sqbr | Annoying sexism and Joss Whedon

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

Wasn't Xena gay?

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

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

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?

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.

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!

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.

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.

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'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 ...

Thanks for the links to The Hathor Legacy! :)

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

Don't forget Selene. :)

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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!).

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

Wasn't Xena gay?

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.

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

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

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?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Here from metafandom

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

here via metafandom

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject