Gender On Television: It's Like Feminism Never Happened

[aradia22]

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It's the The Rules of Misogyny

2. Women saying no to men is a hate crime.

4. Women’s opinions are violence against men, thus male violence against women is justified.

7. Women should always be grateful to men for everything.

9. Men always know the “real reasons” for everything women do and say.

11. Whatever women suffer from, it is worse when it happens to men.

12. Women’s ability to recognize male behavior patterns is misandry.

14. Women have all the rights they need: The right to remain silent.

16. Everyone owns and controls women’s bodies except the women themselves.

Oof. I felt these particularly hard. Just all the problematic tropes and internet arguments wrapped in a ball.

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For whatever reason society has decided that women can wear pants as casual or businesswear, but a fancy formal affair still requires a dress unless the woman in question is trying to make a point about her sexuality.

I'm not sure this is true. It tends to happen on more "stylish" shows but I've definitely seen some fancy pantsuits and jumpsuits and those billowy sorts of palazzo pants in TV and movies for formal parties and dinners. It did make me think about the opposite, of how lawyers and "businesswomen" are so often depicted with a suit jacket and a skirt. It does reflect societal choices (which of course are subject to external pressures and not entirely personal choice) but I'd be curious to know how much input there is from the costume department or the network that the characters still appear "feminine" and attractive to the presumed male viewer. If doctors didn't wear scrubs and lab coats, I feel like they'd try to get the female characters in short skirts as well and heels as well.  

[aradia22]

Dark thought: The resolution of a lot of these mean girl plots is to topple the mean girl not just because the characters need to learn to be good people and whatever but because in real life, women rarely hold the kinds of positions of leadership at the top of the social hierarchy that mean girls do in high school. Part of that story of growing up is toppling the girl from a position of power. Adult mean girls generally don't have "real" power. They tend to be like clique-ish suburban moms or the other woman who is the foil to the protagonist. They're primarily defined as wives and mothers or else they're grappling with the same systems that might oppress the heroine but the plot gives us the distraction of two women fighting with each other rather than dealing with the bigger power structures that make them fight for a small piece of the pie or battle over the affections of this one man. 

[possibilities]

I agree that the media tends to want to turn everything into UST, but for anyone looking for a rare exception, "Elementary" had Sherlock and Watson (Watson is a woman in this version) stay out of the romantic zone and remain best friends and business partners. 

"All Rise" currently has two of the main characters being a male and female best friend duo, and the show seems pretty committed to no romantic interest between them. They keep showing us that the woman has a happy marriage and that the man is dating other women.

 

[aradia22]

https://thedissolve.com/features/exposition/618-were-losing-all-our-strong-female-characters-to-tr/

[Danielg342]

3 hours ago, possibilities said:

I agree that the media tends to want to turn everything into UST, but for anyone looking for a rare exception, "Elementary" had Sherlock and Watson (Watson is a woman in this version) stay out of the romantic zone and remain best friends and business partners. 

"All Rise" currently has two of the main characters being a male and female best friend duo, and the show seems pretty committed to no romantic interest between them. They keep showing us that the woman has a happy marriage and that the man is dating other women.

 

Elementary is a funny case, since that's one of the few shows where I could have actually believed the two leads could end up together (unlike other shows like The Mentalist where I couldn't buy the two leads as a romantic couple). Lucy Liu and Jonny Lee Miller had great chemistry and even behaved like a married couple at times, so it wasn't a stretch for me to think they would actually get married at some point.

It wouldn't surprise me if the writers wanted to do Sherlock+Joan only for Lucy Liu to nix the idea. Liu is one of the few actresses who still have star power and thus some pull, so I bet she had a say in where her character went.

As for All Rise, I don't watch that show so I can't comment on the leads' chemistry, but I will say it's in its first season. My cynicism tells me that the deeper the show goes, the more likely the writers will contrive things to get the two leads together. Castle went several seasons before pairing the two leads, and The Mentalist waited until its seventh and final season before pairing the leads. Then there's JJ and Reid in Criminal Minds, who built a wonderful, deep and joyous platonic relationship for 14 seasons (JJ even marrying someone else) and...in the Season 14 finale JJ declared that she always loved Reid (romantically) and Reid spent the better part of the first two episodes wondering "what if I had a chance at marrying JJ?" before his mother told him to move on.

So yeah...give writers enough time and, perhaps, enough desperation to save the show and eventually the male and female lead wind up together or have unresolved sexual tension. Having the two leads simply be great friends and have it stay that way is the true rarity.

2 hours ago, aradia22 said:

https://thedissolve.com/features/exposition/618-were-losing-all-our-strong-female-characters-to-tr/

I blame this phenomenon on meddling Hollywood producers. I'm very certain that there are a lot of writers who come up with these great scripts and great stories only for a Hollywood producer, thinking only of the bottom line, to force changes because the TV show or the movie is not "diverse enough", even when it would make no sense for the story to have diversity. So the writer goes back to the script, adds in some bit characters to give the script the appearance of diversity, and the producer accepts it.

It used to be just a "token" appearance sufficed with Hollywood producers, but in their persistent struggle to appear "woke" and "progressive", producers started demanding that the characters don't appear stereotypical and that they have "big roles". So now you have these characters that, while looming large in the story and constantly on the screen, they hardly do much except spout a few lines of encouragement or be comic relief (especially if this character is black).

As it pertains to women, female characters have a better track record than most "minority" characters since they are often essential to the legendary love stories we like to tell. So even before Hollywood was "woke", we always had female characters because audiences still loved a good love story, and so did the writers. However, this meant that female characters did nothing except be love interests or damsels in distress, so the thought of a female character that did more than play second fiddle to a man was as rare as other minority characters.

So I don't find it surprising that, despite Hollywood's "wokeness", they are still having problems writing female characters who are actually good- because Hollywood writers still don't know how to effectively write for any character that isn't a heterosexual, white, vaguely Christian, male.

[Trini]

3 hours ago, aradia22 said:

https://thedissolve.com/features/exposition/618-were-losing-all-our-strong-female-characters-to-tr/

I disagree with the author's take on several of those characters that are used as examples; but I can't really get into it at the moment. (Also this is movies not TV.) Her main point seems to be that "strong female characters" have admirable characteristics but are generally or ultimately useless; and I think she's wrong with several of her examples.

[Danielg342]

1 hour ago, Trini said:

I disagree with the author's take on several of those characters that are used as examples; but I can't really get into it at the moment. (Also this is movies not TV.) Her main point seems to be that "strong female characters" have admirable characteristics but are generally or ultimately useless; and I think she's wrong with several of her examples.

Relating that article to TV, I think the best example of the kind of character the author talks about- The Ostensibly Strong But Ultimately Useless Female Character- would be Gotham's Fish Mooney. She was presented as a strong, cunning criminal magnate who was supposed to be one of the City of Gotham's top criminal overlords, and she even got into a storyline where she took down the Dollmaker's operation and where she tried to topple Carmine Falcone as the top criminal in the city. Jada Pinkett-Smith's overacting aside, the writers did a pretty good job at creating a Fish character who was actually smart and looked like she could be a capable character who could accomplish a lot of things.

...but...

What did she accomplish? Nothing. The Dollmaker plot didn't wind up meaning anything in the show's actual narrative, and Fish's attempted power play ended up in her humiliating defeat. Worse, Fish really only seemed to be there as a plot device to explain The Penguin's ultimate rise to the top of Gotham's criminal underworld.

In short, we have a character that appeared to be strong and formidable but, when it came time to actually deliver, she was weak and ineffectual. It's a bit of a theme for the other female characters in Gotham as well, since I can't think of any other female characters on Gotham who, when push came to shove, actually did anything to affect the overarching narrative. The closest we got was Sofia Falcone with her stunning ability to play both Jim Gordon and The Penguin at the same time and appearing to be poised to be Gotham's top player...but then she was unceremoniously dumped halfway through the season just so the show could bring back The Joker Jerome for the umpteenth time.

So, if you want better examples for what the article is talking about...Gotham is a good place to start.

[possibilities]

By contrast, Batwoman has both a fully realized female hero and a fully realized female villain AND, if you count other characters, they also have a fully realized "normal" (but awesome) woman in the sort of sidekick category, namely Batwoman's half-sister Mary.

All these women are powerful, vulnerable, heroic, sometimes fail, sometimes succeed, they are complex, they drive the narrative, and they pass the Bechdel test every single episode.

Edited February 10, 2020 by possibilities

[Trini]

3 hours ago, possibilities said:

All these women are powerful, vulnerable, heroic, sometimes fail, sometimes succeed, they are complex, they drive the narrative, and they pass the Bechdel test every single episode.

I'd say this applies to Supergirl as well, though it hasn't been perfect throughout it's five seasons.

[Stats Queen]

3 hours ago, Trini said:

I'd say this applies to Supergirl as well, though it hasn't been perfect throughout it's five seasons.

I can’t voice an opinion over this because I stopped watching Supergirl because it was focused more on a political agenda than an actual script.

I really don’t care what political angle it is (mine or not mine) I don’t watch shows like Supergirl for yet more political rants.

[Danielg342]

2 hours ago, Stats Queen said:

I can’t voice an opinion over this because I stopped watching Supergirl because it was focused more on a political agenda than an actual script.

I really don’t care what political angle it is (mine or not mine) I don’t watch shows like Supergirl for yet more political rants.

I think that's a problem that a lot of female-driven shows or movies have- unless you have female characters that are more male fantasy than realistic (Stumptown, I'm looking at you), you have a show that tries way too hard to make sure it has all the "feminist street cred" it can get. Here, I'm not talking about actual feminism, because I think the idea that women deserve the same rights, respect and opportunities as men do should be practically universal. I'm also not going to rail against female characters who have actual agency in their stories and are at least decently well-rounded, because that's just good character writing to begin with.

No, the problem is that the "feminism" these shows promote are the worst kinds of Internet "laptop feminism" that you can find. The shows are all about "GRRL POWER!" and "smashing the patriarchy" and "not being for the male gaze" and "being all about empowerment" and making sure they don't just pass the Bechdel test but downright ace it. Watching these shows, you don't feel like you're watching anything except what some high schooler's poorly thought out "feminist utopia" looks like.

It's bad enough when this feeling overpowers a show that's actually good, like Jessica Jones. What's worse is that, more often than not, these "straw feminist" shows are the kinds of shows that misogynists use to justify the downright nonsensical idea that a female-driven show cannot work, as, more often than not, these "straw feminist" shows are simply poor quality.

I mean, not only are the male characters on these shows typically poorly drawn characters that are either one-dimensional or simply fall into feminist stereotypes of men, the female characters on a straw feminist show are just as weak. This is because the straw feminist fears too much that any weakness given to their female characters would ruin them completely, so you wind up with female characters that are essentially Mary Sues since their struggles don't feel real and the character is constructed with the writer trying way too hard to get the audience to like or sympathize with them.

In short, it seems like writers have almost no idea how to write female characters.

Well, here's a start:

• The Golden Rule of Character Creation- create your character like you're creating a story. Your character needs to have a conflict or a struggle that she needs to overcome- otherwise, she's just not interesting. Easy example is a short girl trying to make it as a basketball player- it can be done, but it's much harder for someone who's short versus someone who is tall.
• Keep It Simple, Stupid- Your character does not need to have one million skills or one million faults to be interesting. Start by establishing a base via the Golden Rule (understanding what your character's story is going to be) and expand from there. You'll find that as you write for your character and keep on writing for your character, her skills and faults will come more easily- because then you have a better idea of who she is.
• Make sure your characters behave via a consistent internal logic- In other words, everything that happens in a story, you need to be able to explain why it happened that way, and have it make sense. You also need to make sure that the other characters in your story react to what your main character does that's consistent with how those characters would react. If you've got a "by-the-books" boss and a rebel main character, the first time the rebel steps out of line the boss should be telling her "shape up, or else". The boss shouldn't accept her behaviour unless he's got a good reason to do so (for example, she's proven to be a great detective).
• Don't write a propaganda or a fantasy piece- While I'm not suggesting that art shouldn't make political or social points- art should and it always should- you can't go too far with the point you're making because you'll just turn people off. If your audience feels "preached to", they'll just tune out. I realize this can be quite a subjective point, but the easiest way to avoid a propaganda piece is to simply write a good story where the audience gets invested in the struggle to make that political point.
• Keep it real- This goes with the internal logic point but it's also be the second most important point about storytelling- you need to make sure that settings and people work the way your audience expects them to work. What do I mean? If you're at the beach, you can have lots of men and women wearing next to nothing or even nothing at all (if the setting allows it) because that's what happens at a beach. Conversely, if you're at a courtroom or a high-powered business meeting, your characters should wear more formal attire. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses in physical combat- there's no such thing as "the perfect fighter". Finally, cars can only go so fast, people can only go so fast, planes can only go so fast, the laws of physics and time are what they are, etc.

Anyway, I think it's the first and the last two points that trip up most writers, and that last point seems to get ignored by a lot of "woke" producers (not just the straw feminist kind). I've already seen quite a few times on network television beach scenes where the characters are all dressed like they should be at the office, which makes no sense at all. I mean, I get that producers don't want to "oversexualize" their shows but it goes beyond ridiculous to have a setting where you'd expect clothing to be minimal- and the audience would reasonably expect it to be so- but the scene depicts anything but. I'd like to think by 2020 we can see a woman in a bikini on a beach and not think anything of it, but, what do I know?

[aradia22]

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What's worse is that, more often than not, these "straw feminist" shows are the kinds of shows that misogynists use to justify the downright nonsensical idea that a female-driven show cannot work, as, more often than not, these "straw feminist" shows are simply poor quality.

My issue is not representation or fixing issues with the male gaze. It's just that so many of these shows are self-conscious and awkward about performing feminism. And I can feel it. They're not looking critically at the ways in which they are succeeding or failing to represent their female characters in a positive, fully human light and accounting for true intersectionality. They just want points for showing men being sexist and for characters delivering speeches about how hard it is to be a woman and awkward lectures to the audience. Their understanding of feminism is just as shallow as that of the detractors of feminism. Where a show gets preachy, I think it's performative instead of actually woke. 

Examples in recent memory: Agent Carter, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, GLOW (to some extent, though it's better than the others)

[Jack Shaftoe]

14 minutes ago, aradia22 said:

They just want points for showing men being sexist and for characters delivering speeches about how hard it is to be a woman and awkward lectures to the audience.

The Witcher is a recent example of that - both Yennefer and Calanthe delivered extremely clumsy speeches about how hard it is to be a woman in that world - despite both doing pretty much what they wanted and having more freedom than almost any man (or woman). Calanthe ranting about arranged marriages as if the marriage in question would have been any less arranged if her heir were a man rather than a woman was particularly silly. The show could have easily showed us women in actual trouble that men don't experience or experience far less often than women but instead gave us these speeches.

As an older example, I remember how Buffy the Vampire Slayer became far less feminist when the characters started making whole speeches about "girl power". Ex-boyfriend number 1 and ex-boyfriend number 2 (plus two deus ex machinas) save Buffy from her own stupidity in the finale but the message is somehow "girl power" because Buffy gave a million speeches on the subject?

I will never understand why the proverbial "strong female character" is so often understood by writers to mean "strong in combat", rather than having a strong personality and being a three-dimensional character. No, scratch that - they do it because it's much easier to write a caricature who punches hard than a fully fleshed out character. Why they get away with it so often is what I would like to know.

[Luckylyn]

5 minutes ago, Jack Shaftoe said:

 

I will never understand why the proverbial "strong female character" is so often understood by writers to mean "strong in combat", rather than having a strong personality and being a three-dimensional character. No, scratch that - they do it because it's much easier to write a caricature who punches hard than a fully fleshed out character. Why they get away with it so often is what I would like to know.

I really resent the trope that a woman has to be a physically strong character who can fight to be considered tough.   Other types of strength aren’t valued enough.  A woman can be strong in ways that have nothing to do with physical skill.  

Also I don’t think a woman has to be tough to be interesting.  I just want dynamic female characters with depth.  I want them to be who they are not who they represent.   

[angora]

When it comes to the male gaze, costuming and situation obviously play a part in this: females wearing tight-fitting/low-cut/"sexy" clothing in scenarios that don't call for it, obvious attempts to "glam up" female characters in a way that male characters aren't. How often in spy shows do we get a montage of a MALE spy getting dressed for a mission and then doing a slow-mo sexy walk into the room where their target is? Scrubs once played with that trope in an episode where JD was imagining his life as a four-camera sitcom - all the male doctors wore usual their scrubs, but the female characters' scrubs were suddenly a lot tighter and more low-cut, and their scrub bottoms were skirts instead of pants.

But a lot of it is also the camera. A beautiful female character can be costumed in an attractive/sexy way, but if the camera's not attaching itself to her ass or crawling lasciviously up her legs, the overall affect is very different. It's a movie, not a TV show, but Wonder Woman is the first example that comes to mind for me. Gal Gadot is obviously gorgeous, and Diana's outfit shows plenty of skin, but the camera isn't panting over her the whole film. It's showing a powerful, determined (and, yes, beautiful) woman on a mission and getting the job done. The camera keeps her framed as the subject of the story rather than turning her into an object. To me, that's often the biggest difference, more so than what the character is actually wearing.

[Ohiopirate02]

1 hour ago, angora said:

When it comes to the male gaze, costuming and situation obviously play a part in this: females wearing tight-fitting/low-cut/"sexy" clothing in scenarios that don't call for it, obvious attempts to "glam up" female characters in a way that male characters aren't. How often in spy shows do we get a montage of a MALE spy getting dressed for a mission and then doing a slow-mo sexy walk into the room where their target is? Scrubs once played with that trope in an episode where JD was imagining his life as a four-camera sitcom - all the male doctors wore usual their scrubs, but the female characters' scrubs were suddenly a lot tighter and more low-cut, and their scrub bottoms were skirts instead of pants.

But a lot of it is also the camera. A beautiful female character can be costumed in an attractive/sexy way, but if the camera's not attaching itself to her ass or crawling lasciviously up her legs, the overall affect is very different. It's a movie, not a TV show, but Wonder Woman is the first example that comes to mind for me. Gal Gadot is obviously gorgeous, and Diana's outfit shows plenty of skin, but the camera isn't panting over her the whole film. It's showing a powerful, determined (and, yes, beautiful) woman on a mission and getting the job done. The camera keeps her framed as the subject of the story rather than turning her into an object. To me, that's often the biggest difference, more so than what the character is actually wearing.

I agree with this.  One thing that always bothers me with tv shows and movies obviously written and directed by men for men is how often the female actresses hair is hanging down.  I don't know about the rest of my fellow female posters, but I style my hair based on my activities for the day.  I don't spend all of my days with a full blowout, some days call for a ponytail or just my hair styled off of my face.  Also, long flowing hair is a liability when a woman gets into a fight--from impeding vision to giving something for your opponent to grab hold.  But, male directors love long flowing hair so their female actresses are stuck with it.  

[aradia22]

Another big issue with this performative feminism is that it's so focused on individuals. I get that in a story you have to let a few people stand in for the larger collective issues you want to talk about. But when it's poorly written, you come away with the idea that the issues would be solved if you replaced the bad man with a good man or with a woman. And it doesn't address or even acknowledge any of the structural institutional problems. Saying that makes me miss Leverage. The show wasn't always perfect but it had a more big-picture view than a lot of other shows on TV. Yes, there was a bad guy but when you got rid of the bad guy, people still needed to work to change the systems in place that he had created and that incentivized his bad behavior.

As much as I love it, Pose is kind of clumsy. I would say it does both. There are a lot of these instances of characters awkwardly just saying their issues out loud. But the show also acknowledges the larger power structures at play. It's not just like... oh, Patti Lupone's character is so mean or this one hospital treating AIDS patients is poorly funded. 

At the end of the day though, I will take a show that's clumsy and trying over a show that never tries at all. I just get frustrated when shows are very self-congratulatory for doing so little. When the bar is super low, you don't get a cookie for clearing the bar. 

[aradia22]

I think it's different to say where the line is. Sometimes things bother me and sometimes they don't. TV is visual. I like nice hair and makeup and pretty clothes... especially on shows that care about aesthetics like costume dramas. And I get that these days, most actresses are going to be wearing false eyelashes because that's just the standard we've set. An actor really wearing "no makeup" would look sickly. But there's a moment when it's too obvious and it gets distracting. Like, don't put on a full glam lash if it's a police procedural. Don't dress a character for a work or school environment where I start to wonder about the dress code because it's starting to look unprofessional/inappropriate. It's fine if you need to bulk out the hair with some extensions and make it shiny and polished for TV. But stop giving everyone those perfect loose waves, especially if they just woke up or it doesn't make sense for them to have time to fix their hair. 

[DearEvette]

3 hours ago, angora said:

When it comes to the male gaze, costuming and situation obviously play a part in this: females wearing tight-fitting/low-cut/"sexy" clothing in scenarios that don't call for it, obvious attempts to "glam up" female characters in a way that male characters aren't.

This reminds me of a discussion we had on the Sleepy Hollow boards (...a moment of silence to pour one out for what could have been....)

There was a scene where they brought Katrina to the present day and she was a in a hospital and they had to get her modern clothes so they went to the lost and found at the hospital and ...oh look, they just happened to find this sexy lace up corset and skinny jeans!  Like wouldn't it have been smarter/nicer to have found a pair of clean scrubs folded somewhere rather than pawing through a lost and found bin of  pre-worn, unwashed clothes (and who know what else was crawling around in there).  But hey... sexy corset!

And I think one of the male EPs said flat out in an interview he found Lyndie Greenwood a good looking woman or something like that and they wanted to shoot of scene showing her feminine side and lo and behold there was a scene of Jenny in a tiny leather skirt.

Edited February 11, 2020 by DearEvette

[Jack Shaftoe]

2 hours ago, angora said:

But a lot of it is also the camera. A beautiful female character can be costumed in an attractive/sexy way, but if the camera's not attaching itself to her ass or crawling lasciviously up her legs, the overall affect is very different.

Indeed.

I just don't understand the point of the male gaze-y camera, especially on top of everything else. Are there are really many viewers whose thought process is something like this: "Okay, showrunner(s), you cast this gorgeous actress, in your show she wears all kinds of sexy clothes including dangerously high heels and this makes me happy but if the camera stops focusing on her ass or boobs every other minute, I am out"? I am shallow enough have watched some pretty terrible shows primarily because some of the characters were really hot (cough, The Bold Type, cough) but I can't say I have ever thought to myself "Please, can the camera linger on her breasts a lot more? In every scene, if possible?". Maybe there is something wrong with me. 🙂

After all, the actresses are usually so pretty and the make up artists and hair stylists so good in Hollywood that on screen the characters look gorgeous whatever they are wearing. Camera tricks and overuse of sexy costumes feel like overkill, especially in dramatic scenes. A climactic battle rages... let me focus the camera on the protagonist's cleavage (The Witcher again).

[selkie]

6 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I agree with this.  One thing that always bothers me with tv shows and movies obviously written and directed by men for men is how often the female actresses hair is hanging down.  I don't know about the rest of my fellow female posters, but I style my hair based on my activities for the day.  I don't spend all of my days with a full blowout, some days call for a ponytail or just my hair styled off of my face.  Also, long flowing hair is a liability when a woman gets into a fight--from impeding vision to giving something for your opponent to grab hold.  But, male directors love long flowing hair so their female actresses are stuck with it.  

 

On the early seasons Homicide:LOTS, you know things were getting serious when Kay Howard (Melissa Leo) pulled her long hair back into a bun when she was in the field trying to find a witness or suspect. Kay also had the highest percentage of closed murder cases of any homicide detective on the squad. 

And then NBC forced the producers of the show to write her out because Melissa Leo wasn't conventionally pretty enough in the eyes of the network. (H:LOTS always had marginal ratings for renewal so the shows' producers couldn't really push back on that dictate) 

[DearEvette]

40 minutes ago, selkie said:

And then NBC forced the producers of the show to write her out because Melissa Leo wasn't conventionally pretty enough in the eyes of the network.

And to make matters worse they brought on Micheal Michele.  And we all knew why because she is an absolutely gorgeous woman but man, so NOT on brand for H:LOTS.

[Irlandesa]

17 hours ago, selkie said:

And then NBC forced the producers of the show to write her out because Melissa Leo wasn't conventionally pretty enough in the eyes of the network. (H:LOTS always had marginal ratings for renewal so the shows' producers couldn't really push back on that dictate) 

Oh NBC always fiddling to make their cops "sexy."  It reminds me of Life, a cop show starring a pre-Homeland Damian Lewis and Sarah Shahi. In the first season, she didn't wear a ton of makeup, wore job appropriate clothing (even flats, I think) and her hair was often up.  Second season?  They amped up her sexiness. 

On 2/11/2020 at 10:58 AM, Luckylyn said:

I really resent the trope that a woman has to be a physically strong character who can fight to be considered tough.   Other types of strength aren’t valued enough.  A woman can be strong in ways that have nothing to do with physical skill.

I agree.  Although I never got the hoopla that when a woman takes down five bad guys in a fight, people rush to point out how unrealistic that is but if the male star of one of these action shows does it, it's seen as cool and "badass." 

It's all unrealistic so I just like to have fun with the fantasy.

I do also wish more writers would realize that a feminist character on a show doesn't necessarily mean they have to be the strongest or smartest character ever; they just have to be fully formed with an independent agency of their own.

On the other hand, I also wish we could give more credit to the shows that are feminist in this way (the characters have agency and agenda of their own) even when they aren't making the smartest girl power decisions. 

Edited February 12, 2020 by Irlandesa

[Danielg342]

I think the thing that bothers me most about the "male gaze" stuff goes into a wider societal trend as a whole- the feeling that, whatever I enjoy, I can't enjoy it.

I mean, I get that there's been far too many instances where TV shows try their hardest to appease my tastes as a heterosexual male and leave nothing for the rest of you, but I also think going to the extreme and saying "my viewing habits don't matter" isn't going to solve anything.

Maybe it's all in my head, but I get the feeling there's some people who think there never should be a "male fanservice scene" ever again, and I have people who shame me simply because I like looking at scantily-clad pretty women.

A sexy woman isn't the problem. Me liking to look at sexy women isn't a problem either. Nor are shows and movies that may be designed to appeal most to a guy like me.

The problem, as I see it, is when people get forced into things they don't want to do and when producers dismiss what other demographics might want to see. If you're casting a cooking show, you don't need to hire a supermodel (unless she happens to be the best cook you can find).

Perhaps we as a society and a culture are still trying to find that happy medium where I still get to enjoy what I enjoy and everyone else gets their things to enjoy as well. I'd like to think we can have a world where male fantasy stuff can co-exist with other forms of entertainment...because, after all, entertainment should bring us all together, not take us apart.

3 hours ago, Irlandesa said:

On the other hand, I also wish we could give more credit to the shows that are feminist in this way (the characters have agency and agenda of their own) even when they aren't making the smartest girl power decisions. 

There have been only a few times I've seen something unabashedly feminist and thought the show or episode worked very well.

One was the second season of Boston Public. One storyline featured Ronnie Cooke (Jeri Ryan) openly defied a school order to not teach about birth control and getting a prosecutor to drop a statutory rape case by convincing him that she could win a court challenge arguing a 15-year-old girl could give consent. In a more sullen storyline, we also saw Lauren Davis (Jessalyn Gilsig) forced to buy a gun to ward off a stalker that the police and even her school would not take care of. The series in general also told some nice, nuanced stories about student-teacher relationships, drug dealers at school, an incident with a school shooter and featured some real great broken characters. It also had some nonsensical plots...which goes to show that even David E. Kelley lets his imagination get the best of him.

(As an aside, more people may know Ryan as Seven of Nine but I much prefer her as Cooke...maybe because Cooke had a lot more agency than Seven ever did)

The other time was Scandal. Shonda Rimes is another one who lets her imagination get the best of her, but there's no doubt when her shows are on, they're on. Scandal doesn't even try to hide the fact it's a feminist show- Olivia Pope is proud to tell all who'll listen that she is a feminist, and she should be proud. What made Scandal work was that the struggles of Pope and Co. were very real and when they did win, they earned it. Scandal didn't content itself with shallow victories and recycled speeches- they went out there and made Pope fight for everything, and fight she did. Plus, Pope didn't always win nor was she always right- she was a wonderfully flawed character that you didn't just relate to, you rooted for her, and you struggled as she struggled.

If you asked me who the greatest feminist character of all time is, I'd probably say Olivia Pope is. At least when it comes to characters who declare themselves feminist activists and aren't shy about it (though I think Pope is a great character, period).

I want to close by talking a bit about S.W.A.T.- the current incarnation. While that show does have a feminist angle from time to time, as the lone woman on the SWAT team, Christina Alonso (Lina Esco) has had to battle sexism from time to time (though for the most part her department doesn't treat her any differently or view her any differently than the guys on her team), what I really want to highlight is that it understands how to tackle social issues properly.

There was a storyline early in Season 2 where Hondo (Shemar Moore) dealt with a racist cop. It was the old "driving while black" scenario, one that Hondo only got out of because he showed his badge to the racist cop. Later, Hondo visited that cop's police department and eventually gave that cop a piece of his mind- doing that old Hollywood trick of "the magical speech" where the racist or the sexist or the homophobe or whomever "sees the error in their ways" and pledges to correct their behaviour.

Well, guess what? Hondo gave him his speech and the cop told him to buzz off. Sad, yes, and Hondo was predictably angry about it...but it was so refreshing to me as a viewer because that's realistic. Hollywood does it a lot where it thinks some magical speech can make the most vile of humans change their thought patterns when the reality is that stuff never actually works (well, maybe sometimes it can work...but those instances are few and far between).

I bring this up because it goes to the "performative feminism" @aradia22 talked about (great term, by the way). How many times has the performance feminist believed that a speech is all that's needed to get the misogynist to change his mind? It's happened too much and it's patently unrealistic. It also doesn't just happen in "feminist" shows- Elementary did it early in Season 3 where a "magic speech" (albeit one with a threat of violence) was enough to get a police officer accused of sexual assault to quit the force so that his accuser wouldn't have to deal with him at work anymore. If only dealing with sexual assault was that easy.

[Hiyo]

Quote

If you asked me who the greatest feminist character of all time is, I'd probably say Olivia Pope is

You mean it isn't Amanda Woodward? 😉

[DearEvette]

22 hours ago, aradia22 said:

They're not looking critically at the ways in which they are succeeding or failing to represent their female characters in a positive, fully human light and accounting for true intersectionality. They just want points for showing men being sexist and for characters delivering speeches about how hard it is to be a woman and awkward lectures to the audience. Their understanding of feminism is just as shallow as that of the detractors of feminism. Where a show gets preachy, I think it's performative instead of actually woke. 

I love your post.  I love the point in the bolded.

One show that I think does this well in Dear White People.  It is a shame that show is sooo slept on because there are two very good examples of strong, feminist women right in the center of that show.

Sam - with her balls out activism, her unwavering desire to uplift the black race and black women.  She isn't by any means perfect.  She has some glaring flaws and a little soupcon of hypocrisy.  And she benefits from light-skinned privilege that she isn't really aware of, but there is such a core of unwavering conviction inside of her.

And then there is CoCo - now she is a fantastic character and one that I would definitely put in the strong/feminist category.  She is a person who has her eyes on the prize and is self confident even in the face of acknowledging how she is sometimes a victim of misogynoir.  And she (and we)  knows she is often the smartest person in the room.  In season  one  CoCo has decided to hitch her star to Troy.  She sees them as the next Barack and Michelle (except Troy is no Barack).  Troy is the uber handsome son of the Dean who is seen as a shining star and has so much basically handed to him but he is really kinda dim.  There is this great  scene whereTroy kinda makes this dismissive statement toward her and she leaves him after an brief argument.  There is a point where she stands outside his door and there is a look or realization on her face where she knows she's diminished herself by believing she needed him to achieve her goals.  So she kinda squares her shoulders and lifts her head and you get, you really get, that that is the moment she realizes she is her own best asset. 

Edited February 12, 2020 by DearEvette

[MargeGunderson]

14 hours ago, DearEvette said:

And to make matters worse they brought on Micheal Michele.  And we all knew why because she is an absolutely gorgeous woman but man, so NOT on brand for H:LOTS.

And they made her character a beauty pageant winner (Miss Anne Arundel County)! My recent rewatch brought back all my bitterness over the dismissal of Melissa Leo and the hiring of “prettier” women to increase viewership. Didn’t exactly work out for them.

[aradia22]

Quote

I agree.  Although I never got the hoopla that when a woman takes down five bad guys in a fight, people rush to point out how unrealistic that is but if the male star of one of these action shows does it and it's seen as cool and "badass." 

Same. Especially on TV. I can't be the only one to roll my eyes when the male protagonist gets to fight all the bad guys one by one. Not because they're in a tight corridor or anything... just because they all patiently wait until he takes out their friend before they attack. Top notch fight choreography. I appreciate that with a lot of fight choreography for female characters it's about fighting smart... using props and leverage and quickness vs. punching real good. To me, that's way more realistic. 

Quote

Perhaps we as a society and a culture are still trying to find that happy medium where I still get to enjoy what I enjoy and everyone else gets their things to enjoy as well. I'd like to think we can have a world where male fantasy stuff can co-exist with other forms of entertainment...because, after all, entertainment should bring us all together, not take us apart.

It gets complicated. Someone smarter than I am who has done all the film theory study would be better at breaking this down. But even when you don't think it's a big deal, certain kinds of male gaze stuff reprograms your brain. When people complain about objectification, it's not just showing off an attractive actor, male or female, in a way that emphasizes that. There's a kind of de-personalization and de-humanization. An emphasis on body parts. It does bad things to our dumb brains. Even when a male character is shirtless or on screen as eye candy, his body is rarely segmented and chopped up the way female characters' bodies so often are. If anyone is interested, I'd urge you to look up the feminist film theory stuff that breaks this down much better than I can. 

[DearEvette]

2 minutes ago, aradia22 said:

It gets complicated. Someone smarter than I am who has done all the film theory study would be better at breaking this down. But even when you don't think it's a big deal, certain kinds of male gaze stuff reprograms your brain. When people complain about objectification, it's not just showing off an attractive actor, male or female, in a way that emphasizes that. There's a kind of de-personalization and de-humanization. An emphasis on body parts. It does bad things to our dumb brains. Even when a male character is shirtless or on screen as eye candy, his body is rarely segmented and chopped up the way female characters' bodies so often are. If anyone is interested, I'd urge you to look up the feminist film theory stuff that breaks this down much better than I can. 

Yup.  Film theorist Laura Mulvey's famous essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema."  This was actually the essay that brought the term 'male gaze' into the lexicon.  I read this in my very first film theory class and it is a fascinating theory and absolutely made me look at film critically for years.  Mulvey's essay also speaks to your point as  the way film is conceptualized to present women as objects, it does re-program the brain in so far as woman viewers also become complicit in co-opting the male gaze for their own.  She calls it a sort "metaphoric 'transvestism' in which a female viewer might oscillate between a male-coded and a female-coded analytic viewing position."

My intro to film theory film professor taught this essay in conjunction with having us watch Rear Window. 

[Hiyo]

I'm curious to hear what y'all thought about Sydney Bristow now...

[Raja]

40 minutes ago, Hiyo said:

I'm curious to hear what y'all thought about Sydney Bristow now...

All this time later the Image is like Tom Cruise she had a running style. Peppermint was like John Wick, just slower 

[Danielg342]

9 hours ago, aradia22 said:

It gets complicated. Someone smarter than I am who has done all the film theory study would be better at breaking this down. But even when you don't think it's a big deal, certain kinds of male gaze stuff reprograms your brain.

It doesn't have to be, and I flat out reject the idea that a TV show or a movie or a video game or a magazine or a strip club or a restaurant or any kind of display or media can "make" me do something. Or anyone else for that matter.

We all have brains. We should use them.

I'd like to think I'm not the only one who can watch a male fantasy piece or even a rape scene and know that's not how reality works, let alone knowing it's not how I should treat someone else, woman or man.

If you really want to talk about the "de-personalization of women" then you need to go beyond the simple image of "the pretty woman". You have to get into cultural attitudes, cultural expectations, and the societal and historical context of the work, all of which Hollywood's movies and TV shows are a reflection of, not the cause.

We live in a society that still stigmatizes women for being even modestly sexual, but also one that casts women as the "prey" for men to "get". We still have too many people who think that the only reason a man would want to interact with a woman (and vice versa) is so they can eventually have sex with each other. Men still face an inordinate amount of pressure to get "regular sex", with those face constant rejection and persistent loneliness being the butt of jokes, ignoring the psychological impact this has (and no I'm not saying women owe men sex or anything else- just that loneliness can be depressing and that's no laughing matter).

Worse, we still have people who think "if a woman does X, it means she wants sex" even when it's still a leap of logic to assume that (no, being invited into someone's home isn't an invitation for sex). The idea of expressed consent doesn't register with some people.

Of course, then you get those "militant consent" types that assume that any time a man bothers a woman- no matter how innocuous the situation may be and no matter the fact that the incident could have been resolved with a simple apology- the man "must be a monster". No accounting for nuance or variance with these people.

Oh, and lastly, we still live in a society that tells women "they must not approach a man". I could go on a screed about how terrible this idea is- for both men and women- but this rant is long enough.

In short, if you want to talk about solving issues between women and men, we should start with making sure our interactions and our expressions are healthy ones. Banning "male fantasy pieces" does nothing, especially when how men and women view each other is still problematic.

10 hours ago, DearEvette said:

Laura Mulvey's famous essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema."

I read this essay and while I could spend a lot of time picking it apart (I disagree with it on many levels), I recognize it's a product of its time and the points she makes are more relevant then than they are now. In 1973, the idea that women could work and be active members of society was still, by and large, a new concept, so challenging filmmakers to create films that could appeal to women was something that very much needed to be done and maybe in the most radical of ways.

Today, I think most people get the idea that the male demographic isn't the only demographic that producers should look to please- TV shows and movies meant for "wide release" should appeal to as many different kinds of people as possible. They just don't know how to accomplish that task yet.

[Luckylyn]

The Bad Boy Trope

 

 

[andromeda331]

14 hours ago, Luckylyn said:

The Bad Boy Trope

 

 

I saw that yesterday it was pretty good. I like them pointing out that "bad boys" only exist in tv and movies not in real life. In real life the "bad boy" are well bad, criminal and general abusive and love doesn't fix or change them. 

[shireenbamfatheon]

On 2/9/2020 at 12:27 PM, Danielg342 said:

I'll never understand it. The thought that a man and a woman could just want to be friends and nothing more than friends, doesn't ever resonate with Hollywood writers. Or that sexual attraction and chemistry isn't always about looks (in fact, there are times when looks don't play that big a factor at all). Or that a man and a woman can't have a normal conversation or compliment or even just say "hello" to each other without there being "ulterior motives".

Nope- every male-female interaction has to be about sex in some way. No way around it.

 

 

Unless one of the main pair's a POC, typically if it's the male character, in which case it's typically "they're platonic soulmates" no matter how much sexual chemistry they have.

Edited March 27, 2020 by shireenbamfatheon

[Raja]

54 minutes ago, shireenbamfatheon said:

Unless one of the main pair's a POC, typically if it's the male character, in which case it's typically "they're platonic soulmates" no matter how much sexual chemistry they have.

Not anymore you would be challenged to find any person of color with a mate of the same race in 2020.

[magicdog]

18 hours ago, Raja said:

Not anymore you would be challenged to find any person of color with a mate of the same race in 2020.

You haven't seen a lot of commercials have you?

Every other ad I see shows a white woman with a husband/boyfriend of color (though I caught an ad for Lexus last Christmas that showed a white man getting his Christmas dream gift, while his black wife and daughter cheer him on).

[Raja]

26 minutes ago, magicdog said:

You haven't seen a lot of commercials have you?

Every other ad I see shows a white woman with a husband/boyfriend of color (though I caught an ad for Lexus last Christmas that showed a white man getting his Christmas dream gift, while his black wife and daughter cheer him on).

I guess you quoted the wrong one  but I agree. I remember the first ad about over a decade ago it was Microsoft with a young interracial, black male couple in soft clothes with Apple represented by two older white folks in a suit. Then a few years later advertisers went through the same with same sex couples. 

One feature of this 2020 TV season was such that even upthread I asked if someone had seen a new same race Black couple. I think a supporting couple on the Unicorn was one of the few I remember that was identified.

[possibilities]

All Rise's main character is Black and she's married to a Black man. But hubby is rarely on screen.

grown-ish has had Zoey in a long-term boomeranging triangle with two different Black guys, and there have been other all-Black couples on that show, too. They're all college students and they've actually made it a plot point that one of the other Black characters is dating a white guy, which breaks her rule of only dating Black guys. She thought he was light-skinned when she first started seeing him, and then she liked him and wanted to continue but it was a big fraught deal.

Malika on Good Trouble is dating a Black guy. I just remembered that one. I wonder if it varies by network, because GT and g-ish are both on Freeform, IIRC.

I'm not disputing the point, though, that there are not a lot of POC same-race couples on tv right now, especially among leads. It's a bit ridiculous.

I think Dr Andrews on The Good Doctor is married to a Black woman, and they had a storyline in a previous season, but it was blink and you'd miss it, and I can't even remember her name. So that hardly even counts.

Terry on Brooklyn Nine-Nine has a Black wife, but she's only really turned up a few times, and is mostly only mentioned in passing.

ETA: Black Lightning! BL himself and his wife are both Black. And one of their daughters has been in love with a Black kid her age since the show began, though it's got issues because the show keeps killing him, reviving him, making him evil, etc. But it's true lurve in the starcrossed superhero universe, fwiw.

Edited March 29, 2020 by possibilities
remembered additional example

[Spartan Girl]

So I mentioned how the Better Call Saul forum that for all the people that claim how Kim is a "corrected" version of Skyler White, Skyler at least wasn't addicted to a toxic relationship, because unlike Kim, Skyler didn't waste time trying to "save" Walt because she knew Walt was beyond that.

Imagine my shock when I immediately got a response that called Skyler a control freak that never let Walt "have his own way." Just kidding -- I wasn't that shocked.

[kathyk2]

Why is that hothead Eliot Stabler getting his own show and not the awesome Alexandra Eames? Eliot's temper should have gotten him fired decades ago. I'll never understand why it's ok for men to lose their tempers and not women. 

[Zella]

45 minutes ago, kathyk2 said:

Why is that hothead Eliot Stabler getting his own show and not the awesome Alexandra Eames? Eliot's temper should have gotten him fired decades ago. I'll never understand why it's ok for men to lose their tempers and not women. 

My friend and I always called him The Unstabler. I always loathed the character and agree he should have been fired. I really liked Eames. 😞 

[Spartan Girl]

So you guys remember the Buffy episode when Giles drugged her on orders on the Council so that she'd be powerless facing that crazy vampire to see if she was good enough to be a Slayer?

Yeah, that was really fucked up, wasn't it?

And really hypocritical, considering how he'd raked her over the coals earlier that season for hiding Angel. Whether his anger at her was justified is irrelevant, because drugging her without her knowledge and consent? That was A MILLION TIMES WORSE. And even when he admits what he did and she rips him a new one, he's never called out on that little detail.

Yes he was "following orders" but he still knew it was wrong yet did it anyway. And if I recall, he didn't actually tell her until the crazy vampire had escaped.

But after all that Giles is eventually forgiven because the fact that he told her, defying the Council's orders, is proof that he loves her like a daughter. 

Um, okay. But that doesn't make it any less fucked up.

So it really does feel like every male on that show was an asshole, a hypocrite, a toxic Nice Guy, or a thinly veiled metaphor for how "wrong" Buffy's sexual urges were. And yet somehow we were all supposed to sympathize with them, no matter what shitty things they did because Buffy was either too "emotional" to make good decisions or "not emotional enough" and "pushed everyone away."

Bite me, Whedon.

[Anduin]

2 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

So you guys remember the Buffy episode when Giles drugged her on orders on the Council so that she'd be powerless facing that crazy vampire to see if she was good enough to be a Slayer?

Yeah, that was really fucked up, wasn't it?

Bite me, Whedon.

It's amazing. The show was beloved at the time, but re-evaluations over the years really haven't been kind. For many years I thought that Whedon meant what he said about being a feminist, only he was a little behind the times and too narrow in his focus of what feminism is. But nowdays I'm rather less convinced.

Remember how a couple of years ago word of a remake appeared, and everyone recoiled in horror? Nowdays the concept isn't looking quite so terrible.

[Hiyo]

Quote

The show was beloved at the time, but re-evaluations over the years really haven't been kind.

Is this regards to the show's feminist standing, or the quality of the show overall?

[Spartan Girl]

27 minutes ago, Hiyo said:

Is this regards to the show's feminist standing, or the quality of the show overall?

Both. Definitely both.

[Anduin]

 

7 hours ago, Hiyo said:

Is this regards to the show's feminist standing, or the quality of the show overall?

The two are connected. If its feminist standing is lacking, that drags every aspect downwards.

[Hiyo]

I dunno. I still feel like a good chunk of the mainstream still holds the show in high regard.

Just as an example, The Guardian last September had it on it's list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century...

[Spartan Girl]

On 4/11/2020 at 6:07 PM, Hiyo said:

I dunno. I still feel like a good chunk of the mainstream still holds the show in high regard.

Just as an example, The Guardian last September had it on it's list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century...

Feh. Doesn't make it true, everyone's always going to have their own opinion.

I often wonder how much better Buffy could have been had it been in the hands of someone like Patty Jenkins. You can bet if she had written it, characters Xander would have been kicked to the curb a LONG time ago.

I really would have it if Buffy and Willow had shown solidarity with Anya and shared her anger at him leaving her at the altar instead of the usual "We can't hate Xander, he just feels soooo bad" bullshit, which was just a thinly veiled excuse for "Xander's been our friend longer, but we're not really taking sides!" JMO.

[Hiyo]

Quote

Feh. Doesn't make it true, everyone's always going to have their own opinion.

Well, obviously, everyone has their own opinions. But that wasn't the point. Just that if you go by mainstream views, Buffy's legacy, with regards to feminism and as a show overall, hasn't undergone that much of a revision, more often than not.