Scifi with aggressive sexuality
- Thread starter JirinPanthosa
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@thestrangequark, I'm curious, what do you think of SVU? Do you approve of how it's handled characters like Benson, Rollins, etc.?
It has been a really long time since I watched it. Many, many years -- I don't even know who Rollins is. I've learned a lot and thought a lot more deeply on feminism since then. So, while I can say that I used to like it, I honestly don't know what my opinion of it would be now that I'm more mature. I know they always had a very strong stance about victim-blaming, which was awesome. I know that Mariska Hargitay and Christopher Meloni have both actively supported women's rights and LGBTQ rights and I remember thinking that came through in the show.
I was curious about this as well. I know my wife likes Benson, quite a bit, and appreciates her role and chemistry with her fellow officers. Since she has past sexual abuse, I found her thoughts on Benson to be quite insightful. She has a great deal of respect of Mariska as well.
Thank you for sharing, @thestrangequark
Here we're getting into another general double-standard. When a woman can't find a mate, it seems like society tries to tell her, "Girl, you are a wonderful person and you don't need a relationship to feel good about yourself!" But when a man can't find a mate, the response is, "You can't find a girlfriend because you're a creepy, repugnant weirdo who doesn't deserve one!"
It's an interesting range of responses, from flattered to angry to confused. Nothing that I can identify as a singular trend though.
The problem with the analogy is that the person getting run over doesn't go on to say, "This is a symptom of society's omnipresent disrespect for pedestrians. All reckless driving should be banned from popular media because it promotes 'car accident culture.' Unless the show goes to great pains to put it in the proper context, it's the default assumption that all reckless drivers mean harm to pedestrians."
It's very true. It's also true that a lot of women don't have the experiential reality to directly empathize with the experiences of some men. Just as men need to empathize with how some women feel vulnerable, women need to empathize with how some men feel lonely or rejected or whathaveyou.
In your backward imaginary world, maybe. But in the real world the message historically directed at women and girls is: you need a man to complete you. This is the message told by pretty much every romance, hell, every Disney Princess movie up until Frozen. For the vast majority of female characters finding a man has been at least a major, if not the main drive of the character. Look at The Little Mermaid, for example: a wonderful movie as far as music and entertainment value, but what is the actual message it's telling girls? You should change yourself as much as possible to get a man, even if it's horrifically physically painful and means losing the things that define you, and it doesn't matter at all if you even talk, you just have to be pretty enough to garner his physical affections. The important thing is: you need a man!
Any "you don't need a man" messages you're hearing are just women trying to fight back against a society that is still telling us we're worthless if we aren't good enough to get a man! That's the actual narrative.
No, we are only telling the men who think that a woman and sex is something they have a right to that they are creepy, repugnant weirdos. Because thinking you have a right to another human is creepy and repugnant.
From the entirety of your post it appears you understand neither reality nor analogy.
They do in the trial
Mudd's Women said:
Mudd elaborates:.
Sounds like this was Mudd's first go around. Probably his latest scheme. And no doubt as doomed as the others.
'
The ladies seem to be willing partners in his scheme and there are husbands waiting on Ophiuchus 3.
Seems that Harry is greedy ( what a surprise!) and decides they need to trade up.
The ladies again, seem willing.
thestrangequark said:
"The show also has Faith: fucked up, emotional wreck, uses sex to get what she wants, Anya: so desperate to get married, Tara: vulnerable and soft and easily manipulated, Willow: so much going on with her. The thing is, all these characters have traits, even traits that are large parts of their personalities, that are, well, negative. Traits that are often negative stereotypes of women. But because the time was taken to craft the characters as complete, complex individuals with their own motivations, they are all strong female characters.
Sorry I could go on and on about Buffy for weeks. The end of the series, when Willow works her spell and all the girls around the world stand up -- I still can't watch that scene without crying!"
Oh...agreed! I'm so bummed that I only jumped on the bandwagon in season 3. I would have loved to have been an active part of the experience right from the start.
But you have hit on what I loved about it the most. All of these young women were extremely flawed, and there were times when I actively didn't like them...and that felt real. They were real, and they were strong. I was so hopeful that this series was going to lead to a whole slew of shows following its example. However, other shows copied the style, but not the substance.
Oh well. I live in hope!
"The show also has Faith: fucked up, emotional wreck, uses sex to get what she wants, Anya: so desperate to get married, Tara: vulnerable and soft and easily manipulated, Willow: so much going on with her. The thing is, all these characters have traits, even traits that are large parts of their personalities, that are, well, negative. Traits that are often negative stereotypes of women. But because the time was taken to craft the characters as complete, complex individuals with their own motivations, they are all strong female characters.
Sorry I could go on and on about Buffy for weeks. The end of the series, when Willow works her spell and all the girls around the world stand up -- I still can't watch that scene without crying!"
Oh...agreed! I'm so bummed that I only jumped on the bandwagon in season 3. I would have loved to have been an active part of the experience right from the start.
But you have hit on what I loved about it the most. All of these young women were extremely flawed, and there were times when I actively didn't like them...and that felt real. They were real, and they were strong. I was so hopeful that this series was going to lead to a whole slew of shows following its example. However, other shows copied the style, but not the substance.
Oh well. I live in hope!
@Shanndee Buffy premiered on my fourteenth birthday -- best birthday present ever!
And, since @The Borgified Corpse seems really committed to the Nice Guy narrative, can we talk about Xander? Because there is a potential Nice Guy gone right!
Examining the relationships between Buffy, Xander, and Willow in the first season is a perfect example of the entitlement culture we've been trying to explain to you, @The Borgified Corpse . It is a perfect example of the fact that it's just as hard for women to get what they want in love and sex as it is for men. It is a perfect example of the fact that many men feel they deserve women and how they can get dangerous when they don't get what they want. And finally, it is a perfect example of what a man should be.
And you know, Joss Whedon is good enough that I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was all done on purpose.
In season one you've got Willow pining after a clueless Xander pining after an uninterested/unavailable Buffy. Willow struggles with dating and relationships because she is weird and awkward and dorky, and guys don't look past that to see how smart and kind she is -- hey, sounds a bit like the complaints guys have about how women treat them, huh? Well, that's because this character is a great example of the fact that in real life, real women are real people who struggle just as much as men when it comes to relationships, and for a lot of the same reasons. Shocker.
Xander starts off as the typical Nice Guy. He's friends with Buffy because he's romantically in love with her and wants more. He postures around her. He gets extremely jealous and acts like a dick when she pays attention to other guys. He complains and complains and complains when she doesn't return his affections, as if he's owed it. He blames the fact that Buffy doesn't want him on Angel -- it's Angel's "fault" Buffy doesn't like Xander -- it's not that Buffy is a person who has her own motivations and just isn't interested; her behavior must be the result of another man (that asshole the girls are always going after while the Nice Guys sit alone in the rafters). This sounding familiar?
The (admittedly ridiculous) hyena episode actually serves as a good look at what sometimes happens when Nice Guys don't get what they want: they try to take it, violently. Can we say attempted rape? And remember -- the whole purpose of Buffy was to examine real problems real young people experience using fantasy/horror as analogies. Well, having a Nice Guy force himself on you is a real problem a lot of real girls have experienced.
Contrast all that with Willow pining after Xander. She gets grumpy. She gets bitchy. But she never acts as if she is entitled to Xander's affections. She internalizes everything. She doesn't treat Buffy the way Xander treats Angel, because she sees Xander as a whole person and not someone whose actions have to be defined in relationship to a man's.
Finally, when Xander works up the nerve to ask Buffy out and she turns him down, he pulls the classic Nice Guy bit: he gets angry and righteous and blames her, and then tells her he's never going to give up. As a culture, we've romanticized that line. But you know what? That's not romantic. That's shitty. That scary. And that's where the character becomes awesome: because he realizes that it's shitty and he apologizes. He learns to value Buffy as a friend, and treats her with respect and not like an object from that point on.
Sure, the character was still massively fucked up -- serious masculinity issues probably stemming from the never-directly-stated-but-pretty-blatantly-implied abusive parents he had, but he got over being a Nice Guy, which was way cool.
Should've stayed with Cordelia though. Xander+Cordelia4Eva.
And, since @The Borgified Corpse seems really committed to the Nice Guy narrative, can we talk about Xander? Because there is a potential Nice Guy gone right!
Examining the relationships between Buffy, Xander, and Willow in the first season is a perfect example of the entitlement culture we've been trying to explain to you, @The Borgified Corpse . It is a perfect example of the fact that it's just as hard for women to get what they want in love and sex as it is for men. It is a perfect example of the fact that many men feel they deserve women and how they can get dangerous when they don't get what they want. And finally, it is a perfect example of what a man should be.
And you know, Joss Whedon is good enough that I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was all done on purpose.
In season one you've got Willow pining after a clueless Xander pining after an uninterested/unavailable Buffy. Willow struggles with dating and relationships because she is weird and awkward and dorky, and guys don't look past that to see how smart and kind she is -- hey, sounds a bit like the complaints guys have about how women treat them, huh? Well, that's because this character is a great example of the fact that in real life, real women are real people who struggle just as much as men when it comes to relationships, and for a lot of the same reasons. Shocker.
Xander starts off as the typical Nice Guy. He's friends with Buffy because he's romantically in love with her and wants more. He postures around her. He gets extremely jealous and acts like a dick when she pays attention to other guys. He complains and complains and complains when she doesn't return his affections, as if he's owed it. He blames the fact that Buffy doesn't want him on Angel -- it's Angel's "fault" Buffy doesn't like Xander -- it's not that Buffy is a person who has her own motivations and just isn't interested; her behavior must be the result of another man (that asshole the girls are always going after while the Nice Guys sit alone in the rafters). This sounding familiar?
The (admittedly ridiculous) hyena episode actually serves as a good look at what sometimes happens when Nice Guys don't get what they want: they try to take it, violently. Can we say attempted rape? And remember -- the whole purpose of Buffy was to examine real problems real young people experience using fantasy/horror as analogies. Well, having a Nice Guy force himself on you is a real problem a lot of real girls have experienced.
Contrast all that with Willow pining after Xander. She gets grumpy. She gets bitchy. But she never acts as if she is entitled to Xander's affections. She internalizes everything. She doesn't treat Buffy the way Xander treats Angel, because she sees Xander as a whole person and not someone whose actions have to be defined in relationship to a man's.
Finally, when Xander works up the nerve to ask Buffy out and she turns him down, he pulls the classic Nice Guy bit: he gets angry and righteous and blames her, and then tells her he's never going to give up. As a culture, we've romanticized that line. But you know what? That's not romantic. That's shitty. That scary. And that's where the character becomes awesome: because he realizes that it's shitty and he apologizes. He learns to value Buffy as a friend, and treats her with respect and not like an object from that point on.
Sure, the character was still massively fucked up -- serious masculinity issues probably stemming from the never-directly-stated-but-pretty-blatantly-implied abusive parents he had, but he got over being a Nice Guy, which was way cool.
Should've stayed with Cordelia though. Xander+Cordelia4Eva.
PS Told you I could go on about Buffy. I could probably sit here and dissect 50 episodes and how they relate to the topic of this thread! 
A
Amaris
Guest
This. Basically if you are hateful and deluded and sneeringly dismissive of women's experience and perspectives and persist in trying to portray yourself in ass-backwards fashion as the victim of a social order that privileges them instead of you, and you keep running into situations where people have to explain basics of the realities of gender relations to you and get increasingly creeped out by you the longer they hear you talk, AND you also happen to be lonely and lovelorn... well, chances are that last thing is directly related to those other things. Having massive flaws that you absolutely refuse to work on because you think you have some automatic right of access to other people's bodies is not exactly a ticket to happiness.
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The other thing with Xander is in Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered where Cordy breaks up with him and his nice guy slips in. He buys her a valentine's present then she dumps him, he decides he wants her humiliated and has a love spell cast so he can publicly dump her while she's devoted to him. He doesn't do it because he loves her and can't let go, which would be bad enough, he does it because he's petty and spiteful. Yet he's still a 'good guy'.
His response when Giles says he didn't think he was fool enough to do this was 'I'm twice the fool it takes to do this.'
His response when Giles says he didn't think he was fool enough to do this was 'I'm twice the fool it takes to do this.'
You recall that he was 15 or 16 when that happened?
Children act childish, until they grow up.
Children act childish, until they grow up.
No problem
. But let me make one thing straight: the whole episode reeks of sexism and the characters behave as if they were in a 50s sitcom. Every society that don't allow an individual to fulfill his/her potential only because his/her gender, belief, race or other and leave only the marriage as a mean of social mobility is simply wrongBut, putting aside the Venus Drug thing, Mudd is just running a Wedding Agency and a Taxi Service (without permit). He is not doing something inherently wrong, like selling stolen goods or producing child pornography. Yes, the thing seems fishy because, well, he is Mudd.
And really, I am little offended by the concept that if a woman is in a not-romantic (and obviously not-forced) marriage is surely some kind a prostitute (and I suppose that for American people is worst of the worst, because, you know, U.S. is the only country in the western world where in some places prostitutes are treated as dangerous criminals). If a woman decides to improve her social status by marriage is just her choice.
On the planet Ophiucus III women were scarce. And China is suffering by a similar problem, so the state created agencies that facilitate the meeting of men and women paying the journey expenses. By some poster reasoning, this is just some state-owned sex slaves traffic operation?
So at the end @The Borgified Corpse replied to one of my posts. I feel a little tainted and dirty. Reading his "arguments" makes my neurons itchy. Any suggestion?
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I figure 17 but sure, isn't that the point? He grows up and manages to do many good things, he is a decent man, he saves the world and his friends on a number of occasions. He realises his inferiority problems hold him back and even calls off a marriage because he realises it's happening for the wrong reasons. He is a good guy, but that doesn't mean he was always right and his problems were the rest of the world's fault.
I'm not sure how it happened in other former colonies but in America, people married for survival. Men and women. If you read the histories of Plymouth Colony you will read account after account of person A losing a spouse and marrying person B just a few months later. Person A might well be a man with small children, Person B a widow with small children. They move in together, children are taken care of and adults work together help keep everyone alive. This was a harsh reality that was repeated over and over and settlers went west. It had little to do with the idea that women were only fulfilled by marriage and had everything to do with staying alive.
Heck...Jamestown Virginia. I believe it was around 1619. A shipload of women brought over voluntarily to be wives for the colonists. I think a similar thing happened in the New Orleans area but I'm not sure of the date on that one. I'm sure it happened in other places, in Canada and Australia, NZ as well.
It was not an uncommon thing.
Heck...Jamestown Virginia. I believe it was around 1619. A shipload of women brought over voluntarily to be wives for the colonists. I think a similar thing happened in the New Orleans area but I'm not sure of the date on that one. I'm sure it happened in other places, in Canada and Australia, NZ as well.
It was not an uncommon thing.
Wasn't just the colonies, people rarely married for love. Status, money, protection, survival. Widower with young children married to have a woman to look after the kids. Every day life really.
^Yep!
And some people seem to forget that the concept of "romantic marriage" is quite recent. Probably for those people all the married women in the millennia before were just a bunch of hookers.
From How marriage has changed over centuries
And some people seem to forget that the concept of "romantic marriage" is quite recent. Probably for those people all the married women in the millennia before were just a bunch of hookers.
From How marriage has changed over centuries
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None of which justifies the practice in Mudd's Women. Marriage as a necessity for women since there are no other options is just part and parcel of objectifying women. It's a ridiculously anachronistic story set in an allegedly better future. One that fandom likes to now call a post-scarcity society. It's all enlightened except when it's not because reasons. It's a shite episode. To quote Gwen DeMarco 'This episode was badly written'
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