would not work with a woman as one of the Nine Walkers, or if one or more of the male Nine Walkers were homosexual, nor would it really work if one of them weren't white, because they simply would not fit in the world Tolkien created. Hence, Peter Jackson replaced Glorfindel with Arwen, ramped up Eowyn's (and Arwen's) screen time and participation, and largely left the Frodo-Sam relationship alone (because everybody's been sniggering about that for years).

Me? I don't give a bugger. If my characters go far enough south, I'm sure they'll encounter Arab-types and even black people if they go far enough (in fact, in Book V they're scheduled to go east and encounter China/Japan analogues). I tend to stick to writing what I'm good at, and so the lead characters do tend to share my views - which generally tends to be "I couldn't give a bugger." The only reason I don't write homosexuals of any variety is because I know I'd suck at it. And yes, maybe my female characters do seem a little stereotyped and objectified at times, but I think I'm getting better with practice.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

entorien
2009-03-02 11:14 am UTC (link)

Agreed on all points. I do have a lot of homosexual characters, simply because that's how my world is built. It's common there. Also, I had someone come up to me and complain that I had no strong female characters... after reading the whole book and reading that the society concerned is a sexist one in which women are considered belongings. Duh.

I think we're in a bit of a cycle here. Some authors/writers felt that these minority groups were necessary, so they began popping up everywhere. So much so that we're now in danger of expecting them to be there. At least, Joe Public is.

So along with

sabremeister I say, I don't give a bugger. If they're there or if they're not, makes no difference to me. As long as we don't have to put up with flat, wooden, 'token' characters.

Edited at 2009-03-02 11:15 am UTC

(Reply to this) (Parent)

cu_sith
2009-03-02 01:43 pm UTC (link)

These days, it is more along the lines of, if you don't include someone who isn't white, male and straight, you are accused of being racist, sexist and homophobic, even if the story would no longer work with a non-white/male/straight.

It's amazing how story after story just seems to require a W/M/S to work. How it always seems to be 'just intrinsic to the world'. What I'm saying is that we only create stories about anyone else when we feel we can argue it as necessary. After apologising for and justifying why the hero is chinese, because there's no way we could just cast the poor bastard.
Because stories set in the future, in other worlds seem to have five men to every three women and I'm starting to wonder how these people reproduce. There is no reason for leaving out women, queers and POC in much sci-fi and fantasy.

LoTR would not work with a woman as one of the Nine Walkers, or if one or more of the male Nine Walkers were homosexual, nor would it really work if one of them weren't white, because they simply would not fit in the world Tolkien created.

I have no problem with that. I don't want to rewrite an existing story. What I want to know is why can't it be done in the next story. Why does the next show, book or film have to have those characters? Why does the same story keep being written about the same people?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

inflatablefish
2009-03-02 02:43 pm UTC (link)

Is it that these stories require a W/M/S to work, or is it just that they have nothing in particular to say about race/gender/sexuality and thus just go with "the default"? I think there's a difference between a story which is actually about a white male straight guy and one in which the specifics of the protagonist don't matter.

Heh, I'm reminded of all those first-person shooter games where the person you play is a complete nonentity so you can project your own personality on him. Though now that I think about it, it always is a "him".

As for those stories which actually do require a W/M/S to work, the real question is not why are there so many of them, but where are all the stories which acually require a black gay woman?

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

cu_sith
2009-03-02 02:47 pm UTC (link)

Is it that these stories require a W/M/S to work, or is it just that they have nothing in particular to say about race/gender/sexuality and thus just go with "the default"? I think there's a difference between a story which is actually about a white male straight guy and one in which the specifics of the protagonist don't matter.

Thankyou! That was what I was trying, flailing and failing to say.

As for those stories which actually do require a W/M/S to work, the real question is not why are there so many of them, but where are all the stories which acually require a black gay woman?

Being adapted for television with a white cast? < /snark>

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	inflatablefish 2009-03-02 02:57 pm UTC (link)
	I would have gone for "being stapled to form rejection letters" myself, but hey. I think it's important to bear in mind that we seem to have two separate issues here. One is the "default = WMS" mindset, the other being "non-WMS = non-starter". (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	cu_sith 2009-03-02 04:31 pm UTC (link)
	Earthsea snark. Couldn't help myself. And also the way they feed into and perpetuate each other. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

inflatablefish
2009-03-02 05:30 pm UTC (link)

So which do we tackle first? If we could challenge the default mindset, then perhaps non-WMS stories wouldn't be seen as having such a narrow, marginal audience. Then again, how would one go about changing the default expectations of audiences without getting some actual characters out there - which would need to be specifically non-WMS to avoid being rewritten into WMS for "broader appeal"?

(I think this sentence has started to get away from me, apologies for lack of clarity.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	cu_sith 2009-03-02 05:36 pm UTC (link)
	Large ensemble cast? Enough WMS (or WFS, for that matter) to keep the network feeling comfortable, but allowing usage of the other characters. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	grikmeer 2009-03-03 07:56 pm UTC (link)
	Get J. Michael Straczynski to continue making Crusade, because he writes any combination of relationship as perfectly normal. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	cu_sith 2009-03-03 08:01 pm UTC (link)
	I'd like to see Bryan Fuller involved in a/this hypothetical show. His track record on Dead Like Me seems to show him as very comfortable with a large female cast. (Reply to this) (Parent)

zoeiona
2009-03-03 12:54 am UTC (link)

As for those stories which actually do require a W/M/S to work, the real question is not why are there so many of them, but where are all the stories which acually require a black gay woman?

*raises hand* I think I nabbed most of them. Sorry.

This is an issue on which, to say the least, I have reasonably strong feelings (and I just spent several hours writing about it so am a bit burnt out). It's like you said further up the page, and imply here - the default setting is is WSM; why? Only because the default setting always has been WSM, and a lack of imagination or balls prevents us moving forwards, even where it *doesn't* fit the setting - such as a future-SF world that contains, according to its logical integral principles, too few characters of colour.

(And IIRC the lead in Portal is female - so the only two characters in the game are female. And the lead in Silent Hill being male is actually a reversal of the normal default in the horror subgenre. But, hey. Two counterexamples comes way closer to suggesting you're right than suggesting you're wrong. :) )

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

inflatablefish
2009-03-03 01:36 am UTC (link)

Thanks for reminding me about Portal - now that I think about it, it strikes me as being exactly what I was asking for in my previous post. The protagonist is female and this means nothing. The antagonist, same again. They could've made exactly the same game with a generic everyman behind the camera and a HAL knock-off in the computer, and it'd be the same game with the same story.

I'm also reminded of System Shock, how they regendered the antagonist AI SHODAN into being female for the voice-acted CD version.

I wonder if there's some sort of award in the entertainment industry for doing that sort of thing. If not, there should be.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	pinkdormouse 2009-03-03 08:10 pm UTC (link)
	Did you read the fic snippet I posted yesterday? So far no one seems to have picked up the fact that Lee Ann (still not sure if her name should have that second 'n') a) isn't white and b) is living in a place where a white bloke stands out from the crowd for being white. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	cu_sith 2009-03-03 08:12 pm UTC (link)
	Hmmm. I hadn't yet skips off to read. (Reply to this) (Parent)

(40 comments) - (Post a new comment)

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