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itsallovernowWe coopted someone's version of OS X, which means that the design department and I can't have MS Word on at the same time. Normally, this is not a problem, but I need to edit something on another computer and it's pissing me off that I can't access it, so, instead, I'm gonna talk about motherhood. Not from personal experience, obviously, but as a concept in genre media - not all genre media, just that which comes to my mind first, but other examples, supporting, contradicting, etc are more than welcome.
I read a post not too long ago about the lack of mothers represented in fiction, and it got me to thinking about how true that is. Mom's are often either the bad guy, or a plot device, or ignored completely, yet they have a huge impact on our lives. I think it's hard to portray them as a person, as opposed to just that concept of motherhood because we have trouble making that distinction ourselves until we reach a certain age.
Fathers are far more prominent - the father/son struggles and bonds, the father/daughter protectiveness.
Certain genre works approach the concept - Mrs. Weasley is a strong maternal figure, and her own character has been developed within the Harry Potter universe in the last two books. Buffy was grounded to this world in part because of her mother, who did develop some personality traits over the years, and Scully's mother was very much a force in her life. I suppose Mulder's mother was as well, her ambiguous choices and loyalties became important in later seasons. And while we only see John Crichton's mother in two episodes, we know that those incidents, her life and her death, shaped his character. He doesn't talk much about her, but he carries those memories with him.
Of course, there's Sydney Bristow and Aeryn Sun - both with mothers who have mixed intentions towards their offspring, whose absence played a far larger role than their presence did until later in the characters' lives.
But in all those shows, the father/ child dynamic seems to loom larger, the issues more pivotal and prescient.
On the other hand, genre characters becoming mothers is something else entirely. It's hard to pull this off, for a variety of reasons. Putting a child in mortal danger is a much different thing than doing this to an adult. It provokes an immediate response in the viewer, and if it's used as a cheap plot device, it's incredibly off putting. And these are characters whose lives are constantly in danger, it's part of what defines the genre (at least on TV), the stakes are higher. These are people who have to save the world from alien invasions and government conspiracies, from being sucked into hell, from becoming a playground for other aliens bent on destruction, I'm not sure what Sydney is saving the world from, but I'm sure it's something big:)
So that leaves us with a dilemna. If you add children into the mix, the stakes change. Yes, saving the world is the most important thing, but do you follow through on that if it means risking your child. My own mother would do anything for me. I'm a grown woman, and I still know this to be true. I'm pretty sure that's a universal constant, genre or not. So how do you incorporate that into a character driven by her strengths and ability to stop harm from coming to others if her priority is always going to be her own child?
I'm not sure of the answer. We see Scully give up her child to protect him, which may be the solution, but it doesn't allow us to see these characters in a maternal role. Talyn dies, and I guess in this I'm looking at the effect of that on Aeryn, but perhaps I should be looking at the effect on Moya. She's devastated, but her son has never been terribly accessible or understandable, and it's a better fate for him than being enslaved or destroyed by the Peacekeepers, and so she gives consent to his choice. And Aeryn accepts the decision because Talyn is no longer a child, and she knows his other choices, and she understands sacrifice.
I do think, had we seen John and Aeryn and there offspring, that the writer's could have done great things with the weight of the threat hanging over this child.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
searose had many excellent points about this the other day, and I'll just direct you there, but that's one of the attractions for me about that storyline. This is a fiercely protective character who is already torn between duties and loyalties and also desperately wants the stability and family that she's had tastes of. Aeryn is rarely about wants, but when she pursues them, she does so with reckless abandon because she's only learning how. Putting a child into the works would show her own conflicts and struggles increase tenfold, and I would have liked to see that. I've had that challenge writing Blue Eyes, questioning where her role as mother gets overrun by her role as leader and vice versa. How distant can she be, and still be attached to her child, how close can she be to Anix, and still maintain a perspective on the larger situation?
In addition, often we don't think of maternal characteristics as being prominent in many strong female characters. For me, Scully longing for children was a shock because we'd only seen brief glimpses of her having any interest in children in more than a husband, house, dog and two kids concept kind of way. I know the episodes that focused on it, but when we got to Emily, it was sudden. Oh by the way, she can't have babies. On the other hand, she had strong family, access to nieces and nephews.
Aeryn is different because the situation is different. She wasn't raised to take an interest in children, and probably until Talyn, never much considered them. She had no concept of parental love and support. But John did, and has, which gives them as good a chance as anyone to try and raise their child. But the kid will be deeply screwed up, I guaruntee it.
Can we look down the line and see Buffy having children? She's acted as a mother to Dawn, so maybe yes. But having an infant is far different from having a teenage girl - even if she's not really a girl. Dawn did already have parental input and support, and while Buffy is no longer holding the fate of the world in her hands, she's still always going to be a center of violence and chaos unless she renounces her role completely. And Sydney, can we even imagine her wanting children when her own parents are so fundamentally destructive to her?
So what would it take? And could it be done? Could we see our strong female characters with their children, how would it change them, and their reaction to the stakes they face?
I read a post not too long ago about the lack of mothers represented in fiction, and it got me to thinking about how true that is. Mom's are often either the bad guy, or a plot device, or ignored completely, yet they have a huge impact on our lives. I think it's hard to portray them as a person, as opposed to just that concept of motherhood because we have trouble making that distinction ourselves until we reach a certain age.
Fathers are far more prominent - the father/son struggles and bonds, the father/daughter protectiveness.
Certain genre works approach the concept - Mrs. Weasley is a strong maternal figure, and her own character has been developed within the Harry Potter universe in the last two books. Buffy was grounded to this world in part because of her mother, who did develop some personality traits over the years, and Scully's mother was very much a force in her life. I suppose Mulder's mother was as well, her ambiguous choices and loyalties became important in later seasons. And while we only see John Crichton's mother in two episodes, we know that those incidents, her life and her death, shaped his character. He doesn't talk much about her, but he carries those memories with him.
Of course, there's Sydney Bristow and Aeryn Sun - both with mothers who have mixed intentions towards their offspring, whose absence played a far larger role than their presence did until later in the characters' lives.
But in all those shows, the father/ child dynamic seems to loom larger, the issues more pivotal and prescient.
On the other hand, genre characters becoming mothers is something else entirely. It's hard to pull this off, for a variety of reasons. Putting a child in mortal danger is a much different thing than doing this to an adult. It provokes an immediate response in the viewer, and if it's used as a cheap plot device, it's incredibly off putting. And these are characters whose lives are constantly in danger, it's part of what defines the genre (at least on TV), the stakes are higher. These are people who have to save the world from alien invasions and government conspiracies, from being sucked into hell, from becoming a playground for other aliens bent on destruction, I'm not sure what Sydney is saving the world from, but I'm sure it's something big:)
So that leaves us with a dilemna. If you add children into the mix, the stakes change. Yes, saving the world is the most important thing, but do you follow through on that if it means risking your child. My own mother would do anything for me. I'm a grown woman, and I still know this to be true. I'm pretty sure that's a universal constant, genre or not. So how do you incorporate that into a character driven by her strengths and ability to stop harm from coming to others if her priority is always going to be her own child?
I'm not sure of the answer. We see Scully give up her child to protect him, which may be the solution, but it doesn't allow us to see these characters in a maternal role. Talyn dies, and I guess in this I'm looking at the effect of that on Aeryn, but perhaps I should be looking at the effect on Moya. She's devastated, but her son has never been terribly accessible or understandable, and it's a better fate for him than being enslaved or destroyed by the Peacekeepers, and so she gives consent to his choice. And Aeryn accepts the decision because Talyn is no longer a child, and she knows his other choices, and she understands sacrifice.
I do think, had we seen John and Aeryn and there offspring, that the writer's could have done great things with the weight of the threat hanging over this child.
searose had many excellent points about this the other day, and I'll just direct you there, but that's one of the attractions for me about that storyline. This is a fiercely protective character who is already torn between duties and loyalties and also desperately wants the stability and family that she's had tastes of. Aeryn is rarely about wants, but when she pursues them, she does so with reckless abandon because she's only learning how. Putting a child into the works would show her own conflicts and struggles increase tenfold, and I would have liked to see that. I've had that challenge writing Blue Eyes, questioning where her role as mother gets overrun by her role as leader and vice versa. How distant can she be, and still be attached to her child, how close can she be to Anix, and still maintain a perspective on the larger situation?In addition, often we don't think of maternal characteristics as being prominent in many strong female characters. For me, Scully longing for children was a shock because we'd only seen brief glimpses of her having any interest in children in more than a husband, house, dog and two kids concept kind of way. I know the episodes that focused on it, but when we got to Emily, it was sudden. Oh by the way, she can't have babies. On the other hand, she had strong family, access to nieces and nephews.
Aeryn is different because the situation is different. She wasn't raised to take an interest in children, and probably until Talyn, never much considered them. She had no concept of parental love and support. But John did, and has, which gives them as good a chance as anyone to try and raise their child. But the kid will be deeply screwed up, I guaruntee it.
Can we look down the line and see Buffy having children? She's acted as a mother to Dawn, so maybe yes. But having an infant is far different from having a teenage girl - even if she's not really a girl. Dawn did already have parental input and support, and while Buffy is no longer holding the fate of the world in her hands, she's still always going to be a center of violence and chaos unless she renounces her role completely. And Sydney, can we even imagine her wanting children when her own parents are so fundamentally destructive to her?
So what would it take? And could it be done? Could we see our strong female characters with their children, how would it change them, and their reaction to the stakes they face?
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-17 01:53 pm (UTC)more later
no subject
Date: 2003-09-17 01:59 pm (UTC)Long-ass comment warning...
Date: 2003-09-17 01:56 pm (UTC)This is the dilemma of the working parent writ large--how do you balance the needs of the child with the demands of the world outside? The established road in genre has been to neuter the woman in question, making her stereotypically hyper "feminine", overly emotional and overwrought, her existence centered around the child.
Your standard Scully. *sigh*
But I think even the people who perpetrate these assassinations of character are uncomfortable with doing so--hence the child becomes The Child, and it's welfare gains extra importance. He's the key, or the one, or everyone and his brother wants to harm him.
It rationalizes the narrowing of the woman's character (she hasn't gone soft, she's just fighting a different fight!), but it also has the converse effect of downplaying the dramatic potential inherent in *actual* childrearing (these babies are always so well-behaved!) and making it even more obvious that the woman has been shifted totally out of character.
This SOP backfires because it misses the point. The point is that a strong person becomes even stronger when they have people who are depending on them. Because they have to. The point is that the dilemma between the needs of the child and the demands of the world cannot be resolved, it can only be dealt with by constant negotiation. Because both cannot be satisfied.
Yes, I think it can be done, but it requires that we re-think some of our most cherished illusions about motherhood.
Re: Long-ass comment warning...
Date: 2003-09-17 02:11 pm (UTC)Exactly. That was my problem with the kid for Scully storyline. The writers didn't handle her reactions well, partially I think, because she was embodied with all of the masculine characteristics of logic and science and reasoning and then the writer's didn't know how to also make her maternal without being absurd. It's why she was their greatest character and their greatest failure, and why (for me) other women on the show were unappealing caricatures more than strong characters.
And really, no infant or child behaves that well. Kids are noisy and messy and difficult and fascinating, and exasperating and that should be part of the interaction parents have with them. (I hate simpering precocious children as much as I hate an overabundance of female tears:)
I've always like the thought of John and Aeryn's offspring being a terminally pissed off teenager, male or female. CAn you imagine being 13 and having your parents be responsible for mass destruction? How do you reconcile their actions with the fact that they're your folks?
no subject
Date: 2003-09-17 02:24 pm (UTC)My memory is fuzzy, but wasn't Ripley suspended for many years, and in fact her own child had grown up or died or something? So she grasps Newt fiercely, and will kill anything that will harm that child. She fights men and monsters and risks her own life all in an effort to save 'the child'.
The Alien made a brief truce with Ripley so long as the flamethrower was in evidence, a sign of intelligence - you don't harm my children, I will let you run (until far enough way that alien children are no longer threatened, I imagine), but Ripley broke the truce in order to distract the enemy.
Xena bore a child and hid it away from her enemies, Gabrielle bore the child of an evil god, which evil child killed Xena's son. Gabrielle loved that child despite its heritage, wanted so badly to raise her child. She sent it away rather than kill it, and then later had to kill it anyway, after seeing yet another damned generation spring to life and death in the span of a few days.
Xena's second child was a target on its own account, and she dealt with foes continually until she fell in battle, then had to reunite with Eve as a bitter, twisted adult.
Xena:WP got really campy after a while plotwise, but her devotion to her children was well-portrayed by LL, and so was Gabrielle's by RO'C. The children weren't the be-all and end-all of the series, and Xena and Gabrielle both retained their warrior abilities and brains.
Scully's maternal instinct never really became an issue until the ability to conceive was taken from her. After that, her character became at times almost a cipher - barren=unfulfilled. Agh, that's just an impression, no recall of any specific episodes to back it up.
Aeryn Sun - we're not told of any interest in offspring, nothing, nada, until Prayer. She was interested in her own mother, and she offered the vial in LATP to John because children were important to him, and it was a sign of her committment to trying to make a future together.
That thing in Prayer was totally out of left field.
John's the family guy, wants the whole ball of wax: wife, kids, dog, house. He's been given the 'feminine' role, if you will, talking about feelings, trying to communicate, wanting to take care of Aeryn, wanting to be needed.
Buffy can kill herself to save her sister, but can she take care of a child? That's a far harder job, long-term, years of one's life devoted to it. Robin's mother is the only Slayer mother we've seen, and her life was short and ended violently, leaving him an orphan. She did raise him for several years and would have continued, I imagine, had she survived.
Not every woman is meant to reproduce. Nature impels, but will overcomes nature, and women all through history and before learned how to prevent conception or rid themselves of unwanted pregnancies. It's a part of societal life, that children can exist within cultural boundaries, but outside of those lines are forbidden and unwelcome signs of deviance.
In most television shows, the button to push for audience reaction is warm, fuzzy Mommy, because that's the time-honored image. When you have a strong female character with no more interest in becoming Mommy than someone like Mulder in becoming Daddy, then that shakes the paradigm. It's not a natural state, and cannot continue without some eventual concession to the expected dynamic: strong female must fall in love and become Woman, and that must lead inevitable to Woman=Mommy=all is right with the world.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-17 03:30 pm (UTC)And I didn't particularly think the scene in Prayer came out of left field, maybe left of center but not out of the blue. Talyn was her first exposure to children as more than a concept, and he was an anomaly who already had a mother. I think the baby for her was still a concept. She wanted it for it's connection to John, but also because she would never have had a child as a Peacekeeper, and in Prayer it became about both those things. Aeryn's always tried to protect the defenseless, and in this case, it's her child, and defenseless and it's something that ties her to John, however way co-dependent that is, it's still true. She also has exhibited a sort of sentimentality for family, which John uses against her in GEM.
I guess I like the idea of someone embodying several things - being strong, also loving someone, loving a child because those things aren't exclusive, but I don't know if there's room for that in genre where everyone else's life has to be more important.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-17 05:25 pm (UTC)okay, lots of thoughtful thoughts here, so I am going to take a different tangent: how to write a story so that you don't fall into the stereotypical 'overprotective overly emotional female'
you all know I'm writing babyfic. And I've battled with these same questions long and hard. How do you write John and Aeryn as parents and still have them be John and Aeryn? And what about the kid?
There's a lot of fic out there where the kid is a mini-Wesley Crusher. And I gotta say, my favorite Wesley Crusher episode is when he admits he fucked up and a member of his training crew died (well, he may not have been at fault, but he helped to cover it up). It was the first time Wesley was real to me.
Whitelight wrote "Broken Cord" and it is brilliant in that she does the taboo thing of KILLING OFF THE KID! Bravo for that. It was heart wrenching, but the kid dying isn't what drew me to the story, it was how John and Aeryn reacted to it that caught my attention.
AC writes beautiful fic with the family: and I think she hits this issue well in "...Those Who Stand and Wait" (I think I may have the title wrong) because Aeryn is debating with herself EXACTLY these points of motherhood versus helping John. And her kids aren't the cookie cutter critters you see in other fic. Her TJ can be whiny and clingy ("Last Seen Standing"; "Take Two") and Olivia can be a typical two year old with the attention span of a gnat -- "We're not being very efficient this morning" Aeryn says to Jack as she's trying to get the baby dressed. These are real scenes.
So I have this dilema: not that I have written myself into a corner, but really I have. I've got this Derry-fic going and a lot of you have seen these parts, at least the tag scene -- a show down on command is aluded to where Aeryn is facing her own pulse pistol while clutching Derry to her chest. Yeah, it's a scene (or a line) going for the dramatic, but in the same sense, it's how JOHN saw the scene, and that's how it is imprinted on his mind. The way I intend to avoid the 'put child in peril' bit is to not even make the kid an issue in the showdown between Aeryn and the bad guy. Not quite sure how I'm gonna do it, but that is the plan.
That and in my head I see Aeryn as an overprotective parent with the first kid because it is something she's not used to. As soon as the second comes along, she's used to the idea and more willing to let everyone else help: I take this from real life. A friend of mine had a little girl almost 3 years ago: overprotective to a fault. Last November, she had twins. She works full time (she's a minister), her husband (I;ve known him since I was 4) is a grade school teacher and volleyball coach and is often not home for 10+ hours a day. She was a little nutzo over the first kid, but by the time the boys arrived, she was much more willing to let others help out.
Rats, this really is a hard topic to think coherently on, isn't it?
no subject
Date: 2003-09-17 06:39 pm (UTC)I hope you figure out a solution to your plan. I can't wait to see this fic finished (although I'm also keeping my fingers crossed for Peace...)
no subject
Date: 2003-09-18 07:03 am (UTC)why thank you... someone else said something similar and asked if I was a mother in real life: not to kids (unless you count my boss and WE ARE SO NOT GOING THERE) but to a buttload of animals. when I wrote the Jack-Aeryn-Olivia story, a had Jack make a comment about Olivia being a bit wacked when it came to that dog; based on a true life comment my mother made to me. :-)
Anyway... it's easy to fall into the hurt-comfort and the cookie cutter kid scenarioes as they are prevalent in fic and on television ALL THE FRELLING TIME. And they are hard to get away from. I'm writing family scenarioes based on what I see in real life -- god forbid I would ACTUALLY want to see something like this, but I'm waiting for a fic where John and or Aeryn have to walk away from the kid for fear of hurting them in a physical sense because as sad as it it, that's a part of real life too.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-17 06:10 pm (UTC)One thing that pissed me off so royally (and turned me off of the final two seasons of the X-Files) was that I never felt that the "Scully's Baby" storyline was anything but a plot device. That woman lost braincells by the bucketful and became totally unrecognizable (not to mention totally ineffectual) as a mother. So much they could have done if they'd handled it properly ... sigh ...
I always thought Pretender was kind of interesting in regards to Miss Parker and her mom because Miss P. was such a hardcase and had such disdain for Catherine until she found out/remembered that she had not committed suicide but had been murdered. I think the show went a bit heavy-handed in making Catherine Parker a bit too "saintly" (although that could be her seen through Parker's eyes in memory) but her whole attitude changed, at least about some things, when she got respect for her mother back.
I think one of the things that works so well in Alias is that Spy!Mommy is layered and complicated and not a one- or two-dimensional villian, so not only are you kept guessing as to what exactly her motives are, but you care about what happens to her, and (I, for one) want to see how her relationship with Sydney evolves. To me, Syd and her mom (and her dad and her mom) are far more intersting to me than Syd and Vaughan.
When I read the fic that you guys are writing with J&A as parents I think there is so much potential for story: people don't have to stop being interesting just because they have children. It should ADD to the struggles and relationship and such, not detract or make them boring and domestic. Far too many tv writers don't seem to get that.
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Date: 2003-09-17 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2003-09-17 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2003-09-17 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-18 10:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-09-19 07:05 pm (UTC)*mwah*
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Date: 2003-09-17 06:35 pm (UTC)And I agree, the family relationship in Alias is far more interesting than the Sydney/Vaughn relationship - who am I kidding, I watch Alias for Spy mommy and daddy, I have a hard time with Sydney herself.
And that is such a struggle, for writer's to continue to portray characters as parents without losing their bite. People don't lose their personality and their flaws because they have children. Why is it so hard to show that without making them villains (and I'm not complaining about those plot twists, I love them. I love Irina, I loved Xhalax in her mercilessness and bitterness), but I think the main characters would also remain interesting as parents, if written well, and it so rarely happens.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-17 06:53 pm (UTC)