salienne

Rewatching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, I don't know whether to be horrified at the gender politics of the show or...

Actually, no, that's about the only option there.

Sad part is, I'm still not sure how much "better" mainstream sci-fi has really gotten. There seem to be more (and more interesting) women, but condescending man = romance and lolmisogyny still seem fairly prevalent.

In other news, I just made soup. I may have overcooked it somewhat, but eh, I am proud of Never-Cooks-Ever Me.

In which I film blog it up one final time.

Women in Television: Lovers, Mothers, and... Oh. Take 2.

As I wrote last semester, Fox's Fringe is a sci-fi procedural following the investigations of the FBI Fringe unit. Made up of Special Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), a half-mad scientist named Walter Bishop (John Noble), and Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson), Walter’s genius son with a history of petty crime, the Fringe team look into crimes of the strange and fantastic. Essentially, picture a quirkier X-Files, with parallel universes rather than aliens. Each of the three seasons has thus far twisted the show in an intriguing new direction, but while season 2 seemed to be where the show found its rhythm and established Olivia as a complex character and independent agent, season 3 has since fallen into tired and unoriginal gendered tropes.

( While by no means a feminist utopia, seasons 1 and 2 of Fringe establish Olivia as a pivotal actor. )

ngl, this season of Fringe has been so monumentally disappointing I don't even know what to do with it. I mean, there was always this undercurrent of "Olivia is a WOMAN," but the complete reduction of her character to that one trait is such lazy writing. I'm a shipper for just about every canon pairing ever, and this season lost even me. If it weren't for the straight-up-sci-fi fangirl in me, I would've abandoned ship long ago.

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?

Oz=Made of Win.

Really crack!y, unhealthy, messed up win, yes, but win nevertheless. Just... as a writer, how do you manage to pull together so many plotlines and characters? Good plotlines and characters, that are insanely complex and awesome?

Though I am wishing I hadn't watched all those Keller/Beecher scenes beforehand. It pulls me out of the show, and it's all so much better in context. (And no, I'm not just watching it for the boys kissing. If I were, I would be sorely disappointed/disturbed.)

Now to go to sleep and wish that I didn't know the end to that cliffhanger because of me and my spoiler-peeking.

(Also, the fact that a good quarter of the cast of Oz is in Law and Order? So amusing.)

( Exit Wounds Thoughts..... dhpoaiehrponaebiuhsguihd!!!! )


...I'm gonna go be shell-shocked for a while longer now. And think about how DW is starting back up. And I might just need to be seasons 1 and 2 of Torchwood now.

Well, after a hella long time waiting, I just saw the last episode of "Miracles" (the show was canceled because people are so stupid; it was a really good show).

Now, my problem:

As an episode, "Paul is Dead" gets 9.5/10 (.5 deducted because of a lack of real answers and because the actress can't actually cry). This was an AWESOME episode, with great plot, great moments, great character relations, etc. etc.

But as a season finale, much less a SERIES finale, it gets a 6/10 (7/20 if we're just looking at it as a season finale, as we should've been). We get no real answers, though it looks like we might, and the "mythology", using X-Files terminology, just goes around in circles. There is NOTHING new here, and I called the ending during the first 10 minutes of the ep (though the episode obviously wanted you to, but still).

Bah... I would like this episode so much better if it were a real ending, or at LEAST gave us something new besides the final shot of the sheet...

Stupid canceling people.