*goes away mumbling about the rareness of consensual F/m relationships or, indeed, female agency in fictional sex*
I was just thinking that there's still a certain amount of...carefullness about female characters in general, and about issues of sexuality and evilness and redemptiveness and that kind of thing in particular. Both on the writing side and on the fan-reaction side. I dunno how many times i've found myself defending some female characters actions that I really thought were pretty bad, because so much of the attacks on her seemed rooted in misogynistic premises, while actually wanting to celebrate that bad stuff, because I find it powerful and interesting and complex, and I want dark and tortured redemption arcs for female characters also, and that means not brushing their badness under the carpet. (Obvious example is Cat from ASOIAF, who is almost but not quite a saint, but I love the stuff that makes her not a saint while to a lot of readers it apparently makes her simply a terrible person. Meanwhile, really much more heinous actions by, like, all male characters are celebrated as gritty and complex.)
Anyway, I think sex is another one of those tightropes - we terribly want to respect our female characters, and sex is a subject that has a lot of pitfalls, so it's a minefield...not too aggressive, not too submissive. Can't be a prude, can't be a slut, musn't be kinky, nor totally vanilla, etc, etc...(for example, I adore Amy on the Big Bang Theory, but the consensus seems to be that her - entirely verbal - sexual neediness is an offensive, sexist denigration of the character and possibly all women. I just think it's bold and awfully vulnerable.) This despite the fact that people's sex lives - women and all - are pretty weird, really, and when a show has the kind of plotting that has room for odd relationships and magic/future tech/whatever based stuff and so on, it's should probably include it's female characters in uncomfortable and compromised positions (I mean morally!) in that regard - the question is whether a show can do that without actually slipping into just being sexist or turning it into titillation or employing double standards.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2013-12-01 07:24 am (UTC)I was just thinking that there's still a certain amount of...carefullness about female characters in general, and about issues of sexuality and evilness and redemptiveness and that kind of thing in particular. Both on the writing side and on the fan-reaction side. I dunno how many times i've found myself defending some female characters actions that I really thought were pretty bad, because so much of the attacks on her seemed rooted in misogynistic premises, while actually wanting to celebrate that bad stuff, because I find it powerful and interesting and complex, and I want dark and tortured redemption arcs for female characters also, and that means not brushing their badness under the carpet. (Obvious example is Cat from ASOIAF, who is almost but not quite a saint, but I love the stuff that makes her not a saint while to a lot of readers it apparently makes her simply a terrible person. Meanwhile, really much more heinous actions by, like, all male characters are celebrated as gritty and complex.)
Anyway, I think sex is another one of those tightropes - we terribly want to respect our female characters, and sex is a subject that has a lot of pitfalls, so it's a minefield...not too aggressive, not too submissive. Can't be a prude, can't be a slut, musn't be kinky, nor totally vanilla, etc, etc...(for example, I adore Amy on the Big Bang Theory, but the consensus seems to be that her - entirely verbal - sexual neediness is an offensive, sexist denigration of the character and possibly all women. I just think it's bold and awfully vulnerable.) This despite the fact that people's sex lives - women and all - are pretty weird, really, and when a show has the kind of plotting that has room for odd relationships and magic/future tech/whatever based stuff and so on, it's should probably include it's female characters in uncomfortable and compromised positions (I mean morally!) in that regard - the question is whether a show can do that without actually slipping into just being sexist or turning it into titillation or employing double standards.