just thinking

[rusty_halo]

So aside from being massively amused by a stupid kerfuffle, I've been thinking about why I so rarely find female characters appealing.

Clearly, I am a self-hating misogynist... oh, wait... actually...

I think it boils down to the fact that I sense a falseness in the way the vast majority of female characters are written. These women aren't like me. They don't think the way I do, they don't act the way I act, their concerns and priorities and behaviors are completely uninteresting and irrelevant to me.

Maybe it's because they are usually written by men, and so they end up being filtered through this idealizing/objectifying/simplifying gaze. Fred, for example. She's perfect and brilliant and damaged, so every man adores her and wants to take care of her. How lame.

Or maybe it's because I'm just not a typical woman. I live on my own in NYC, with no interest in marriage and very little interest in men; I have no interest in children; my emphasis is on career; I don't give a fuck about fashion... etc. I was always that lone girl in the advanced math class full of boys.... the third grader who was off in the corner reading Star Wars novels instead of gossiping about who was dating whom... you know.

I remember when "My So Called Life" came out, and everyone was saying "OMG finally they've perfectly captured the actual teenage female experience." Um, no. That sure as hell was not my teenage female experience.

I don't care about fashion, or motherhood, or sisterhood, or lipstick, or shoes, or the mall, or fitting in, or ... whatever it is that these TV women tend to prioritize. Buffy wanting to be prom queen, or whatever it was? WHY DO YOU CARE? Or Sex in the City--it's not about individuality, it's about expensive shoes. I never gave a crap about that stuff... it boils down to conformity and consumerism, and I got over that when I was ten.

Women worried about being a mother, or finding a man--it seems like the priority of every TV woman is to find a man. I'm SO not interested in that typical woman's role, romance and motherhood and whatever. Buffy secretly fantasizing about "Wind Beneath My Wings" playing at her wedding, Angel leaving her because he couldn't give her children.... it's all irrelvant to me. Live your own life, stop worrying about fitting into this preordained social role. (Not to insult the women who DO want that--but I don't, and would like to see some fictional women who feel the same as I do [and aren't evil].) The thing that annoyed me the most about Buffy was her obsession with being "normal." She would've HATED being normal; it would've suppressed everything that made her unique and gave her strength; yet she never managed to get over this ridiculous obsession with being exactly like everyone else.

And sense of humor. Why can't a woman be strong AND funny? Why do the female heroes have to be so dour and miserable and serious all the time? Strong men can be dark and funny at the same time. Strong women are just written to be boring. Wolverine gets the cute one-liners. Storm and Jean Grey never stop being serious. (In the movies; never read the comics.)

And female characters are so rarely allowed to embrace their darkness. Male characters can be dark and fucked up and it can be a continuing story without a nice little wrap-up. Female characters who go dark have to feel all guilty and apologetic. Wesley could go dark and he never had to cry about how guilty he felt for being a "bad boy" (a phrase that has such a different connotation than "bad girl"). Buffy, OTOH, had to be all sad and guilt-ridden and repentent; she had to apologize to XANDER because she slept with Spike (??!!!), she didn't even seem to ENJOY her dark period, despite all the hot Spikesex. Willow's darkness was a joke; all she had to do was cry and say it wasn't really her, and all was forgiven. A male character could've gone SO MUCH DARKER and had such a much more interesting story--if they had done that with Willow, gone REALLY dark, that story would've been a million times better.

Fictional men are so much more often allowed to exist as fully realized characters, as compared to fictional women who are so often defined by their gender role. You don't see nearly as many male characters who are entirely defined by the fact that they want a relationship and children. You don't see male characters so obsessed with fashion and conformity and consumerism. They're allowed to exist as characters with their own uniqueness and their own agendas, their own ideas and positions that aren't ABOUT pre-ordained social roles based on gender.

I would LOVE to embrace more female characters, but there are so few of them out there that interest me. I liked Faith: she had a genuine darkness, an actual sense of humor, and her story arc wasn't ABOUT gender; she could've been a male character and it would have been just as good. I liked Anya because she was independent and funny, but she never got over her Xander obsession and the writers barely developed her. I liked early Cordelia, before she turned into a saint, because she had no shame and she was both smart and FUNNY. I liked Lilah, because she kicked ass and was dark and smart and funny, but of course she had to die. I like Chloe on Smallville, because she's smart, has a sense of humor, and has actual career ambitions; she isn't just obsessed with boys/clothes/self-pity. I liked Kyra on Star Trek DS9, if you want to go back farther. I liked Princess Leia in the first Star Wars movie, and was really annoyed when she just turned into an object for Han and Luke to squabble over. I like Danaerys Targaryen in A Song of Ice and Fire, who is learning to be strong and powerful and who consistently rejects traditional female roles in pursuit of what she believes is right. (I have issues with the whole destiny thing, but that's another topic.)

There are no female characters LIKE ME on TV. People who prize personal ethics and independence above fashion and conformity. People who don't give a fuck what society thinks of them. (Notice how all the goth chicks on TV are dismissed as crazy evil sex fiends? Women who embrace unconventional social roles always have to be demonized.) You find male characters like this, with whom I tend to indentify--Spike before he wussed out; Jaime Lannister in the Song of Ice and Fire book series; Wolverine in the X-Men movies; Methos on Highlander. Not that these guys are all perfect, but I relate to them much more than I do to the boring conformists on "Sex and the City."

Or it could just be that I'm a woman-hating misogynist. :P

Comments

[villagechick.livejournal.com]

Amen to the women in the Buffyverse stuff. I can't remember if you were a farscape fan. If not, I think Ayern would have rocked your world.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :)

Everyone keeps telling me I have to watch Farscape. I've never seen it, but I would like to.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Farscape's Aeryn just totally rocked. She had a dark past (she had been an assassin for a militaristic society who had done really bad things in the name of promotion). She got labelled as "contaminated" and outcast from her society. As she lived apart from it, she began to realize just how twisted the value-system was in the society she had lived. (I love the confrontation she had with her commanding officer at the end of Season 1 where she tells him that he had cost "everything" only for her to realize that everything she'd had "hadn't been worth a damn." Aeryn could be sarcastic, cold, wrong, heroic, and utterly heartbreaking. She really is one of the great heroines as far as I'm concerned.

[carolyn-claire.livejournal.com]

Very thoughty, interesting stuff. I know some people I should point this out to.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :)

I actually posted about something fandom related. Go me!

[snippy-kitty.livejournal.com]

Buffy, OTOH, had to be all sad and guilt-ridden and repentent; she had to apologize to XANDER because she slept with Spike (??!!!),

I could never quite forgive the writers for that bit. I was watching re-runs on FX and there was that episode post-Riley where Anya and Xander are in bed discussing Buffy's track record in relationships. And Xander makes the remark about her failed relationships piling up. WTF? Pot calling kettle black much?

She's perfect and brilliant and damaged, so every man adores her and wants to take care of her. How lame.

You are forgetting her adorable geeky glasses which indicate that she is indeed a bonafide SCIENTIST!

The thing that annoyed me the most about Buffy was her obsession with being "normal."

I think she finally got over it. We just were never given a chance to see it.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

And Xander makes the remark about her failed relationships piling up. WTF? Pot calling kettle black much?

Oh, god, I know. Not to mention that it was perfectly okay for Xander to date a former demon who'd unrepentantly killed men for a THOUSAND YEARS, while it was vile and repulsive and WRONG for Buffy to date someone who'd done the same for a much shorter period of time.

Because, y'know, Buffy's just a weak little woman who needs Big Strong Xander to tell her how to live her sexual life? How would he feel if Buffy told him to stop dating Anya? I recall Willow trying the same in Triangle (out of jealousy, not moral indignation) and he didn't take it so well.

And the writers acted like this was OKAY, that Xander's judgment of Buffy was acceptable, that she did need to apologize to him... (!!!???)

And there's why I don't watch Lost--David Fury still repulses me.

You are forgetting her adorable geeky glasses which indicate that she is indeed a bonafide SCIENTIST!

Oh for god's sake. It was such a transparent attempt to create an "adorable" character. That's like a recipe for a Mary Sue.

I think she finally got over it. We just were never given a chance to see it.

Er... do you have any evidence for that? Last I recall she was marching off talking about shoes and the mall, happy at her upcoming change at (ONCE AGAIN OMG SHUT UP) normalcy.

[harmonyfb.livejournal.com]

Fred, for example. She's perfect and brilliant and damaged, so every man adores her and wants to take care of her. How lame.

Or maybe it's because I'm just not a typical woman

Nah, cause I hated Fred, too. And don't get me started on my "Sex and the Shallow City" rant. Women like that are what's wrong with America, dammit.

Dunno, though - I never looked to identify with characters in movies or television or books. I guess the strongest female association I had growing up was in the ultimate boy's story - "The Lord of the Rings". When Galadriel gives her speech about how "all will love me, and despair", I got goosebumps. Strong, wise, tempered...but the story wasn't about her.

Now? ::blink:: I wouldn't expect there to be a female character like me on television - I'm not exactly mainstream. Of the female characters I like (though I don't identify with), I'd name Rita Sue Dreyfuss on Carnivale (with her unashamed sexuality and her sweet if dysfunctional marriage), the protagonist from Medium, who has a good marriage but a less-than-perfect home life and is prone to self-doubt, Lilah, natch, because she is the Queen Bitch, Zhaan and Chiana on Farscape - the priestess who still fights against her violent nature but is practical enough to be violent when called for and the nonconformist con woman who can fuck or fight her way out of anything, and continually makes bad choices...of course, I don't watch much television, so my choices are pretty limited.

And apparently I miss all the kerfluffles...cause I have no clue what you're on about. :)

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess what I mean by "identify" is that I want a character I can respect. Someone who at least shares my ideals--individuality, nonconformity, someone with a critical eye toward social norms who can be herself regardless of what anyone else thinks.

Men who are critical toward social norms are cool and iconoclastic ... women who are critical toward social norms are sluts and hos and freaks who have to be punished. (Total generalization, but that's what I'm talking about ... the general tendencies of mainstream American culture.)

I don't necessarily identify with all the female characters that I like. Early Cordelia, for example, really annoyed me with the blind conformity thing--but I loved that she was honest and spoke her mind. Maybe, like I said, it's more a matter of female characters I can respect, and whose priorities aren't foreign to me.

I've sort of given up television, actually. I feel increasingly out of sync with mainstream American culture. All I watch is the Daily Show and occasional movies.

Oh, man, the kerfuffle is hilarious--especially because the post that started it was so incredibly innocuous. Check it out, follow the links, read the posts:
http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/615637.html

[lumenara.livejournal.com]

In that case, yeah, you'd love Chiana. Watch Farscape. Really.

[ww1614.livejournal.com]

I totally get what you're saying. The thing is, there are often *aspects* of characters I like. I like Veronica's desire for revenge and her smart way of going about it, but I don't get why she cares for a second about getting her old life back. Or, I do get it, but I don't relate to it. (I have a whole gender and noir thing I'm trying to work out in my head. :)

I'm sitting here tryign to think of characters that are more like *me* (and I *am* a mom and in a relationship!) and I still have trouble with it. Maybe Lynette on Desperate Housewives, but also not. I woner if Patricia Arquette's character in Medium might be more like it.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

I guess it's evidence of my alienation from mainstream culture that I have no clue about any of the characters you reference. :P

I think that women are usually written first as women, then as characters ... whereas men are just written as characters. So you end up with a lot of female characters who are hard for real women to relate to, because most of us are human beings first... not so defined by our genders.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Personally, I tend to be equal opportunity male/female like in characters. It's just that looking at it, I realized that most of the female characters I've really loved have originated in the often female written genre of soap operas.

Growing up I really liked liked Anne Heche's "Vicki Hudson" on Another World. She schemed. She fought. She threatened to expose her mother's affair. She decided to take Jaime from "good girl" Lisa and did. When the affair went sour and he wanted custody of their child she fought back. She threatened to kill her ex-lover, and you believed her. She was the "evil" twin who impersonated her "good" twin, for that twin's own good. She was, in short, fun.

Equally, I loved rock-n-roll bitch Alicia Copola's Lorna Devon (also on the Donna Swajeski penned era of Another World). She dressed in black leather, wore long earrings. Stole good-boy Matt from good-girl Jenna. Discovered that her "worst enemy" (Jenna's mother) was actually her birth mother. Was hated by her biological father, but it was she who found him bleeding to death (he was murdered) on her living room floor and cradled him in her arms as he died (fantastic plot/heartwrenching scene btw.) And she had to drag her new-found mother into an intervention when "good girl" Jenna was of no use when their grieving mother slipped into alcoholism. Lorna rocked and I just adored the character.

I also find that I still love All My Children's nutcase Kendall Hart (all the better now that she's not played by Sarah Michelle Gellar any longer).

But, I suppose that really is a very female genre and far more likely to be penned by women. Prime-time it's far more difficult to find a female heroine of worth. In fact I can only think of two male written, prime-time female characters I've really loved -- Dana Scully and Aeryn Sun. Both of those women could kick butt and carry their own weight. But they are a rarity.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Ah ... I've never watched soap operas, so I can't really comment on their portrayal of women. It sounds like there is interesting territory for exploration....

Oooh, Dana Scully, I forgot to mention her. I liked Scully in the early seasons. I think her story got kind of weird in later seasons, but I was watching sporadically then so I can't really say for sure. (I remember lots of religion stuff and wasn't she pregnant or something?)

I should really watch Farcape.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Well the thing is with soaps is that it can vary isanely. There are some soaps that are as misogynist as the day is long (General Hospital/Days of Our Lives, I'm looking at you!) And even shows which aren't blatantly misogynist have areas where they are. It's just that certain characters are allowed a great deal of leeway. There are the great "bitches" like Dorian Lord or Erica Kane who can (and do) get away with murder. And Erica's daughter Kendall is allowed to benefit from being one of those "Kane women." And the old Donna Swajeski penned era of Another World (mid 1980s) was a bastion of really strong women across the board on the show. However, soaps today are on a downward slide and you don't get the same sorts of characters that were around during their heyday. But, I do tend to think back in the day the female characters benefited by being in a female dominated genre. Unfortunately, these days most of the headwriters (and ALL the network heads of daytime progamming) are men. And it shows.

And yes, you SHOULD watch Farscape. Farscape has truly wonderful women -- Good, bad and in between. Not only does Aeryn Sun ex-assassin rock, but so does Zaahn ex-anarchist, and Chiana the thief, Sikozou the spy, even Grayza the bitch villainess. In fact the only really awful female character is Jool...but she got killed off. But the core females of Aeryn, Zaahn, and Chi are all quite individual delights.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oh, and yeah, Scully was quite the paradox. She was the one who unlike Mulder demanded that everything have a rational explanation. . .unless it came down to matters of spirtuality/religion. In those cases she was the believer while Mulder constantly sought ANY explanation but a religious one. They balanced nicely in that case. The story did get strained in the latter seasons as the show bent over backwards to not show the Mulder/Scully ship while at the same time playing off of it. Still, Scully could fight. She was relentlessly logicical, relentlessly competent. She didn't give a damn about fashion or shoes. She was smart and could shoot a gun and rescue Mulder if need be. She could be remote and difficult... but I was never annoyed by it because it never attained Buffy bitchiness.

[jerrymcl89.livejournal.com]

I always thought Scully was a really good female 'role model' even though (or perhaps because) the X-Files never really talked about her in those terms, largely because she was strong in ways that a woman actually can be, instead of being 98 pounds and able to kick people through brick walls. And she could be very funny, although in an extremely dry and often exasperated way. The show got pretty far off the rails in the later years, but I didn't really think the shortcomings of the story stuck to the characters the way they did on BtVS.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I was a huge Scully lover because she was a woman that I could recognize. She was intelligent, competent, compassionate yet not fluffy. She was loyal and brave but wasn't (as someone on BAPS described Buffy)a man with tits.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

I always thought Scully was a really good female 'role model' even though (or perhaps because) the X-Files never really talked about her in those terms

I think because. They wrote Scully first as a character, as a person, as an individual, rather than as a Strong Woman. The result was so much more real and interesting than those phony constructed Women Who Are Written To Be Role Models.

[thedeadlyhook.livejournal.com]

The thing that annoyed me the most about Buffy was her obsession with being "normal." She would've HATED being normal; it would've suppressed everything that made her unique and gave her strength; yet she never managed to get over this ridiculous obsession with being exactly like everyone else.

You have SO put your finger on exactly what really made my head explode about the way the show ended. Because I'd liked Buffy - that is, before the decision was made to turn her into a boring depressive that for some reason seemed to have no interest in addressing her emotional problems that were later resolved in a way that hardly made for a very workable model for real-life depression (oh, just get over it! the sun's shining already!), and then a tedious speechy leader role, wtf? Buffy's little "normality" obsession in her early years had played as a sort of joke to me - of course she would hate being normal, it was obvious she enjoyed having strength (remember "Helpless"?), and I waited for seven years for the punchline where she realized it. Instead, Buffy's goals were rewritten into a sort of canned fantasy of what a straight male pictures to be a "strong" woman - and as you've observed, she's pretty humorless and no fun, yet simultaneously fascainted by things men don't actually give a shit about, such as shoes and going out with men who wear nice suits. With this kind of female lead to work with - the product of a self-reinforcing chain of show after show all taking cues off each other (e.g., like after Heathers came out, never again could one do a high school story without the requisite bitch clique), female characters get more narrowed down to one-note obsessions or prefab desires, and if they break out of those roles? Smackdown. Yeah, it's pretty sexist.

I really, really think that this kind of thing is an underrecognized cause for the surge of interest in reality TV. Because even in forced situations, these are at least REAL people, not those that writers have contrived to tell us are real.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Totally with you on the Buffy character development. I liked her fairly well in the early seasons--not a huge fan, but found her sympathetic. But yeah, the tedious speechy leader thing, the "depression" cured by sunlight... ugh.

I'd never thought of this as a cause for the surge of interest in reality TV. That's really interesting... I'd love to read more if you decide to expand on that theory.

To be honest I've never had even the tiniest bit of desire to watch reality TV, so I haven't really thought much about it at all. Though it seems, from the tiny bit I've seen, that the shows are constructed by the editors into narratives that reinforce traditional ideals anyway. (Sort of like how they used to parade goth kids on daytime talk shows just to mock and ridicule and stereotype them in the exact same ways, without listening to anything the individual kids actually had to say).

But since I haven't watched an entire episode of a reality TV show since The Real World 1993, I'm probably missing a lot of nuance. ;)

[gobi-rex.livejournal.com]

Hee, I was hoping you'd weigh in on that argument.

I agree with a lot of what you say here. And I get where you're coming from. To me, it all begins with the falseness and not enough depth in the writing. And the stigmatizing of female characters who are outside the stereotypical boundaries.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :)

And the stigmatizing of female characters who are outside the stereotypical boundaries.

You know what's funny? I remember watching BtVS S3 when it first aired--there was an episode where Faith was supposed to be guarding wolf Oz, I think, and she was rocking out to heavy metal? And I remember thinking "goddammit, here is a kickass goth chick, you just KNOW they are going to make her evil!" I was very pissed off about it; I think I actually stopped watching partly because of that. (And of course, because there was no Spike in S3.)

But, y'know, it's true. A woman can't be rebellious and disinterested in social norms without being crazy, miserable, and/or evil, and needing to be reformed or killed.

[drujan.livejournal.com]

There was a kerfuffle? What about?... I am (lately) always missing everything! Stupid RL.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

There's a really funny kerfuffle.

Basically, annakovsky made a totally innocuous post about why she couldn't get into Veronica Mars. Cut-tagged and everything, so as not to offend VM fans. (here)

So then jennyo (that nut who's always ranting about how anyone who likes Spike and/or dislikes Buffy is a misogynist, and how anyone who doesn't adore Lilah is a misogynist, and how slash fans all all misogynists, and how *lick*ing someone online objectifies gay people... you get the idea) responded to annakovsky's post with yet another nutty rant about how her interpretation of Veronica Mars is proof of underlying (you guessed it!) misogyny on annakovsky's part (and on the part of anyone who dislikes the character Veronica and/or likes the character Logan). (here)

So then annakovsky got pissed off in response, and started a (IMO deserved) jennyo bashing thread. (here)

And it ended up on fandom_wank (here)

And all these people are taking sides and ranting about the inherent sexism of anyone who doesn't like their favorite TV characters.

As a Spike fan... well, you know the drill. (You self-hating misogynist!)

Anyway, sorry you've been so busy! It's good to see you online.

Want to do something this weekend? I'd like to have you over for a DVD night sometime... I've got the new couch and the apartment cleaned and everything. :) Let me know.

[drujan.livejournal.com]

That. was. so. FUNNY!!!!

I especially enjoyed someone's whining about being driven from the boards by "12-year-old Spike fans". BWAH!!!! Serves you right, bitch, is all I am saying... So pseudo-intellectual full-of-crap juvenile... Also, I always thought it was "poseur", not "poser"? **shrug** Whatever.

Anyway.

Yay for getting together! Lets make plans. I'll call you.

[bloodypoetry.livejournal.com]

I agree. My preference for characters like Spike (which of course makes me a mysoginist fangirl) is because of the layers, and the story, and the depth, and like you said, the damned darkness. He was the most real character to me of the entire show. I loved Faith, as well. And damnit, I liked Conner. Of course, I liked Buffy, but not to the extent I liked everyone else. Maybe I just saw her through Spike's eyes or something.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's exactly it. I like the characters who are written well and who feel the most real to me. The layers and story and depth. If they would WRITE a female character that complex, I would happily be a fan. It's not about misogyny, it's just about the quality of the story and character.

[drujan.livejournal.com]

...and also about the actor. If the character were written deep and complex, but the actor made her into a two-dimensional unfeeling bitch, I wouldn't be interested either. TV medium demands high-quality from all three - the story, character, and actor. Otherwise, sorry, I'll pass.

[drujan.livejournal.com]

There are no female characters LIKE ME on TV.

Huh.

**thinking hard**

**drawing a blank**

Nope, no female characters like you or I, either.

On the other hand, I could list plenty of characters that *sometimes* *somehow* resemble what *I* feel. But, ironically, most of them are male.