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I'm not sure if this quite constitutes a "rant" or not...
It's just something that's been vaguely bothering me in perusing episode reactions over the last few weeks -- well, all right, over the last few years to be honest, but it's been more noticeable lately for some reason. It has to do with objections to the way men are characterized on SGA.
Basically, it appears that at least some of the fandom object to the guys of SGA being depicted as, well, guys: divvying up alien princesses, competing to impress a girl and the like.
I hate to tell you folks, but this not only reads as perfectly normal guy behavior to me, but it is just the very tip of the iceberg -- if anything, SGA is sanitizing for television like whoa. I've had plenty of opportunity in my life to observe men of all ages in their natural habitat, i.e. sans women (or at least women they felt like censoring themselves around), and, yes, I can pretty much assure you that most of your boyfriends, husbands, brothers, and male friends really do get together amongst themselves and rate women based on breast size, compete over who has the biggest/best/most guns/cars/other male status symbols, show off in stupid ways to attract the attention of the nearest female thing, make goddawful sexist jokes, and so forth.
And, no, it's not just blue-collar guys that do this -- geeks are just as bad, if not worse. Just more erudite about it. *g*
I'm not sure if the basic objection is the belief that men don't really do this, or if fandom is well aware that men do it and the characters are probably doing it off-camera but we just don't want to see them do it. And I'll fully admit that there's a definite gender imbalance in the way that sort of thing is depicted -- i.e. most women are just as crude amongst themselves and objectify men just as badly (*cough*FANDOM*cough*), but it's not something you typically see on a show like SGA. (This was one of the reasons I liked Trio so much; we finally got to see the women doing a little of that!) But I guess I run into the Wall of Bafflement when I start seeing the implication that the writers of SGA are doing something wrong for depicting their male characters acting like just about every man I've ever known. Maybe I'd be able to see the point more easily if the boys of SGA mistreated women, or had trouble taking orders from women, but they don't; John, for example, seems to have a perfectly easygoing friendship with Teyla, and no trouble at all accepting Elizabeth or Sam as his boss. (Well, no more trouble than he does with any authority figure.) The one real exception I can think of is Rodney's dismissive attitude towards Sam, but it's not specifically her -- he's just the same way with Zelenka or any other scientist around him, regardless of gender.
I guess I'm also hugely biased because I actually like SGA as, basically, the Red Green Show in space. That's a big part of its appeal for me -- I crack up watching grown men behaving like the little boys that I am absolutely positive my husband and all my male relatives would turn into if you gave them a spaceship and a big box of alien robot parts. I can certainly recognize that this might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I don't want my guys sanitized and watered down, and I get a little knee-jerky defensive of them, especially since they don't seem to have any behavioral problems other than acting like overgrown adolescents as soon as the womens' backs are turned, which is exactly what most of the guys I've known do, too.
(Though I could totally go for more of the girls being girls, as well as the guys being guys.)
Basically, it appears that at least some of the fandom object to the guys of SGA being depicted as, well, guys: divvying up alien princesses, competing to impress a girl and the like.
I hate to tell you folks, but this not only reads as perfectly normal guy behavior to me, but it is just the very tip of the iceberg -- if anything, SGA is sanitizing for television like whoa. I've had plenty of opportunity in my life to observe men of all ages in their natural habitat, i.e. sans women (or at least women they felt like censoring themselves around), and, yes, I can pretty much assure you that most of your boyfriends, husbands, brothers, and male friends really do get together amongst themselves and rate women based on breast size, compete over who has the biggest/best/most guns/cars/other male status symbols, show off in stupid ways to attract the attention of the nearest female thing, make goddawful sexist jokes, and so forth.
And, no, it's not just blue-collar guys that do this -- geeks are just as bad, if not worse. Just more erudite about it. *g*
I'm not sure if the basic objection is the belief that men don't really do this, or if fandom is well aware that men do it and the characters are probably doing it off-camera but we just don't want to see them do it. And I'll fully admit that there's a definite gender imbalance in the way that sort of thing is depicted -- i.e. most women are just as crude amongst themselves and objectify men just as badly (*cough*FANDOM*cough*), but it's not something you typically see on a show like SGA. (This was one of the reasons I liked Trio so much; we finally got to see the women doing a little of that!) But I guess I run into the Wall of Bafflement when I start seeing the implication that the writers of SGA are doing something wrong for depicting their male characters acting like just about every man I've ever known. Maybe I'd be able to see the point more easily if the boys of SGA mistreated women, or had trouble taking orders from women, but they don't; John, for example, seems to have a perfectly easygoing friendship with Teyla, and no trouble at all accepting Elizabeth or Sam as his boss. (Well, no more trouble than he does with any authority figure.) The one real exception I can think of is Rodney's dismissive attitude towards Sam, but it's not specifically her -- he's just the same way with Zelenka or any other scientist around him, regardless of gender.
I guess I'm also hugely biased because I actually like SGA as, basically, the Red Green Show in space. That's a big part of its appeal for me -- I crack up watching grown men behaving like the little boys that I am absolutely positive my husband and all my male relatives would turn into if you gave them a spaceship and a big box of alien robot parts. I can certainly recognize that this might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I don't want my guys sanitized and watered down, and I get a little knee-jerky defensive of them, especially since they don't seem to have any behavioral problems other than acting like overgrown adolescents as soon as the womens' backs are turned, which is exactly what most of the guys I've known do, too.
(Though I could totally go for more of the girls being girls, as well as the guys being guys.)
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*cringe* You know, I certainly don't believe that people have to like Keller just 'cause she's a girl (that would be very, very silly), but the kind of criticism that she gets doesn't make any SENSE to me! I feel like people aren't giving her a fair shake -- that they decided they weren't going to like her back in season three, and now she can't do anything right. If one almost-kiss and one casual date in two years make you a slut, then clearly I've been using the word wrong for all these years ...
Bottom line is, they're men. And they're human. And the more human they're allowed to be, the more interesting they are.
YES. Exactly. I enjoy seeing them act like guys, not like some sanitized version of what (some) women want men to act like. Obviously men aren't one monolithic entity, any more than women are, and some guys are a lot more genteel than others, but neither John nor Rodney is the sort of guy who always remembers a girl's birthday and knows what all the forks on the table are for. *g* And particularly when we see them in private moments, like Ronon and Rodney in Tracker, or John and Rodney dibs-ing the princesses in Harmony -- where's the harm in something like that? The proof, as you said in your other comment, is in how they act towards the women in their lives -- and all of our guys treat their women friends as equals and their female bosses with the respect they deserve.