Dear DS9,

I am quite enjoying this same-sex relationship/marriage commentary episode. It's fun. And, thus far, actually good. And I love that the taboo isn't the same-sex aspect but, instead, the "Trills that knew one another" aspect.

I'd appreciate it a lot more, though, if your 'verse had same-sex relationships in the first place. Cop-outs are annoying. Even if you were written over a decade ago.

Grumbling and--WAIT, WHY DOES KIRA HAVE PURPLE HAIR IN THIS SCENE, IS IT THE LIGHTING OR IS IT ACTUALLY HER HAIR, YES I HAVE THE ATTENTION SPAN OF A RABBIT

-Me

You know, I actually enjoyed that. I mean, despite the sexism, as that's always there, but still.

( What I liked )

( What I liked... not so much )

In conclusion, Moffat can write, and write well. I just wish he wasn't like so many other male writers in that his writing is also really damn sexist.

Y'all remember that film blog I did last semester? Well guess what I'm doing again!

So, for your reading pleasure, here be the first installment:

Black Swan and the Hazards of Female Autonomy

In many ways, Aronfsky’s award-winning Black Swan is a film about femininity and repressed womanhood. Following the struggles of Nina Sayers, played by Natalie Portman, to master the lead role in Swan Lake, Black Swan focuses on the pressure on women not only to reach perfection but to be perfect. In this respect the film’s message is clear. This pressure is destructive, leading to ( Huge spoiler ).

When it comes to more nuanced notions of gender and repression, however, Black Swan becomes much more thematically murky. For purposes of this post, I will focus on the issues of female adulthood, independence, and sexuality in our protagonist, Nina. Through its depiction of her journey to self-destruction, Black Swan delivers the clear message that a free woman is a dangerous woman, perhaps less miserable than the trapped girl but certainly more devastating.

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( The primary female influence on Nina is her mother, Erica Sayers, played by Barbara Hershey... )

I clearly did not cover everything there was to cover re: gender in Black Swan or even everything to do with female sexuality here, partially due to time and word constraints and partially due to focus. This essay is about what it means to grow up a woman in the world of this film, and it's neither a pleasant nor positive experience.

I definitely think there is more to be said about female homosexuality/bisexuality and motherhood, though, and I find the way Nina's mom is both this twisted figure and the moral voice of the film a bit... odd, if not downright disturbing, though I haven't quite untangled my own thoughts there yet. I also think I could delve more into the idea of male (sexual?) ownership and its arbitrariness (see: "my little princess") and I'm sad I didn't get to explore the significance of Beth's character and Nina's quest for perfection and unhealthy self-policing more. Of course this leads us into the mental illness angle, which I just don't feel competent enough to cover.

So... yeah. It's a good movie. Obviously has its issues (still wtf'ing over Aronfsky's quote, ngl) but I'd recommend it. Definite trigger warning for mental illness, self-injury, sexual harassment/assault, and body horror though.

Girls and boys, and the daddy who got away

(A special thanks to wemblee for proofreading these and keeping me sane. <3)

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved her father very much. One sad day, her father went away never to return, leaving behind a very sad little girl who grew up into a very brave, very smart young woman who never stopped her missing her daddy. One day she stumbles into a strange new world and, in a quest for independence, a quest chasing after her father, she discovers him only to lose him again, and only to discover herself. In the end, she returns home.

This is the story, and it is repeated over and over again. Interestingly, two recent uses of this storyline occur in the Syfy channel’s Alice miniseries and Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (AiW) film, both adaptations of Lewis Carrol’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Although sexuality and Alice’s father barely figure in the original novels (if at all), they become vital components of both modern works, resulting in a female adulthood that revolves around a choice between men.

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( Syfy's 'Alice' can be considered a sequel to and modern reimagining of the original story. )

A/N: Another recent film that followed this storyline was Repo! The Genetic Opera. In this film, mother becomes even more repressive, with Shilo's home a literal tomb for Marnie, as well as a prison for Shilo. Meanwhile, her father is the gatekeeper to the outside world, and she has to lose him to become her own person and fully enter it herself. (There's even a song about it. It's not exactly subtle.)

That said, it's actually unique and, well, feminist in that she does not end up tied to a man at the end. Rather, the men she was torn between (Rotti and Nathan, two father figures) are dead, and the closest thing we have to a love interest (GraveRobber) doesn't even play a part, except to tell the viewer the story. Shilo is now her own person, rather than her own person + 1.

Now, Repo! is in no way actually feminist (e.g. 1 deleted scene sexualizes a female addict sleeping with her dealer for drugs), so I guess this goes to show you that you can't rely on just one framework to analyze any particular work.

This summer, I wrote for a film blog at my school. The entries don't go up until this Fall, though, so I thought I'd cross-post them here.

So here we have it, everyone. Part 1 of salienne Rants About Gender in the Media:

Also, a special thanks to wemblee for proofreading these and keeping me sane. <3


Women in Television: Lovers, Mothers, and… Oh.

The depiction of women in television tends to be problematic, to say the least. This is true from ensemble shows to one-character shows, from comedy to science-fiction. For purposes of brevity, I’m going to focus on three particular shows, each with a different format, topic, and genre: Stargate: Atlantis, House, and Fringe. These shows demonstrate not only the continued dominance of male characters but also the limits of gender presentation in television, especially as it relates to women.

( For those of us who don’t frequent the SyFy Channel, Stargate: Atlantis (SGA) is a fairly good example of how science-fiction shows tend to treat women. )

So, what can we learn from these three shows, which, while certainly not representative of television as a whole, do demonstrate much of the breadth of female characters? For one, while still underrepresented, women do have a substantial presence on television. Slowly but surely, their interests and positions in structures of power seem to be increasing beyond loving, caring, and mothering.

That said, women’s characters remain anchored by “feminine” characteristics. Women remain love interests, nurturers, mothers first. And while there is nothing wrong with any particular woman having such characterization, the problem comes in when that is the extent of women’s representation. When men are always more interesting. When men have a greater breadth of things they can do, do do, are allowed to do.

Such inequality not only reinforces outdated stereotypes but it is also stale and boring. It leads to predictable plotlines, predictable television. And with the amount of television out there, who really wants to sit down and watch the same old thing over and over again?

A quote from Comic-Con:

"It's the cost of making Cpt Jack a hero. He has to suffer: he has to go through that in order to be the hero." said Gardner.

Or, from a slightly more spoiler-y source:

( Obvious Day 4 Spoilers are Obvious )

...There are so many ways I could respond to that: about degrees of suffering, or different types of heroes, or how cost generally has some relation to the degree of the reward, about selfishness and selflessness, about what exactly a reward or a hero is, about how life isn't fair on any count (good or bad), or just on why exactly "a hero must suffer" to the extremes we get in CoE.

I'm just gonna watch "Out of Time" (just in case we need a reminder that Jack wasn't exactly a happy little ray of sunshine before CoE) and write fix-it instead.

If any of you guys haven't read the recent RTD interviews about the end of Day 4, they can be found here and here. (Obviously spoilery)

Now, the first interview, I have absolutely no problem with. I mean, the "poetry" comment is weird (since when is poetry happy? *boggles*), and the Supernatural comment came off pretty badly, but...

The SPN thing was a good-natured joke (although not exactly in the best taste); I can understand him being annoyed by allegations of ( implied spoilers ) and... he's a writer who made a successful drama. Millions of people not only enjoyed it but, judging by the AIs, loved it, and he pulled people's heartstrings, just like he wanted.

RTD believes in what he wrote and why he wrote it, and he isn't about to let a few thousand people out of millions (a distinct minority) change his opinion. After what happened to Moran, I'm sure he's pretty annoyed by certain members of fandom too. And I think that's okay.

The second interview, on the other hand...

( Spoilers for Day 4, and a 'shipper' who is NOT just a slash fangirl's rant )

And on a completely unrelated but just as irritating note, I just watched a House episode where the gay couple's baby dies and the nice heterosexual couple's baby lives, even though both were ill and the former's baby got sick later.

Oi.

On the bright side of things, I go to England in two months, and I've managed to go to the gym 3 days in a row. w007

Now, I've heard about the utter vitriol aimed at (and written to) James Moran, I've heard about the death threats, I've heard RTD referred to as a "self-hating gay", and... really? I mean, really?

Yes, there might have been plot points in Children of Earth that I/you/she/he/that walrus down the hall might not agree with, but personal attacks? Not cool, guys, and they reinforce everything negative about fandom as a whole or ( implied spoilers ) in particular. RTD and James Moran and John Fay wrote a story, they didn't kill your puppy. It's all right to be upset, angry even. It's all right to say all the mean things you want to friends or on AIM or on the phone; goodness knows I did watching Days 4 and 5.

But going after the writers in question is not the way to go about things. Personal attacks placed in public journals or, worse, the writers' own blogs is not the way to go about things. It's unnecessarily hostile and just completely out of line.

I realize people are hurt and angry about ( major spoiler ) or what happens to Jack. I get it. I'm not exactly a happy little butterfly myself. But this behavior is unacceptable, and really only going to do more harm than good.

( That said, my thoughts on why I am NOT a fan of the end of 'Children of Earth' )

And on another note, check out the macros here if you're wondering about Martha and CoE. Minor spoilers, but it's hilarious.

I really really want to see what comes right before and after this scene. I mean, I know ( Spoilers! )

Also, GRAVEROBBER HITTING ON SHILO IS CREEPY. He's, like, double her age. And smells like dead things. (That said, I'd do him in an instant, but that's totally beside the point.) Maybe he finds people poking corpses with needles hot? Either that or he's impressed by the "night light" idea and that's his way of saying, good job, now please get me down? Or, you know, he just wants into her pants.

All I can say about L.A. Without a Map is, what the hell was that?!

Although in a good way.

Bizarrely enough, in a good way.

Like... I still don't know what the point was or why it exists (although I suspect there is commentary on film-making and love in there), but I do know that I was laughing throughout, David Tennant as Richard is adorable (and completely and utterly bonkers), and David Tennant and Johnny Depp have great chemistry mixed with the strangest scenes imaginable. Like, I can't even ship it, because every single moment with them was like a weird drug trip where you're one step behind reality and can't quite catch up.

The movie was a bit like that overall, actually.

Still, I sort of love it, mainly for DT and the sheer hilarity factor (and Johnny Depp! There was David Tennant and Johnny Depp and they ate fried chicken in a graveyard!).

You guys should watch. You'd appreciate it. And maybe someone would get it and explain what the hell just happened to me.

(Yeah, the characters in my mood icon? Doctor all confused and stunned, Rose and Sarah Jane giggling madly? That's me right now.)

ETA: I think this might be one of those rare rare rare times when I'd go for RPF. Of Johnny Depp/David Tennant in which they spend half of it trying to figure out what on earth is happening in this film.