AAAUUUGH.

[sholio]

Why must both my shows be horribly squick-inducing this week?

I already basically said my piece about this week's SGA at Tipper's journal, and I agree with what she said, so I won't bother complaining about it here.

And then I watched Supernatural to get the taste of that out of my mouth.

Which started out all right -- a light, silly, fast-paced episode; just what I needed. Until SPN managed to prove that, as wrong as SGA can often be, SPN is always willing to go above and beyond (or ... beneath and below). When I realized what they were going to do -- that the brothers and Bobby were actually going to resolve the ghost problem by dragging to death a guy whose only real sin is that he was the victim of a hate crime ... my jaw hit the floor, and I still don't think I've managed to pick it back up. I mean ... the part of the episode where the guy's brother was talking about him being dragged to death was chilling and horrible precisely because this has been done to people in real life, for similar reasons, recently. There's no way that you can watch it and not get that stomach-twisting reminder. It's trivializing enough just to use it as a plot point in an episode, but then to re-enact it for the audience's benefit, and invite us to cheer on our heroes while they do it ... um, no. I feel ill now. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT, SPN.

The only positive benefit is that I now feel less frustrated and awful about SGA. At least it's not SPN.

Comments

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

so much as I'm concerned about trivializing people's pain, and maybe making that kind of pain a little more likely to occur in the future by trivializing it, if that makes any sense. As difficult as it was for me to watch that scene on SPN, I can't imagine how much of a kick in the gut it would be for a person who actually knew someone who died that way.

That's where I get uncertain, because I'm not sure SPN was trivializing it. Or rather, not any more than most TV does...yes, it's a terrible crime and a horrific way to die, but so are the murders on most cop shows, many of which are "ripped from the headlines". Removing the race-motivation could make it less triggering, possibly?

I think a lot of it comes down to whether the audience is invited to be cheering the Winchesters on - and at this point I really can't tell. If they're meant to be the white-washed heroes and role models, that's one thing; but I don't think they've really been portrayed that way since first season. They're interesting to watch, but the audience is not intended to approve of what they do, or want to be like them. So even if the chars are trivializing pain, we the audience are meant to feel it, are supposed to be disturbed...?

I don't know, though; if that is what SPN is going for, then their message does get muddled a lot. And I agree that the show was trivializing real-life tragedy, but so does most dramatic TV (not to mention the news, which is worse)...as you said, there's a line, and it falls in a different place for everyone; this ep didn't cross mine, but I can understand how it could (as it was, I found the whole ghost story more poor writing than trivializing. I didn't think the murder (of man or ghost) was intended as black comedy the way the rest of the ep was, I thought it was played straight and dark; but as such it was inappropriate for the ep's general tone. But the show's always had problems with comedy-to-tragedy whiplash...)

[sholio]

I don't know, though; if that is what SPN is going for, then their message does get muddled a lot.

I would say so. I mean ... okay, I'm not the only viewer out there, and maybe I'm just a particularly dense viewer who is overlooking some clues. But I think that if the writers are going to portray such a horrible crime, with real-world resonance (and my Yahoo News headlines tonight just brought up another dragging death of a black man in Texas, probably what Klostes referred to below), then the onus is on them to make it clear that they are not presenting the heroes' actions as desirable and right. And if that is what they were trying to do, then I really believe that they failed, at least from the perspective of this viewer.

Or rather, not any more than most TV does...yes, it's a terrible crime and a horrific way to die, but so are the murders on most cop shows, many of which are "ripped from the headlines". Removing the race-motivation could make it less triggering, possibly?

True, but that doesn't make it right. And I do go back and forth on whether it's better to present an allegory of a horrific crime, with the details removed, or to present it in all its awfulness. Kinda like I've been wondering lately if science fiction's degree-of-separation removal from real-world issues is a blessing or not. I used to believe that it was one of SF's strengths that it could deal with issues like racism or terrorism without referencing real-world situations, making the viewer confront them without having previously-established biases for one side or the other. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if this is really a weakness, because the viewer is distanced by necessity, and doesn't have to take that final step to apply the allegory to the real world.

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if this is really a weakness, because the viewer is distanced by necessity, and doesn't have to take that final step to apply the allegory to the real world.

I wonder if some of this is a matter of the message more than the medium? If SF is used to show the stupidity and errors of, say, racism, then it's acceptable to us, because its allegorical message is one we can get behind. And traditionally (with Star Trek and the like) SF has come down more on the side of the liberal agenda. But when those same tools are used to further an agenda counter to our own beliefs (such as SGA's imperialistic themes) then it's really disturbing, because the characters we love are trying to feed us a message we don't want to swallow; it spoils our fun, because we can't love them as much (either because we know that they are morally in the wrong, or because we know their creators are...) Not to mention, if the whole point of a story goes against your fundamental beliefs, you're not going to like the story much, unless it's really, really well done (and then you're still more likely to appreciate it than enjoy it, at least if you're me).

I think SF is a good medium for allegories; I think that allegories can make for interesting explorations of real-world situations. I don't think that such examination is the entire point of fiction or SF, however, so I don't really think of SF's allegorical abilities as a weakness or a strength, but more a basic property of the medium, that can be used poorly or to great effect, depending.

In SPN's case, it's being used poorly, because their message is so confused...I don't know if the writers are really trying to say anything at all, except "wouldn't it be cool/gross/terrible if..." and going on from there.

I really don't believe the writers of SPN were intending to suggest that hate crimes are justifiable. Among other things, in the ep, everyone involved in the original crime did end up dying horribly, they paid for their sin; and Sam & Bobby's reiteration of the crime wasn't to a real person, but a ghost. They weren't afraid of the ghost and they didn't hate him; they just didn't see him as human, which is following the rules of ghosts as established in SPN (they've never just talked a ghost out of murder, that I can recall; you always have to follow the rules. Even the not-evil ghosts are just loops on a tape, not really real people anymore. I've always had problems with the dehumanization of enemies, but SPN is consistent that ghosts aren't human, so it's pointless to feel sorry for them.) I don't think that allegorically SPN was saying, "hate crimes are okay if you're really worried about your brother" but rather, "desperate times call for desperate measures, when you're ghost-fighting".

[sholio]

I think SF is a good medium for allegories; I think that allegories can make for interesting explorations of real-world situations. I don't think that such examination is the entire point of fiction or SF, however, so I don't really think of SF's allegorical abilities as a weakness or a strength, but more a basic property of the medium, that can be used poorly or to great effect, depending.

Yes, but. I'm not sure how effective SF's allegories actually are, which makes me wonder if it really is a good medium for it. I used to think so, but the more I consider it, the more I wonder if SF's divorced-from-reality allegories really only resonate with the audience if they already believe it, and it comfortably reinforces their convictions. Otherwise, the audience is unwilling or unable to do the work required to separate the allegory from its context in order to tease out its meaning. Real-world allegories are much easier to comprehend because they're rooted in the reader's reality; therefore they're more accessible to readers who are marginally receptive but not yet convinced -- the basic audience for allegories, in general.

I do agree with you that convincing the reader of a particular view is not the sole point of fiction, or even its most important point -- and fiction that's made to serve a particular viewpoint slavishly is uncomfortable to read whether the reader agrees or disagrees, though it can be interesting as a thought exercise alone (i.e. 1984, The Dispossessed, Atlas Shrugged). ... though I suppose of the examples I just cited, two of them basically founded political movements, which would tend to disprove my point ...

[xparrot.livejournal.com]

Yes, but. I'm not sure how effective SF's allegories actually are, which makes me wonder if it really is a good medium for it.

I think SF's allegories are as effective as any other allegorical literature, which is, as effective as the writers and readers make them. The major problem SF has is that, as genre work, the depths of it are too often ignored; people go to it for light entertainment and don't try to read deeper meaning into it. If the allegories aren't made obvious, or if you don't look for the allegories, you won't see them; so you might not get any meaning out of it. But the same is true of real-world allegories, too.

On the other hand, allegory can be a sneaky way to get readers/viewers to consider things they might not otherwise. A marginally receptive reader might not have any interest in reading a real-world story about the problems of racism; they might consider such things to be special-interest, of no particular meaning to them. Draw them in with shiny spaceships and they might get more out of it than they were looking for. Making people think hard about one thing is a good way to get them in the habit of thinking in general. I don't know if the value of SF allegory is so much to pass judgment on specific real-world incidents, so much as to make people think a little harder in general, such that next time a question arises in the real world, they're more inclined to consider things from another angle.