That and this

[selenak]

Alexander Siddig, aka Siddig el Fadil, is one of those enviable people - like Timothy Dalton - who look better and more impressive as they age. I found him good looking as a young man, but not exactly charismatic. (Though I liked Julian Bashir; but it was the kind of sympathy that wants to feed soup and cookies, not ask for an imaginary date.) Flashforward twenty years later, as could be seen in Cairo Times (for example), and: wow. Currently he's playing Saladin in a new play at the Globe, and check him out now!. I rest my case.

Multifandom:

Good meta on fannish reactions to female characters falling in love. To quote the writer: It can be refreshing to see a woman character who doesn’t have romance subplot, because so many women characters are seen as as extensions of the male hero. But people can fall into a trap of judging women characters as automatically less if they do fall in love.

Too true. I mean, yes, there have been sad cases of female characters losing their non-romantic agenda and -relationships once they fall in love. (Insert grumblings including the name Laura Roslin here.) But that's no longer the rule. (Take Once Upon A Time, which has been called a fantasy soap often, and I can see why; there are definitely romantic storylines happening all over the place, and it's not the reinvention-of-tv-type of show. But the non-romantic relationships of the leading ladies are even more key to what drives the stories - Regina and Snow, Regina and Emma, Emma and Henry, Regina and Henry, Regina and Emma and Henry, Emma and Snow, Regina and Cora, etc. Or Orphan Black, where the relationships between the clones are the heart of the story, rivalled only by Sarah's relationships with Kira, Felix and Mrs. S..) So to automatically assume a female character will no longer get written/acted in an interesting way once they hook up strikes me as patronizing. (Also possibly "concern-trolling", which is a fascinating term I learned via reading this post, meaning, if I interpret it correctly, to disguise a negative reaction to a female character by dragging up social justice reasons as opposed to "she's in the way of my ship!" or "I just don't like her".)

Going off on a tangent: mind you, there are a few examples of male characters benefitting from no longer being the love interest (for example, Angel is a far more interesting character on his own show than on BTVS where he was strictly Buffy's love interest, and in one season also opponent, and one of reasons is the way AtS gives him a lot of other relationships), but generally I don't think - if the internet is anything to go by, which could be misleading - people mind male characters being mainly defined through their relationship to the heroine, possibly because there are still on avarage many more male-centric stories than female-centric stories, and they see it as some sort of karmic payback/refreshing twist.

One more utterly unrelated link: An interview with the delightful Bernard Cribbins, living British entertainment legend and familiar to Whovians as Wilfred Mott, Donna's grandfather.

Comments

[lonelywalker]

Siiiid! Now I'm imagining him in the Dalton role in Penny Dreadful. He did that DS9 Bond parody episode too... Can he be Malcolm's illegitimate son? (One of many, I'm sure.)

[selenak]

Absolutely, he can! Thinking about this some more, I've decided he's destined to play Captain Nemo, having, of course, a gigantic anti-British, anti-Colonial chip on his shoulder and denial about his mother two-timing the Raja his father with a Brit. Then plot happens, and Malcolm, Vanessa & Co. urgently need a submarine!

[lonelywalker]

YES.

YES YES YES.

It really is so vexing when you urgently need a submarine, so having a dashing naval captain for an illegitimate son is really quite a bonus. Plus UNDERWATER VAMPIRES. UNDERWATER WEREWOLF.

[wychwood]

I think concern trolling is typically criticism phrased in a "but I'm just worried about you!" kind of way - people who don't have anything against fat people, but are just worried about their health, or against women politicians, but just aren't sure they're up to working in such stressful roles, or against... you get the idea. Most of the instances I've encountered haven't been social-justice-related in particular, although this one obviously is.

[jesuswasbatman]

The play is a bit muddled and finally simplistic, but Siddig is good. That picture is him in the first half which is in medieval costume, but the second half is in modern dress - he's dressed up like Colonel Gadaffi, and he still looks good, which is a real test of someone's looks and charisma.

The most common meaning of "concern troll" I've seen is in non-fannish left-wing politics, where it's used to mean someone who professes to be on the left, but whose public discourse is almost totally about worrying out loud that fellow leftists are irresponsibly extreme, or just too nasty to right-wingers who should be engaged in a way that shows them proper respect and recognises everyone's good faith.

[selenak]

Still looking good in a Gadaffi outfit?! Truly, for some men, nothing is written. :)

[jesuswasbatman]

Also, wouldn't you say James/Charming in Once Upon A Time is an example of a male character who is usually an extension of the female ones. (Yeah, about once a year they bring up his background and his personal feud with King George.)

Also, you think Roslin is bad, you ought to see what happened to Snow White in Fables. It's so extreme that it's about the only case where I think the writer really was deliberately and premeditatedly trying to draw in progressive fans and then stab them in the back to troll.

[selenak]

Re: Charming, yes with qualifications. Not because of King George, who is one of the show's lamest baddies (though rewatching made me slightly revise my opinion on his one dimensionality, in that it's more clear than I recalled that his grief for James and "the wrong twin survived" resentment is actually a big motive for his feud with David - if they'd kept a deleted s2 scene from "Tiny" it would even have been clear that it's the biggest motive, above being pissed off David defied etc.). But while his primary function in the narrative is to be Snow's love interest, he does get other relationships. Least in s1, though even there there's Kathryn/Abigail, and while the triangle was dreary, the Charming and Abigail scenes in the Enchanted Forests and the David and Kathryn conversation at the hospital after she returned are endearing. In s2 he forms a bond with Henry, and has the friendship with Red which is narratively important when her werewolf nature reasserts itself, plus the occasional giving dating advice to Gold which will never stop being funny. In s3, he's learning how to be a father to Emma (which is part of Emma's story, of course, but one of the things I love about OuaT is that we see all three people in a "couple loses baby, finds adult offspring just (for them) a few months later" dealing with the tricky emotional implications, and doing so ongoingly instead of immediately resolving - and again, we keep getting the perspectives of all three), and forming a relationship with Hook.

[intrigueing]

So much in agreement about the female-characters-falling-in-love thing.

I do think the phenomena you mention with male characters feels different, not only for the reason you mentioned (a twist/something refreshing) but also because it makes the male character feel non-independent, which is rare enough in male characters who are/become protagonists that the effect of having that narrative applied to them means the character's non-independence in the narrative (with 'character' defined as a narrative device) parses as not just a way of writing the story, but an actual character trait (with 'character' defined as a person/personality). Um, if that makes any sense at all....

[thirdblindmouse]

It's possible to meet the argument that a romance is ruining/would ruin a female character with arguments about how you don't think it is/would without resorting to "No, it is YOU who are socially injust." The Tumblr post linked from the post you linked talks about a specific fandom and how the kneejerk reaction that love will ruin Brienne's character is wrongheaded because love has always been a key attribute of the specific character in question. That's the kind of fannish discussion opener I enjoy (sadly, Game of Thrones is not my fandom). On the other hand, responding to "It's not okay for a female character to be written having romance" with "it's not okay to not want female characters to be written having romance", as the post you linked to does, gets the discussion nowhere but deeper into the land of toxic generalizations.

[wee_warrior]

Ohhh, I know this will excite you half as much as me, since you don't like Game Of Thrones that much, but Alexander Siddig has been cast as Doran Martell, Oberyn Martell's older brother. If there was one casting I was hoping for it is this.

[selenak]

Well, good for him! Hopefully it will win him lots of new fans and new role offers. Getting a prominent part in a popular tv show is always a good thing.

[wee_warrior]

*fingers crossed* If nothing else, he'll apparently get to go to Spain, so there's some nice scenery in it.

OuaT s3 spoilers

[hibernate]

I'm really not a fan of Emma/Hook on Once Upon a Time, but I keep seeing people on Tumblr talk about how the show is reducing Emma to a love interest, and it makes me furious. Emma drives the plot more than any other character on that show! If anyone is reducing her to a love interest, it's not the show.

Re: OuaT s3 spoilers

[selenak]

Quite. Emma's relationships with Henry, Regina and her parents were all driving forces to her actions through the season. And of course, Emma/Intimacy Issues Due To Entire Past. Her relationship with Hook was motivating him, not her.