Supernatural 1: Saving People, Hunting Things - the Family Business
[NAFDA]. This is where we talk about the CW series Supernatural! Anything that's aired in the US (including promos) is fair game. No spoilers though -- if you post one by accident, an admin will delete it.
I don't expect SPN to be Buffy, and I love it for what it is, but I still see value in noting and calling out Skanky/Gender and Race Issues.
Yes, this.
I love it like nothing else. I mean, I'm moony about the damn show. We're talking, pink sparkle hearts on my Trapper Keeper inserts moony. Love it more than Buffy moony. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't contain problematic aspects, nor does the fact that I love it to itty bitty pieces mean that I'm blind to them.
Sisabet mentioned in her post about it that, really, it could have been almost any show, because the problems so very present in our culture and our media. And I think it's important, even when you love something, to point that out, and say, Hey, wait a minute here!
The whole conversation keeps sending my brain back to Mary's S1 essay [link] (I need to get the Cafe Press book for the S2 updated version).
So, here's my answer: more boy-shirtlessness!
And here's my question: So, how do we propose they fix it? I agree that there is skeevyness to the sexualization of the vicitimization of women. Laying aside that (which, in some, if not all, ways, is largely an issue of staging and costuming), is the fix to have men targeted in a similar way? Is there a way to do that that doesn't turn women into the second stereotype? There's no parallel construct to the dirty old man (and I could imagine that people might have an issue with what they might come up with if they tried), and I can also see why they'd not want to step into the potentially-fraught waters of a gay demon/ghost/thing. Is it to remove the sexuality?
On the female villains issue, I don't know that it's (numerically) unbalanced. I can believe that there aren't as many hot male villains. However, they have made a good number of the female ones NotHot.
"what serious swimmer does their morning swim in a bikini?"
Yeah, that one pinged the hell out of me. ESPECIALLY in a lake in WI, when everyone's wearing medium-weight clothes. That lake would not be comfy in a bikini.
I think consciousness-raisers (oh please forgive me for rhetorical language) like the vid are necessary to give our perceptive vision an eighth of a turn, to sharpen it enough to be aware.
This.
So, how do we propose they fix it?
As it's the culture as a whole that's broken, my only suggestion is to show even more women with agency who aren't actively evil. I think they did address some of those issues in S2. For me, it worked fairly well.
Heck, my suggestions for a less problematic S3 are fairly simple:
- A variety of recurring women of agency.
- More boys in peril from non-gendered entities.
- Agent Exceedingly Hot and Awesome back and not as pure antagonist this time. With Mulder jokes. Because those are never not funny to me.
People of color with agency who are not bad guys.
People of female gender with agency who are not bad guys.
Those two would be a start.
Does anybody have a link to the cafepress book? I must have the wrong title; my search came up empty.
Agent Exceedingly Hot and Awesome back and not as pure antagonist this time. With Mulder jokes. Because those are never not funny to me.
This, and so totally FTW. Linda Blair's character returning would also be made of awesome.
Also? I would love to see a female Trickster - but that probably won't fit in with the arc of the season. That I am hypothesizing out of my tush, because I am unspoiled.
::loves on everyone::
::promises to be a more conscious viewer in future::
::conscious of more than just the HOT, that is::
juliana, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that we're going to be demon-heavy. I would, in fact, be irritated if we weren't.
demon-heavy.
True, but Tall Tales was a lot lighter than where I think they'll be going this season. The Trickster joke is probably played out, too.
no parallel construct to the dirty old man (and I could imagine that people might have an issue with what they might come up with if they tried)
Heh. Mary Murphy on SYTYCD comes to mind. ::shudders::
As it's the culture as a whole that's broken, my only suggestion is to show even more women with agency who aren't actively evil. I think they did address some of those issues in S2. For me, it worked fairly well.
Heck, my suggestions for a less problematic S3 are fairly simple:
What Plei Said. Unsurprisingly.
