Misogynistic undertones
May. 17th, 2013 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
babydracoMisha Collins says Supernatural has gratuitously misogynistic undertones
Because there are certain small ways in which the show is sort of gratuitously misogynistic when it doesn't need to be. When I read the scripts, I cringe sometimes. Yeah, there's a million other things you could say, you don't need to do this. Or, um, you have killed every other female character who had more than a two-episode arc. Do you have to take this one?"
Oh, Misha, you are awesome. I didn't think anyone involved with the show noticed these things or cared.
Not *every* instance of violence against women on the show is gratuitous misogyny. The show can have female villains,and those female villains can be killed by the heroes and it can be set in a world which is harsh and violent and where women are disproportionately the victims of said violence. The show can even create cool female heroes and then murder them. Done the right way, this can all still be fantastic story telling. The show's eighty percent a horror story, so it's okay if they want to indulge in horror movie tropes.
Except when there were clear opportunities for going a different way- when a female character does not have to die, or does not have to be killed in a blatantly sexualized manner by a male hero or villain. And when it becomes such a predictable pattern that you might as well just give up caring about any character with breasts because the shock value of what's going to happen to them has worn off. At first, it seems they were going for this idea that the tragic loss of their mother just keeps repeating itself in the women they keep losing, but after awhile, when the writers kept dipping into that well, it became less "omg tragic" and more "women on this show are disposable props whose names you shouldn't even bother to learn". That goes for a lot of the friends they make and lose in eight years, but especially for women.
"Bitch" is one thing but personally, if you ever see me having one character call another a "whore", it probably means I don't intend for the character saying it to be sympathetic in that moment.
Because there are certain small ways in which the show is sort of gratuitously misogynistic when it doesn't need to be. When I read the scripts, I cringe sometimes. Yeah, there's a million other things you could say, you don't need to do this. Or, um, you have killed every other female character who had more than a two-episode arc. Do you have to take this one?"
Oh, Misha, you are awesome. I didn't think anyone involved with the show noticed these things or cared.
Not *every* instance of violence against women on the show is gratuitous misogyny. The show can have female villains,and those female villains can be killed by the heroes and it can be set in a world which is harsh and violent and where women are disproportionately the victims of said violence. The show can even create cool female heroes and then murder them. Done the right way, this can all still be fantastic story telling. The show's eighty percent a horror story, so it's okay if they want to indulge in horror movie tropes.
Except when there were clear opportunities for going a different way- when a female character does not have to die, or does not have to be killed in a blatantly sexualized manner by a male hero or villain. And when it becomes such a predictable pattern that you might as well just give up caring about any character with breasts because the shock value of what's going to happen to them has worn off. At first, it seems they were going for this idea that the tragic loss of their mother just keeps repeating itself in the women they keep losing, but after awhile, when the writers kept dipping into that well, it became less "omg tragic" and more "women on this show are disposable props whose names you shouldn't even bother to learn". That goes for a lot of the friends they make and lose in eight years, but especially for women.
"Bitch" is one thing but personally, if you ever see me having one character call another a "whore", it probably means I don't intend for the character saying it to be sympathetic in that moment.
