Sci-Fi - Fantasy Women (Split from John Carter of Mars thread)
POSTED BY: Bytemite
UPDATED: Sunday, May 9, 2010 06:52
VIEWED: 13376
PAGE 2 of 7
Well, this DOES go back to the question about whether some of Joss' stories and characters are exploitive as well as feminist. No one argues that Joss, bless his withered black heart, tries to be a feminist, and does one heck of a better job highlighting feminist issues and writing well-rounded female characters than many other writers out there.
But at times there's also a little bit of dissonance with that, like how Dollhouse was marketed really couldn't be called anything BUT selling sex and exploitive. Dollhouse really kind of goes back and forth on that, which is part of the scholar appeal, it's very clever about it and how it ties into the themes of exploitation of women and prostitution. But at times, Joss does stuff because he thinks "this is cool!" (Or even just "undressed lady folk!") from his geek upbringing, but when you look more carefully, Joss is saying something about women and his views that he's not even aware of deep down.
Firefly is a little better about this than Dollhouse, I can't comment on Buffy or Angel, having never seen them.
And IN Firefly... Do they really use sex that much? I don't really see that. Zoe's threats about "remember that sex you were wanting to have, ever?" don't really seem to work, nor do I think she was serious. And I only ever see Inara her status (The Train Job, though she's dressed up to the 9s) and people reading skills (using the hero worship in Jaynestown), it's never actual favours or flirty manipulativeness, at least that we see on screen.
As for the recent Star Trek reboot, I wouldn't know, but I'd agree with you that given the choice I'd prefer the well-rounded character version to the "just there to be a love interest" version.
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Meh I don't mind it at all. It's entertainment. It's not meant to be reality. It's not like there are a ton of fat ugly male leads in movies either.
We tend to like to see something pretty on the screen. Some stories have a blundering man in them. Some have a helpless woman. They're just stories though.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
The amount of visible flesh proposed is unnecessary no matter who is wearing the clothing. Increasing the amount of visible flesh is less than helpful.
So cold and clinical Byte, "visible flesh." You have reduced one of nature's glories to a dictionary entry. I think you need new muses.
HK? My God where do you get this stuff?
Is everything a mask for something else, (and typically, our flaws)? Is there nothing that is just for it's own sake? I'm not 100% sure you aren't just having a laff!Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com
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Quote:
Originally posted by Zeek:
Meh I don't mind it at all. It's entertainment. It's not meant to be reality. It's not like there are a ton of fat ugly male leads in movies either.
Sure you could look at Colin Firth and Eric Bana and Brad Pitt and argue that there is as much man meat out there too but there are a lot of fat ugly male leads. In hollywood comedies it's a common trope lately to have a fat ugly man and a hot woman playing his wife or love interest.
------------------------
I pray for one last landing,
on the globe that gave me birth.
Let me rest my eyes on the fleecy skies
and the cool, green hills of Earth.
http://www.blogiversity.org/blogs/dmi/default.aspx
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Pizmo: Flesh has two definitions for me.
The first is the miraculous interface by which we experience the world, allowing us to feel the gentle breeze that brushes over the human soul on a calm day, and for a few moments, everything seems calm and good, and affirms that life is truly worthwhile.
The second is other people's junk I dun wanna see and they need to cover the hell up.
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Quote:
In hollywood comedies it's a common trope lately to have a fat ugly man and a hot woman playing his wife or love interest.
Sadly, part of the comedy there comes from the defiance of social expectations that in the modern shallowness of culture, the woman should have no interest in the guy whatsoever because he is not the sexy.
If life was fair, the guy would be equally uninterested in the pretentious beauty snob, but, that isn't how our society hardwires people.
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I had to remove Mabinogi, it's 9 gb without any of the expansions... Though I might be able to put it on that one computer that isn't being used, and I am going to have to look for another MMO since my friend's world of warcraft gamecard runs out soon.
Well, there's always Flyff or Luna Online - 9GB seems excessive though, yikes.
I'd recommend City of Heros/City of Villains, given recent topics I think you would derive much ironic amusement from it - although I have ever been disappointed with CoV cause it's a classic example of why heroic types shouldn't design the villainous end of the game, I was SO looking forward to doin stuff like pickin up random civvies by an ankle and shaking all the stuff out of their pockets for a lark (it's a villain thing) or tossing them off a building to distract a hero and provide me a diversion to get outta dodge, stuff like that, bleh.
Quote:
I think you get exactly what I'm saying, but from a male-rejecting the gender role direction instead of the female-rejecting the gender role direction.
Yep, interesting how we come to the same conclusions from different ends, neh ?
-Frem
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Pizmo: Flesh has two definitions for me.
The first is the miraculous interface by which we experience the world, allowing us to feel the gentle breeze that brushes over the human soul on a calm day, and for a few moments, everything seems calm and good, and affirms that life is truly worthwhile.
The second is other people's junk I dun wanna see and they need to cover the hell up.
Yanno, imma hafta not drink coffee while reading your posts... it tends to wind up on my screen often enough I should know better.
-F
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Quote:Byte, it is all too depressingly Freudian in its effect, but as you very correctly observe, mothers are not actually to blame here. Unfortunately, like the ground troops in any conflict, they shoulder much of the blame for policies they merely carry out on behalf of the culture as a whole.
Originally posted by Bytemite:
To HK: That's interesting. Not being a man, it sounds all a little bit too Freudian to me. I have a little bit of trouble believing all men are emotionally stunted and have mommy issues that they project on woman in the form of misogyny. Surely if there is any validity to this then doesn't society at large have a bigger role in influencing gender roles, as it itself influences the parents (and the mother)? I admit that for males, to cement gender role the child must be "detached" from the initial strong mother imprint and identify her as the other, but this is REINFORCED by all the other women AND all the other MEN. It's very similar to the annoying garbage I had to resist all through my childhood where all the adults around me would insist that I "act like a lady." Likewise, I assume all boys are told to "be/act like a man." Neither of those MEAN anything! They're arbitrary and unqualifiable!
And please, "all" men are not emotionally stunted. When I say "the male obsession with physical attractiveness" I don't mean to imply that every male is so obsessed. It's like saying "the American love affair with the automobile." That doesn't imply that ALL Americans are in love with cars, but it is a common, even characteristic phenomenon.
People get very black & white in their thinking about sex and identity. for someone like me, whose ideas about sex are not blank & white, it can be frustrating as hell trying to get heard.
I say, "The more obsessed we (men) are with her outside, the less we ever learn about our own inside." It's simply an inverse relationship. There's a continuum implied here. A man who is not obsessed with female appearance--a man with merely a healthy appreciation, shall we say, of feminine charms--surely has plenty of room left in his psyche for self-reflection and appreciation for the origin and nature of his own feelings. I find it very interesting that the boys out at the extreme don't tend to acknowledge the existence of an inner life. They don't even know what I'm talking about. They don't EVEN NOTICE that I am talking about it.
Cavalier supplied me with a good example of this extreme point of view over in the other thread when he quipped revealingly, "This, presumably, is why rich, powerful, successful men have throughout history had so little interest in sex." You caught that one, too. He thinks that being rich, powerful and successful (aspects of a person's outer life) somehow indicates that someone does not feel lonely, abandoned or powerless (aspects of a person's inner life). Is that not nuts? There really isn't any inner life in this concept of male identity. What's more, he makes no distinction between an "interest in sex" and being obsessed with female attractiveness. He thinks they're one and the same.
I don't think all men are stunted (hello, I'm a man, why would I say such a thing?), but the various problems I'm tracking here are epidemic in this culture.
Male depression is pervasive. F'rinstance, it is accepted that young men living on their own will live in squalor, wear dirty underwear, never make the bed, etc. That kind of living would be a clear indicator for depression in any woman, but somehow men are believed to be constituted differently. Men not taking basic care of themselves is part of "being a guy," being a man. Does that seem right to you?
The most damaging thing about the "be a man" rule is that it tends to be defined by negatives--a man is mainly NOT something else: not a woman, not a child. Anything resembling a woman is not "manly." The more "manly" a man attempts to be, the fewer options he has to express himself. Eventually, emotions (other than anger, derision, agg
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Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
Indeed.
Also, "broad" is a fun-word, especially when I'm feeling less politically correct than when I started this conversation.
It was the metal pasties, they took over my MIND. @_@
So, less visible flesh, no metal pasties....
Better now ?
Bones: "Don't 'rawr' her!"
Booth: "What? she'rawred' me first."
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