Annoying sexism and Joss Whedon

[alias_sqbr]

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.

Comments

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

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

[distantcam.livejournal.com]

Wasn't Xena gay?

[melberon.livejournal.com]

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

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

[col-ki.livejournal.com]

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?

[infamyanonymous.livejournal.com]

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.

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

This sounds a lot like my comic book rants, but with big words. Also without any Nightwing. :P

Also examples of aggressively sexy women, dressed in leather, I don't know if she actually wore leather but Aeryn Sun in Farscape springs to mind. And whatever her character was in Starscape/Fargate.

You can't have ugly women in television (except for maybe comedies or comedic characters, like the black lawyer women in Bones).

[grahame.livejournal.com]

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!

[callistra.livejournal.com]

Depends on which season and episode you're watching.
:-)

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

There is certainly a link with Angel - after all, the Angel -> Angelus transformation, while initially ambiguous, is purely a sex thing. Angelus is certainly more confident and charismatic than Angel, but as far as having a stronger sexuality, there's not a lot of examples I can recall... he's focused on drama and violence, and any sexual encounters have their motivation in psychological warfare rather than desire. Angel is, however, a good example of a male hero who goes 'bad', including sexually, and then returns to being a hero (even if he has to work a lot harder at it).

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

The Bat family provides several great examples of male characters with extremely repressed sexuality, as well as numerous femme fatales who are constantly forgiven for no particular reason other than they are women.

You can't have ugly women in television (except for maybe comedies or comedic characters, like the black lawyer women in Bones).

Ellenor Frutt (Camryn Manheim) from The Practice is basically the only 'unattractive' female character I've seen who is given serious treatment in a TV show. She had genuine issues which included, but were not limited to, the fact that she had body-image issues. The Practice's characters were actually really well written most of the time.

Talking about comics, because I know nothing about TV

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

*nods* Ah Batfamily. That's because if they don't get forgiven, they get tortured with a powerdrill. (Okay so she wasn't a femme fatales, but she certainly only seemed there as an interest for Robin). Nightwing doesn't seem too repressed by his sexuality though...

Nightwing is interesting, because he's supposedly the most sexualised of any male in DC, yet only ever seems to just go along with the girls that hit on him, he never actually does anything himself. I think Talia has been the only major character so far that's rocked up and _not_ made out with him (this is a very good thing).

I also keep trying to figure out where Grace Choi (from The Outsiders fits into this. She's on the 'good' side, and is seen as pretty sexual, despite a history of abuse, but doesn't seem to be particularly attractive in any sort of traditional sense. Still I suppose that's why they made her gay.

I haven't seen The Practice so I can't say anything there really.

In the stories we had in that English unit, you could basically tell who the bad guys were because they were ugly. Beautiful people usually were right. Which lead to complete confusion when covering Chaucer, who made all his characters pretty, THEREFORE THERE WAS NO BAD GUY. :P


Before I forget, there's 3 GN's on your bed and two rum balls in the fridge for you. Well, the GN's are mine, but you can read them, dunno how much you want to actually read Nightwing though.

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

That's basically what I mean about Nightwing: he isn't 'repressed' in the sense that he avoids sex, but his sexuality is completely passive and reactionary to the 'assertive' sexuality of all the female characters (usually villains?) that cross his path. He's 'repressed' in the sense that he seems to have no sexual agenda of his own... perhaps 'suppressed' would be a better term.

[kadeton.livejournal.com]

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.

[tevriel.livejournal.com]

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-palimpsest.livejournal.com]

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-palimpsest.livejournal.com]

Plus evil boys are just HOT. . . like Jareth in Labyrinth.


The bad guys always get the best lines.

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

...And we have yet another internet conversation continued and finished when we both get home from work.

:(

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

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 ...

[betacandy.livejournal.com]

There's only one woman with whom Xena is hinted to maybe have an offscreen relationship with, while she has on screen relationships with many males. I think a bi-sexual reading is very supportable, but not gay, per se.

Of course, I was in the camp that liked the intense bond of friendship between Xena and Gabrielle enough that I didn't care if they were lovers. It wouldn't have made them a bit closer.

[jenniferkesler.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the links to The Hathor Legacy! :)

[alias_sqbr]

I agree: sexual violence from women just isn't taken seriously, and it's gross and bad all round. Apparently there's a comics character (I'm sure greteldragon could tell you who :)) who was mind controlled into sleeping with another woman, and despite knowing the circumstances everyone sees it as him cheating on his wife!

[alias_sqbr]

Aeryn sun! Yes, indeed. *edits*

I have somewhat come to terms with the "no ugly women" thing(*), but there's pretty and then there's LOOK AT HOW SEXY I AM

(*)Ok, no I haven't :)

[alias_sqbr]

Yeah but then they shouldn't need the leather etc, the power should be sexy enough by itself :)

[alias_sqbr]

Good point, though I think it's generally a bit less fetished and icky with men. Heh, the perfect example of this is the Star Trek "Mirror Universe", where everyone is a sexy evil bisexual :)

Sex /= evil, dammit!

[alias_sqbr]

Good point about Lilah. Joss Whedon isn't bad all the time :) Though, while not generally set up as a sex object for the viewer she is definitely a fairly sexually aggressive person ie with Wesley, and this is set up as a deliberate contrast to Fred.

Isn't this the traditional crone stereotype? The evil witch, corrupted by her own power, thinks she can titilate the 'hero'?

Yeah, I hadn't really thought it through. Though I meant a woman who enjoyed grossing people out, but I think that's been done too.