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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.)
no subject
At the same time, I don't think that the people who are disturbed by it are necessarily overreacting. The show's not the worst out there by a long shot, but it definitely could be better. (And I wonder if some people are especially disturbed because when it comes to seeing women as equals - the writers write strong female characters in positions of authority, and the guys accepting them as equals; but they don't have any women in their writing room or on their production staff. They aren't practicing what they preach. And maybe it's just coincidence, that they've never found a girl who's a good fit for their boys' club - but it might be a sign that they actually aren't comfortable working with women; that the characters' mild sexism is symptomatic of bigger issues in the people behind those characters.)
no subject
I'm not going around to other people's posts and trying to argue them out of what they see. That would be making a grade-A ass of myself. For one thing, I do recognize (moreso after this discussion) that a lot of people who have a problem with it probably are reacting because it reflects unpleasant experiences that they or people they love have had, and I would never dream of telling them to their face that they're wrong or that they shouldn't discuss it, in their journals, with like-minded people.
On the other hand, I get the impression from the response to this post that there are quite a few fen who agree with me and who feel validated by having this said -- and I think it's worth saying because of that. I mean ... if I see fen elsewhere ripping on one of the things I like about the show, I think I'm perfectly entitled to defend it from my own journal and present things as *I* see them.
And I do feel that, especially considering all of the sexism and discrimination that does still exist, it's necessary for us (women) to learn where to draw the line, too -- to be able to distinguish between things that hurt us, and things that we have to be willing to concede to other people because they're autonomous human beings, too. I think that's why I'm wanting to defend the SGA boys here -- it'd be different if they were making the women around them uncomfortable or unhappy, as opposed to being themselves on private time. I do think that Rodney's behavior in "48 Hours", and to a lesser degree "Redemption", was unconscionably sexist (though, in "48 Hours" at least, he did get smacked down pretty hard), and John's reaction to the "girl" team in Whispers was highly inappropriate as their boss. (But subsequently, he seemed to be able to work with them comfortably.) To me, there's a very big difference between that, and the "cute little ... smile" scene in Tao (where it's just three people of the same sex working together, chatting about the opposite sex, like people do) or John and Rodney calling dibs on the princesses (and subsequently getting smacked down, by the show, too -- DORKS!).