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Annoying sexism and Joss Whedon
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.
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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)