Annoying sexism and Joss Whedon

[sqbr]

Reading through the latest Feminist sf carnival I hit some links which made me go "yes! That! Grr!". So I thought I would share the joy :)

Joss Whedon and feminist cookies Makes the point that one can (and should) acknowledge the effort of feminist writers like Joss Whedon..while still calling them on their mistakes. And oh, does he make some mistakes. Also, this comment captures some of the dodginess of the "Women corrupted by power" archetype.

On a similar subject Firefly: The Trouble With Saffron, on the fact that having a sweet innocent female victim of abuse who has pity taken on her turn out to be an evil sexy seductress is, uh, kind of creepy, especially given that it's done so often. I think there's a subtext to the "Turn a victimised group who 'everyone cares about' into the villain" thing which plays on the fact that deep down people don't want to sympathise with victims, and get annoyed at having to care about them, so get a real sense of catharsis from having them turn out to have been evil all along.

It got me thinking about the sheer absurd fetishisation of the "Woman who becomes evil automatically starts dressing an acting more sexily" thing. I'm not saying that women can't use sexuality to gain power, or that being sexy is inherently bad (or good) But it's just one way to be powerful, and it plays both into the "woman + sex=evil" trope and the "Women exist to serve men" trope (since she is titillating the male viewers rather than doing what makes sense for the character) It's way overdone in Supernatural, I'd love to see an evil female character who is genuinely gross (like, a zombie or something(*)) do the whole "creepy touching" thing (in order to deliberately creep the guy out, not in a failed attempt to be sexy), then it would be actually creepy rather than a thinly veiled excuse for men to despise the women they're attracted to. And why can't a woman be aggressively sexy and dressed in leather and not evil? Actually, I guess that was Xena. Yay Xena :) EDIT: Yeah, ok, so there's MANY counterexamples to this :)

EDIT: Oh hey, metafandom :) Man, I really didn't put much thought into this post, and now I have to justify my dodgy arguments with a fuzzy brain...All disclaimers are in operation!

(*)Except I hate zombies. Hmm.

Comments

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

What I find interesting is that aggressive female sexuality is 'acceptable', but aggressive male sexuality is not. Or, to put it another way: it's possible for a female hero to 'go bad', seduce or rape male characters, then 'snap out of it' and return to being a hero; a male character who 'goes bad' and rapes a female character generally becomes a villain forever.

There's a lot of weird double-standards when it comes to sexuality, of which the costume thing is an obvious one. They do swing both ways, though: While the overt sexualisation of female characters reduces them to sex objects and two-dimensional femme fatales, they're very rarely presented as genuinely 'evil'... their promiscuity makes them 'bad girls', but that 'badness' is presented as erotic and alluring. Male characters, by comparison, are almost never permitted to be overtly sexual, and when their sexuality does manifest, it is usually portrayed as threatening and aggressive. Both sexes lose out: Women get the message that they must be sexually aggressive to gain power, but that female sexual power is something that should be rightfully 'tamed' by a man, and men get the message that their sexuality is horrifying and evil. Win-win!

Conclusion: genre fiction tends to treat human sexuality in a very shallow, repetitive and negative manner? The real WTF is that people are still surprised by this. :P

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

This sounds a lot like my comic book rants, but with big words. Also without any Nightwing. :P

Also examples of aggressively sexy women, dressed in leather, I don't know if she actually wore leather but Aeryn Sun in Farscape springs to mind. And whatever her character was in Starscape/Fargate.

You can't have ugly women in television (except for maybe comedies or comedic characters, like the black lawyer women in Bones).

[distantcam.livejournal.com]

Wasn't Xena gay?

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Depends on which season and episode you're watching.
:-)

[melberon.livejournal.com]

Power is sexy, so evil powerful psycopath women are especially so?

(NB. being somewhat, but not completely, facetious here.)

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah but then they shouldn't need the leather etc, the power should be sexy enough by itself :)

[col-ki.livejournal.com]

The linked between "going bad" and becoming more sexual is also somethimes used as a shorthand for more reserved male heroes.

In Superman 3, for example, when Supes is "turned evil" by red kryptonite he gets very sexual and dominating with women. I seem to recall the same thing in Smallville.

I'm trying to remember, doesn't Angel also manifest more attractive clothing and stronger sexuality when he turns into Angelus?

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

There is certainly a link with Angel - after all, the Angel -> Angelus transformation, while initially ambiguous, is purely a sex thing. Angelus is certainly more confident and charismatic than Angel, but as far as having a stronger sexuality, there's not a lot of examples I can recall... he's focused on drama and violence, and any sexual encounters have their motivation in psychological warfare rather than desire. Angel is, however, a good example of a male hero who goes 'bad', including sexually, and then returns to being a hero (even if he has to work a lot harder at it).

[infamyanonymous.livejournal.com]

When I think of corrupt powerful woman and Whedon, I automatically think of Lilah from Angel. Not that Stephanie Romanov isn't attractive, but she's not dripping in leather and makeup.

I'd love to see an evil female character who is genuinely gross (like, a zombie or something(*)) do the whole "creepy touching" thing

Isn't this the traditional crone stereotype? The evil witch, corrupted by her own power, thinks she can titilate the 'hero'?
Also, lol Spn and sexual stereotypes. I mean, wow, lol.

[alias_sqbr]

Good point about Lilah. Joss Whedon isn't bad all the time :) Though, while not generally set up as a sex object for the viewer she is definitely a fairly sexually aggressive person ie with Wesley, and this is set up as a deliberate contrast to Fred.

Isn't this the traditional crone stereotype? The evil witch, corrupted by her own power, thinks she can titilate the 'hero'?

Yeah, I hadn't really thought it through. Though I meant a woman who enjoyed grossing people out, but I think that's been done too.

[grahame.livejournal.com]

At some point you've just got to say that people like looking at pretty people. No television show is going to get very far having ugly women (or men) in great numbers just to be PC. I guess you do have a point with the whole she-gets-hotter-as-she-gets-evil thing, but she-gets-uglier-as-she-gets-evil wouldn't really have worked!

You do have the whole GELF pus-monster in Red Dwarf thing though!

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, yeah, I'm not railing against the fact all women on tv are generally pretty(*), but there's pretty and then there's being explicitly sexualised into a particular cliche. I mean as with any cliche there are some evil women who, while still tv-pretty, aren't bad-girl sexualized: Lilah from Angel (mostly), Evil!Wendy from the Middleman, um...Anyway, that's not the same as putting on a leather corset and seducing the hero, you know?

(*)Though I think there could be more unpretty ones, there's plenty of unpretty men, even if the average is still pretty far above normal

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

I think there is also a certain logic to the 'easiest-path' idea: it is much easier for the average evil male character to get what he wants through physical intimidation or violence, and much easier for the average evil female character to get what she wants through sexual manipulation.

I think the problem comes in when sexual manipulation is presented as the only option for evil women, as is suggested by the prevalence of the sexy 'bad girl' archetype. I can see it being a useful tool in any bad girl's arsenal, but it's not the be-all and end-all that one-trick ponies like Saffron present.

The 'evil power as multiple orgasms' trope takes it another step further. I think it would be hilarious to see it applied to a male character.

[alias_sqbr]

I think the problem comes in when sexual manipulation is presented as the only option for evil women, as is suggested by the prevalence of the sexy 'bad girl' archetype. I can see it being a useful tool in any bad girl's arsenal, but it's not the be-all and end-all that one-trick ponies like Saffron present.

Yes, exactly.

The 'evil power as multiple orgasms' trope takes it another step further. I think it would be hilarious to see it applied to a male character.

Heh. Sounds like a plot for gross out parody film or something :)

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

It's worth noting that Xena started out not only as an evil character in Hercules, but an evil character who explicitly used sex for evil purposes; she seduced Iolaus to turn him against Hercules.

However, Xena, the heroine, was still sexy, still dressed in (differently-designed) leather armour, and was still known to use the power of her sexuality for her new, non-evil ends. Also, there were a number of other sexy female characters who were good, and one of the major sexy evil women - Callisto - explicitly did *not* use sexuality, to the extent of warning a henchman that if he fell in love with her... she'd have to kill him.

She did bang Ares while she was in Xena's body, but I suspect she did that more because she knew it would piss Xena off.

Xena was pretty awesome, for the first two seasons.

[alias_sqbr]

Mm, a nice example of a cliche being initially played straight and then going somewhere interesting.

I tried with Xena, but it was too cheesy for me. Maybe I should give it another go someday.

[i-palimpsest.livejournal.com]

I don't think you can say that sex=evil is an issue with characters though. It's exactly the same way with Male characters. In this as in nothing else male and female must be close to equal.

I mean look at Angel. The signal he was Angelus was - Leather pants!

[i-palimpsest.livejournal.com]

Plus evil boys are just HOT. . . like Jareth in Labyrinth.


The bad guys always get the best lines.

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

I've always thought Joss Whedon made enough "mistakes" as a "feminist" that the phrase "feminists writers like Joss Whedon" doesn't really sit too well with me. But then I think I've mentioned my view of "feminism" traduced to "hot chicks who kick ass" before ...

[alias_sqbr]

I have a fairly broad definition of feminist: if someone self identifies as one, makes some effort to help the feminist cause, and isn't SUPER sexist, then I count them as one. Otherwise it all gets very dogmatic and "All true scotsman"y.

[jenniferkesler.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links to The Hathor Legacy! :)

[alias_sqbr]

Thanks for the awesome essay! I'm pretty sure yours took more work :)

[last-archangel.livejournal.com]

And why can't a woman be aggressively sexy and dressed in leather and not evil?

Don't forget Selene. :)

[alias_sqbr]

She is a vampire though, they're a special case :)

[uncledark.livejournal.com]

"Turn a victimised group who 'everyone cares about' into the villain" thing which plays on the fact that deep down people don't want to sympathise with victims

Honestly, I think it's less this (at least in the minds of the creators) than the fact that it's easier for a put-upon innocent to sucker the protagonists into lowering their guard. In the specific case of Saffron, it's clear that this is a scam she has run more than once because acting all helpless makes folk underestimate her.

In a similar vein, the "evil women dress sexy" is only partly about titilating viewers (and it isn't just male viewers. I have a number of female friends [queer or not] who like seeing the female characters dress up all sexy), but also as a visual cue that the character is willing to trangress boundaries for purely self-centered reasons.

Consider also that it's not just the evil women who get to dress up. How short were most of Fred's skirts on Angel? Why is it that plunging necklines seem to be part of the CSI lab tech dress code?

What's interesting here is not that female characters with power dress sexy, but how that sexiness is coded related to their moral stance. When a good woman is dressed in power-sex leathers, it's either done ironically or as a disguse.

In addition to Xena and Aeryn Sun, you'll want to add Emma Peel, Trinity, occassionally Buffy Summers, some versions of Catwoman, and two-thirds of all super-heroines to the list of strong, agressive, heroic women in sexy leather.

[alias_sqbr]

Hmm. I agree those things come into it too, it's one of those messy situations where there's good and bad reasons for things being done the way they are, and it's often a matter of opinion where any individual instance lies on the continuum. I'm not sure I can articulate quite how I disagree with you so I'll have to leave it at that :)

Good point on the good girls in leather thing though. Hmm. (I didn't put a lot of thought into this post and was figuring out what I thought as I went along, these comments have been good food for thought)

Here from metafandom

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Huh. Xena was always skirting the edge of her "dark side", though. She was primarily good throughout the series, but she struggled to control her evilness. Just a thought on that.

Personally, I think Joss made an effort at giving us some feminist shows. He definitely presented us with some truly wonderful and strong female characters, which you'd be hard-pressed to find elsewhere. However, he wasn't perfect, and he fell into a lot of standard genre (and TV) traps. How many uber-short skirts did Buffy wear in the first couple seasons? How often was female sexuality shown to be a bad thing? I appreciate Joss for what he attempted to do and what he succeeded in doing, despite the flaws. He did better than most other shows.

Re: Here from metafandom

[alias_sqbr]

Oh yes, as I kind of said with the first link: the fact he does dodgy stuff doesn't mean he's automatically an all-around evil sexist, he does some pretty good stuff too, and is definitely better than average. But the average is pretty bad :)

[msilverstar]

Martha on Doctor Who gets to wear leathers sometimes, and she kicks ass quite nicely.

Zoe in Firefly, despite being the sidekick, is the best one I can think of. She is strong and wears leather and has the only really rational head in the place and avoids most stereotypes and has an inner live and a love life... Bloody shame it is so rare.

[alias_sqbr]

That's true. I have a tendency to make broad generalisations and not think of all the counterexamples, and then everyone is all "What about blah" and I feel silly :) Though Zoe's leather is more practical-cowboy/warrior than sex-fetish.

[blackjackrocket.livejournal.com]

I wonder how this will effect views of my original work. I have the primary villian--a woman--wearing outfits that show off her body. She does this because she knows she's insanely hot (and she is, which is funny because she's one of those people who's not particularly attractive, but is HOT) and she's all about showing herself off in every way (not just her body but her power). And she also sleeps with two guys over the course of the series, two years apart and both shown in flashback. I wonder if people will equate the two situations because honestly that's not what I'm going for.

[alias_sqbr]

Well, I don't think sleeping with two guys over 4 years is all that promiscuous :)

But yes, it is interesting and a bit worrying writing a story which ends up skirting certain cliches and tropes without that being the primary intention. I realised with horror recently that one of my characters is, on paper, a cliched "male character in fantasy written by women": he's had an angsty past, is stuck in a (matriarchal!) society that doesn't respect him, has supernatural powers, and is charming and attractive but still has lots of enemies since he refuses to fit in. But there's more to him than that, and I try to both avoid and poke at the common cliches (and poke fun at him, which doesn't usually happen if they're a sympathetic main character)

So I guess the trick is to question the usual assumptions and only apply them when they really do fit the character. Good writing can rescue even the most tired or problematic situation. I've recently been reading a lot of Octavia Butler, and she has a lot of situations like that, ie Fledgeling, the story of a 50 year old vampire who looks like a small child and is cheerfully sexual. I mean, it was creepy, but not weird anime creepy :)

[seriousfic.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean, to the point of writing a novel whose whole point was to kinda... subvert the good-girl/bad-girl paradigm. It's not perfect, but I think it's at least interesting, or more interesting than the traditional Bond movie relationship. The villain is this child soldier turned killing machine who actually becomes more comfortable with her sexuality as she turns to the good side (but changes right out of her "bikini top and daisy dukes" and into Kevlar when it's ass-kicking time), the hero she falls in love with is the one making all the sexually aggressive double entrendres, and the entire "turn to the Dark Side" trope isn't about tying him to a chair and straddling him while she talks about how good it feels to be baaaad, it's about arguing philosophy and morality and there's only one small "if you were on our side, we could be together" line to get across the subtext.

Plus, car chases!

Oh, and does Emma Frost/Black Cat/She-Hulk count? Emma Frost and Black Cat (or Catwoman, to get right down to it) used to be villains, but all three characters are aggressive, do-gooders, and own their sexuality.

[alias_sqbr]

Oh, and does Emma Frost/Black Cat/She-Hulk count? Emma Frost and Black Cat (or Catwoman, to get right down to it) used to be villains, but all three characters are aggressive, do-gooders, and own their sexuality.

I haven't encountered those characters, so..maybe :) It is interesting that the leather etc is a hold-over from a past as a villain, though.

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

I'm just posting here to say how much I love Xena. And the best thing about her, at times she was sexual, but for most of the time, she was just downright powerful - and portrayed in a way where she didn't use her sexuality to achieve results (with a few exceptions, and that was with Hercules, so meh).

[alias_sqbr]

You know, I really think I'm going to give Xena a go :)

here via metafandom

[mikou.livejournal.com]

And why can't a woman be aggressively sexy and dressed in leather and not evil?

How about Trinity from The Matrix? And then there is Sarah Connor and Alias' Sydney.

I do agree with you, however, about how absurd the cliche is. It's lazy storytelling and it usually leaves me feeling cheated.

Re: here via metafandom

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Sarah Connor's an interesting case in both cinema and TV versions because while there's undoubtedly an aesthetic appeal to her she's depicted as sexy in a way more associated with male action stars for a female audience than vice-versa. The strength and competence is assumed to be part of the hotness and the clothing is practical and "coincidentally" sexy (tight jeans, sleeveless vest to show off muscly arms) rather than near-lingerie or fetishwear.

[fourthwave.livejournal.com]

Just thought I'd drop by and say a quick thanks from The Hathor Legacy (http://thehathorlegacy.com) for the link. Really compelling post (and awesome comments-section discussion!).

[alias_sqbr]

You're welcome, thanks for the awesome site :)

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

What I find interesting is that aggressive female sexuality is 'acceptable', but aggressive male sexuality is not. Or, to put it another way: it's possible for a female hero to 'go bad', seduce or rape male characters, then 'snap out of it' and return to being a hero; a male character who 'goes bad' and rapes a female character generally becomes a villain forever.

There's a lot of weird double-standards when it comes to sexuality, of which the costume thing is an obvious one. They do swing both ways, though: While the overt sexualisation of female characters reduces them to sex objects and two-dimensional femme fatales, they're very rarely presented as genuinely 'evil'... their promiscuity makes them 'bad girls', but that 'badness' is presented as erotic and alluring. Male characters, by comparison, are almost never permitted to be overtly sexual, and when their sexuality does manifest, it is usually portrayed as threatening and aggressive. Both sexes lose out: Women get the message that they must be sexually aggressive to gain power, but that female sexual power is something that should be rightfully 'tamed' by a man, and men get the message that their sexuality is horrifying and evil. Win-win!

Conclusion: genre fiction tends to treat human sexuality in a very shallow, repetitive and negative manner? The real WTF is that people are still surprised by this. :P

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

This sounds a lot like my comic book rants, but with big words. Also without any Nightwing. :P

Also examples of aggressively sexy women, dressed in leather, I don't know if she actually wore leather but Aeryn Sun in Farscape springs to mind. And whatever her character was in Starscape/Fargate.

You can't have ugly women in television (except for maybe comedies or comedic characters, like the black lawyer women in Bones).

[distantcam.livejournal.com]

Wasn't Xena gay?

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Depends on which season and episode you're watching.
:-)

[malfeasanceses.livejournal.com]

I think there's a subtext to the "Turn a victimised group who 'everyone cares about' into the villain" thing which plays on the fact that deep down people don't want to sympathise with victims, and get annoyed at having to care about them, so get a real sense of catharsis from having them turn out to have been evil all along.

I think you're right, and that's very well said.

[alias_sqbr]

Thankyou :)

[melberon.livejournal.com]

Power is sexy, so evil powerful psycopath women are especially so?

(NB. being somewhat, but not completely, facetious here.)

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah but then they shouldn't need the leather etc, the power should be sexy enough by itself :)

[col-ki.livejournal.com]

The linked between "going bad" and becoming more sexual is also somethimes used as a shorthand for more reserved male heroes.

In Superman 3, for example, when Supes is "turned evil" by red kryptonite he gets very sexual and dominating with women. I seem to recall the same thing in Smallville.

I'm trying to remember, doesn't Angel also manifest more attractive clothing and stronger sexuality when he turns into Angelus?

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

There is certainly a link with Angel - after all, the Angel -> Angelus transformation, while initially ambiguous, is purely a sex thing. Angelus is certainly more confident and charismatic than Angel, but as far as having a stronger sexuality, there's not a lot of examples I can recall... he's focused on drama and violence, and any sexual encounters have their motivation in psychological warfare rather than desire. Angel is, however, a good example of a male hero who goes 'bad', including sexually, and then returns to being a hero (even if he has to work a lot harder at it).