Gendered Theory
Jan. 26th, 2006 11:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowBy now I'm sure that everyone who cares has read Emma Bull's response to the BSG miniseries, which for those who haven't is here (and thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
coffeeandink for pointing us in that direction). Now this is a reaction the miniseries as a stand alone thing, as well as an explanation of her own path to scifi/fantasy as a participant, a reader. It is not a response to the series as a whole.
ETA: This is not a defense of Bull's reactions, because she couches reactions to the series as a whole ( which she hasn't watched ) within her reaction to the miniseries and the type of "Scifi" and scifi representations of women and men and gender. And that's problematic to say the least.
To a certain extent, I'm inclined to agree with her about the mini series, which I still think is sort of bogged down by a variety of things, including the "gender" issues. I don't feel like these same issues continue to plague the series in the same way, but I admit to having issues with some of the ways that women are represented.
My own path to scifi and fantasy is tied directly to my father and his influence. I'm an only child with a hugely overactive imagination. I talked to everyone in all of my books, and I always put myself (or whatever version of myself I was currently inhabiting at the forefront of my adventures. And I was always, always a girl -whether I was playing cowboy, or cop, or detective, or space pirate. I was always a girly girl as well, but that's a different essay. I never felt at a loss for role models, never questioned why I wasn't seeing women in positions of power. That came later. As a child, given the world by my encouraging and indulgent parents, I never had any doubt about my ability to do or be whatever I wanted. And as an only child, I knew how to take a scenario and impose myself and my own identity into it. How to make friends with the air, I guess.
My dad gave me books, and I rejected those which dismissed women entirely, or put them in a secondary role. I read a lot of detective fiction, and gender was much less important there (particularly the Trixie Belden/Nancy Drew era). I read a lot of Stephen King. Hell, I read a lot of everything. Literature and film and TV didn't cause me to question the potential of women's roles. Real life did. It still does. Anyone who doubts the reality of a glass ceiling has never worked for corporate America. How do I know there's still a gender divide in this country? Look at the proportion of female leaders - in industry, in the military, in government, in Academia. How many women are the head of companies? Run colleges? Lead troops? Women tend to lead in Education and Non Profit work (areas that are historically under their purview). Our society allows us a mythology of equality (and I'm not talking about the much battered pay ratio), but has yet to live up to the reality.
And yeah, this is where science fiction comes in. And you know what, if I wanted to, I could be really pissed off about the way women are represented in BSG. Six is brilliant and ruthless and uses her sexuality to manipulate Baltar into doing her bidding. Stereotypes one two and three. Check. Roslin was sleeping with her boss, was a teacher. Check two. Starbuck is a guy in girl's clothing - has all the trappings of a man( butch haircut, cigars, aggression, attitude) - then switches to being the wounded child seeking approval from her "father" or "mother", using sex to soothe herself. Check three. Boomer is more complex - is feminine and a pilot - but she makes terrible judgement calls about sex and relationships, puts them ahead of good choices that can affect the fleet. Oh, and did I mention she's a murdering Cylon who's found her humanity through a dumb, pretty flyboy and through getting knocked up? Check five. Cain is batshit crazy, power mad and ruthless. Check five. Actually Cain's sort of the antithesis of the stereotype, now isn't she?
But I will argue that the characters are more than the sum of their parts, that the series does delve into their complexities of human behavior, even if I do agree whole heartedly with the writer who said that Starbuck is not the feminist role model they're trying to sell her as, that her embracing of sex in response to her own childhood pain is frustrating and counter to the image of someone comfortable in all aspects of her sexuality - the butchness as well as her own feminine desire for sex. But then, I find the way the writers are drawing Starbuck to be frustrating on a number of levels, very few of which have anything to do with gender (or maybe that's a lie, maybe I find it frustrating entirely because of gender, because I never care to consider my frustrations with Apollo. Instead, I just say whiny, dull, failed potential and dismiss him).
Cally and Dualla are full realized secondary characters with complex traits and skills. Neither of them fits into any stereotype, and while I do think they've been underutilized in the face of the big arc o' bleak, they've also been painted as intelligent, as effective, as having poor judgement and good judgement, humor and hope and I wish the writers would use them more.
I do think that miniseries (by virtue of being a contained event) did more to perpetuate stereotypes of gendered scifi than it did to erradicate them. It's not a failing that can be said of the series, in my particular opinion.
And what do I think this says about the state of gender in science fiction? Well, twenty odd years ago, we had this little movie called "Alien". And no one can tell me that Ellen Ripley isn't a scifi heroine. That Sarah Connor's transformation from frightened mother of a savior to fucked up apocolyptic nutjob wasn't a fantastic choice. We've had Buffy kicking ass, we've had a female Star Fleet Captain, we've had Sidney Bristow (despite the inevitable crying), we've had Kaylee and Zoe, we've had Ivanova, and Kira, we've had Zhaan and Chiana, and Aeryn Sun. Dude, we got to a point where a girl could save the hero and not emasculate him, where she could comfortably transcend the expectations of her gender while also exploring new facets of her personal identity that eventually lead to more traditional gendered choices. And never once did the character lose any of her strength or menace or grace. She veered off track, and made some poor decisions, but we never lost the idea that she was a soldier at heart. Science fiction knows how to do good female characters, knows how to transcend gender and gender politics, and while I don't necessarily think BSG is doing that, I don't think it's perpetuating stereotypes either.
I don't think that the use of sexuality should be dismissed as easily as we tend to do so. Because it's a powerful weapon that women have had to rely on for a very, very long time. And why should harnessing it and using it deliberately be looked upon as something so very, I don't know, retro and abominable? We want to claim that same sexuality, claim it as something a heroine can use, but not acknowledge that there is a dangerous edge to it? Granted, we should do the same thing for men, but we tend to do that in the form of power. The way certain men are painted as such a draw because of the power they're capable of weilding, and we very rarely lay the smackdown on portrayals like that.
I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with all of this, except to say that I think we're doing a good job of encouraging complexity in women in our science fiction and fantasy, and that we need to be doing the same thing in our reality.
It's interesting to apply gender theory, a feminist lens to science fiction because so far, except for a few exceptions, I find that the visual medium is more successful at transcending the stereotypes than the written media and I wonder why that is. It should be easier to present a textual character than a physical one, but so far, I haven't found that to be overwhelmingly the case.
coffeeandink for pointing us in that direction). Now this is a reaction the miniseries as a stand alone thing, as well as an explanation of her own path to scifi/fantasy as a participant, a reader. It is not a response to the series as a whole.ETA: This is not a defense of Bull's reactions, because she couches reactions to the series as a whole ( which she hasn't watched ) within her reaction to the miniseries and the type of "Scifi" and scifi representations of women and men and gender. And that's problematic to say the least.
To a certain extent, I'm inclined to agree with her about the mini series, which I still think is sort of bogged down by a variety of things, including the "gender" issues. I don't feel like these same issues continue to plague the series in the same way, but I admit to having issues with some of the ways that women are represented.
My own path to scifi and fantasy is tied directly to my father and his influence. I'm an only child with a hugely overactive imagination. I talked to everyone in all of my books, and I always put myself (or whatever version of myself I was currently inhabiting at the forefront of my adventures. And I was always, always a girl -whether I was playing cowboy, or cop, or detective, or space pirate. I was always a girly girl as well, but that's a different essay. I never felt at a loss for role models, never questioned why I wasn't seeing women in positions of power. That came later. As a child, given the world by my encouraging and indulgent parents, I never had any doubt about my ability to do or be whatever I wanted. And as an only child, I knew how to take a scenario and impose myself and my own identity into it. How to make friends with the air, I guess.
My dad gave me books, and I rejected those which dismissed women entirely, or put them in a secondary role. I read a lot of detective fiction, and gender was much less important there (particularly the Trixie Belden/Nancy Drew era). I read a lot of Stephen King. Hell, I read a lot of everything. Literature and film and TV didn't cause me to question the potential of women's roles. Real life did. It still does. Anyone who doubts the reality of a glass ceiling has never worked for corporate America. How do I know there's still a gender divide in this country? Look at the proportion of female leaders - in industry, in the military, in government, in Academia. How many women are the head of companies? Run colleges? Lead troops? Women tend to lead in Education and Non Profit work (areas that are historically under their purview). Our society allows us a mythology of equality (and I'm not talking about the much battered pay ratio), but has yet to live up to the reality.
And yeah, this is where science fiction comes in. And you know what, if I wanted to, I could be really pissed off about the way women are represented in BSG. Six is brilliant and ruthless and uses her sexuality to manipulate Baltar into doing her bidding. Stereotypes one two and three. Check. Roslin was sleeping with her boss, was a teacher. Check two. Starbuck is a guy in girl's clothing - has all the trappings of a man( butch haircut, cigars, aggression, attitude) - then switches to being the wounded child seeking approval from her "father" or "mother", using sex to soothe herself. Check three. Boomer is more complex - is feminine and a pilot - but she makes terrible judgement calls about sex and relationships, puts them ahead of good choices that can affect the fleet. Oh, and did I mention she's a murdering Cylon who's found her humanity through a dumb, pretty flyboy and through getting knocked up? Check five. Cain is batshit crazy, power mad and ruthless. Check five. Actually Cain's sort of the antithesis of the stereotype, now isn't she?
But I will argue that the characters are more than the sum of their parts, that the series does delve into their complexities of human behavior, even if I do agree whole heartedly with the writer who said that Starbuck is not the feminist role model they're trying to sell her as, that her embracing of sex in response to her own childhood pain is frustrating and counter to the image of someone comfortable in all aspects of her sexuality - the butchness as well as her own feminine desire for sex. But then, I find the way the writers are drawing Starbuck to be frustrating on a number of levels, very few of which have anything to do with gender (or maybe that's a lie, maybe I find it frustrating entirely because of gender, because I never care to consider my frustrations with Apollo. Instead, I just say whiny, dull, failed potential and dismiss him).
Cally and Dualla are full realized secondary characters with complex traits and skills. Neither of them fits into any stereotype, and while I do think they've been underutilized in the face of the big arc o' bleak, they've also been painted as intelligent, as effective, as having poor judgement and good judgement, humor and hope and I wish the writers would use them more.
I do think that miniseries (by virtue of being a contained event) did more to perpetuate stereotypes of gendered scifi than it did to erradicate them. It's not a failing that can be said of the series, in my particular opinion.
And what do I think this says about the state of gender in science fiction? Well, twenty odd years ago, we had this little movie called "Alien". And no one can tell me that Ellen Ripley isn't a scifi heroine. That Sarah Connor's transformation from frightened mother of a savior to fucked up apocolyptic nutjob wasn't a fantastic choice. We've had Buffy kicking ass, we've had a female Star Fleet Captain, we've had Sidney Bristow (despite the inevitable crying), we've had Kaylee and Zoe, we've had Ivanova, and Kira, we've had Zhaan and Chiana, and Aeryn Sun. Dude, we got to a point where a girl could save the hero and not emasculate him, where she could comfortably transcend the expectations of her gender while also exploring new facets of her personal identity that eventually lead to more traditional gendered choices. And never once did the character lose any of her strength or menace or grace. She veered off track, and made some poor decisions, but we never lost the idea that she was a soldier at heart. Science fiction knows how to do good female characters, knows how to transcend gender and gender politics, and while I don't necessarily think BSG is doing that, I don't think it's perpetuating stereotypes either.
I don't think that the use of sexuality should be dismissed as easily as we tend to do so. Because it's a powerful weapon that women have had to rely on for a very, very long time. And why should harnessing it and using it deliberately be looked upon as something so very, I don't know, retro and abominable? We want to claim that same sexuality, claim it as something a heroine can use, but not acknowledge that there is a dangerous edge to it? Granted, we should do the same thing for men, but we tend to do that in the form of power. The way certain men are painted as such a draw because of the power they're capable of weilding, and we very rarely lay the smackdown on portrayals like that.
I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with all of this, except to say that I think we're doing a good job of encouraging complexity in women in our science fiction and fantasy, and that we need to be doing the same thing in our reality.
It's interesting to apply gender theory, a feminist lens to science fiction because so far, except for a few exceptions, I find that the visual medium is more successful at transcending the stereotypes than the written media and I wonder why that is. It should be easier to present a textual character than a physical one, but so far, I haven't found that to be overwhelmingly the case.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 08:13 pm (UTC)But she explicitly critiques a review of the series as a whole in the course of that review, and her response to that is all about how “this series” is your grandaddy’s scifi and so on. I don’t know whether her intent was to critique only the mini, but it doesn’t come across that way in the text.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 08:22 pm (UTC)I don't agree with a lot of her conclusions, but I definitely see how she drew them.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 08:56 pm (UTC)I see a lot more varied and interesting women in written sf than visual; so I think this depends on what one watches and reads, as well as on how one reads it.
One of the big, big issues I have with visual media is the presentation of women as pretty and sexualized and in a fairly narrow range of ages. BSG and Alias are unusual in having women older than 35 in important roles--let alone women older than 35 who are still sexy and sexual.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 09:14 pm (UTC)I'm reading Elizabeth Bear's Hammered right now, and I very much like that her protaganist is a woman nearly 50.
BSG and Alias are unusual in having women older than 35 in important roles--let alone women older than 35 who are still sexy and sexual. Also a good point. And in both those cases, those older women are the one's who've held my interest.
The visual element adds a thread of wish fullfillment, but I think scifi television has also portrayed a variety of women who are strong, and who are phsyically beautiful in interesting ways, which is to it's credit.
That essay
Date: 2006-01-26 08:58 pm (UTC)- and can I interject here that I deeply regret learning that it was Emma Bull, author of Finder, who wrote that essay? My respect and appreciation for her did a distinct nosedive when I read Mely's note, which was after I read the essay -
- sit for a few days before coming back to it. Her reaction is just so *very* opposite of mine to the mini. I loved the mini.
Yeah, I loathed Six, the manipulative bitch, but not without recognizing that she was working the situation - was exploiting a very real weakness in human nature. Yeap, Kara's a tough gal, but she also rings very true to me as a fighter pilot - all swagger and arrogance and skill in a difficult and demanding job. Leads with her fist *and* her mouth. Doesn't let her weaknesses show.
And then she rags on Roslin - Roslin who steps up to the plate, Roslin who left those people to die, Roslin who stared down Adama, Roslin who is manipulating people from the moment she came on screen.
I'm not even going to get into how the essay totally dismisses the *male* characters, because, hey, guys can't be role models for gals. Ever.
So, you see, I need to cool off a bit before I even start thinking about that essay, much less respond to it. *g*
I'm glad to see at least one other viewer who isn't all "omigawd, coffeem is so right!".
- hg
Re: That essay
Date: 2006-01-26 09:08 pm (UTC)Mostly, I hate to see you lose a source of enjoyment....
Re: That essay
Date: 2006-01-26 09:15 pm (UTC)Re: That essay
Date: 2006-01-26 09:09 pm (UTC)And exactly. I can nod along with many of her conslusions, (mostly based upon my watching of the series), but Roslin in both was remarkable. She made the impossible decisions and that had nothing to do with gender.
And the responses to her essay within her post definitely showed that other readers had issues with her conclusions.
Re: That essay
Date: 2006-01-26 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 09:03 pm (UTC)i don't know that it would easier, necessarily. in the visual medium the actor can bring infinite layers to a portrayal that go beyond the dialogue; a look, a gesture, something that tells us more, and because it's visual, i think it carries a different, added, sort of weight that doesn't quite translate from text.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-27 12:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 10:21 pm (UTC)her embracing of sex in response to her own childhood pain
Where are you seeing that? We've seen Starbuck sleep with three guys so far: Zak, Baltar, and Anders. Obviously there was some fucked-up reasoning behind her sleeping with Baltar, but I think it's fair, at this point, to assume that her relationships with Zak and Anders were more of what could be considered typical--you meet a guy you like, you flirt, you get sweaty, etc. To me, that seems like as healthy an outlet for Starbuck's libido as, say, Sharon hooking up with Tyrol. I'm not denying that Kara has major issues, and I think she has serious issues with relationships in general, but then, so does Aeryn (and Chi, and T2 Sarah Connor, and Ripley, etc).
And I don't think anyone on BSG is really intended to be a role model of any kind... they're all pretty fucked-up. ;) Most of them are doing their best to do the right thing, and that's admirable, but they're not exactly poster children for anything except human fallibility.
Also, for what it's worth, I connect emotionally with Starbuck way more than I ever did with Aeryn (much as I loved her), for example, or with Buffy, or with James Cameron's heroines. (And--though this is sort of off-topic--I still feel like Crichton was the kind of character whose story I've always wanted to see told.) Which is only to go back to my original point, that maybe one of the best things about sci-fi today is that we do have a much wider variety of female characters to admire and/or identify with, meaning that different fans can enjoy and connect with different stories.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 10:38 pm (UTC)Agreed. Because I don't relate to Starbuck in very many ways. Which definitely skews my perception of the character. I like a lot of the elements of her character, but I don't necessarily like the use of her as a continual deus ex machina. I also don't like that her issues are rooted in childhood trauma, I would like her to be as brash and aggressive and hotheaded as she is just because that's her personality. I don't need an explanation for it. But that's the writers' call. It's their story.
But I definitely find it exciting that there are a variety of female characters (hell, characters in general) to be interested in, to admire, to doubt, to revere, to rally for and against. I think it's a positive sign.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 10:54 pm (UTC)It may be a question of interpretation, too, as in my head, it makes sense that Kara has always been cocky and brash, and that the events of her life (including, probably very significantly, Zak's death) have skewed that into self-destructive impulses, given her aggressiveness and hotheadedness an edge that it didn't have before.
I mean, I see what you're saying. We never had to talk about Han Solo's daddy issues. But one of the things I like about Kara is that she is simultaneously kick-ass and crippled by self-doubt. YMMV, I guess. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 11:41 pm (UTC)I like a lot of things about Starbuck. I like her attitude, her cockiness and I guess I'd just like to see those things exhibited in a character through choice, through personality, and not in reaction to, if that makes sense.
No one felt the need to explain why the original Starbuck was cocky, and womanizing and arrogant. We should have the same luxury with the female version (which is where the comparisons end because there really is no need to continue to compare this version to that).
no subject
Date: 2006-01-26 10:40 pm (UTC)