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AAAUUUGH.
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.
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.
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Instead, they kept it morally murky. I loved that Woolsey used the card "You'd better hope we're on your side when the Wraith come looking for you again." There was a level of pragmatic realism that I didn't think the show would go for - which impressed me, I have to admit. The SGA team weren't angelic - and especially not Woolsey (although I did think he'd come more acropper for his arrogant condescending attitude to the council). They weren't really victims - even thought they were betrayed and ambushed. The coalition made good points. John and Woolsey made good points. And all in all, I thought it advanced the storyline in a remarkably logical way, all things considered. I ended up liking it despite huge initial reservations.
But, as an aside that I should probably keep to myself (but I never know when to keep my mouth shut), I don't think I'll ever really understand people being able to overlook what I see as the obvious racism and political grandstanding of NCIS, and yet being so outraged at what could be at worst described as discrimination by negligent on the part of SPN and SGA. But again, not American, so maybe I'm missing key issues.
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Hmmm ...! You know, I think you make good points (all of your points), and I certainly don't have any problem whatsoever with you disagreeing with me on the shows, of course.
The thing is, I do see it in NCIS but for some reason it doesn't bother me as much there -- maybe because I'm not as emotionally invested in the show? NCIS is just a show I watch, and a show I like but not really one I'm that fannish about.
A creepier thought is that maybe the background anti-Muslim sentiment is so pervasive in this country that it makes it less noticeable in NCIS even though it's more prevalent ... which really is a shudder-inducing thought and something I ought to think more about ...
With SPN, I think maybe it is a US-vs-everywhere-else thing, because there have been a couple of high-profile cases of racially-motivated violence in the last few years using that exact method of execution. This doesn't necessarily mean that the writers are intending to evoke that particular horror, but because it has been in the news and it's something that is a touchy subject for a lot of people, it seems like an awfully insensitive thing to use as a plot point, in the particular way that they did it.
I must admit that it's entirely possible at least some of my problems with SPN simply stem from me not watching much horror in general. :D A lot of what bothers me about the show is pretty standard to the horror genre (especially the way that the camera lovingly lingers on the violence, which makes scenes like the one in the last episode more, well, charged, more sensationalized, than they would be if they took place mostly off-camera).
As for SGA ... well, I love my team and I love them lots, but I do think they've made some very dark, very morally unsound decisions since they've been in the Pegasus galaxy. And truly, that's one of the things I like about the show, that they aren't as white-hat-wearing as the SG1 bunch. "We come in peace, shoot to kill" is very much their motto. :D And while that moral ambiguity is part of what I like about them, I really don't like the way that it's handled on the show sometimes, and last Friday's episode was pretty much the epitome of all I don't like about it. I felt that our guys came across as flippant, callous and unreflective, and I also felt that the writing of the episode itself was contrived to imply that the Pegasus natives didn't have a legitimate reason to be concerned about the Atlanteans' actions over the last four years. That bothered me a lot. I came away with the impression that the show was trying to present their morally gray actions as right, and the Pegasus council's objections as petty and unfounded. YMMV, of course.
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After losing a few long comments to LJ, I've gotten in the habit of writing them in a word processor (anything longer than a paragraph or two). Saves frustration, not to mention it's easier to be coherent when I can see more than a few lines of it at a time ...
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I came away with the impression that the show was trying to present their morally gray actions as right, and the Pegasus council's objections as petty and unfounded.
As I was saying before, I didn't get that impression at all. And to try and summarise my previous post about the issue. I liked that Woolsey effectively won the trial by a savvy political manoeuvre and not because he was morally righteous. He was more clever poltically, not holding the moral high ground.
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To be honest, I do find that kinda disturbing because I know that you are a person sensitive to racial issues and if even you are thus desensitised by the "social norm" like that it indicates how insidious those sentiments can be.
But, on the other hand, I do understand how someone can be desensitised without condoning. I think I'm a bit that way with the bood and gore on SPN. I'm not a real fan of the horror genre per se either, but because in my professional career, I've seen bloody and gory stuff inreality (and literally been up to my elbows in it on occasion). So a lot of the gore depicted on TV seems "cartoonish" to me and affect me much. In fact, off camera violence and implied psychological horror can actually affect me more because my imagination has always been able to come up with things that scare more than what I see onscreen.
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Actually, I haven't read that many episode reactions to Inquisition and one of the first I read was
Keeping to the periphery of fandom has helped me enjoy SGA and SPN a whole lot more. I know people who have opinions on the shows that I actually find interesting and valid (I don't always agree with them, but they don't usually spew forth mindless hate) and I stick to reading those opinions - or non-fandom opinions. Saves me the trouble of getting annoyed with some of the fandom idiocy out there.
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I still enjoy a good debate - and there are certainly people who dislike certain aspects, episodes, characters, etc who are worth debating with, but out-and-out hate-fests do nothing but destroy my squee. There is s difference between voice a well reason dislike of something and a lot of the ranting that goes on in fandom.
And it's really quite awful that fandom could dent your squee for an episode as gorgeous as "Shrine". Seriously, when fandom can damage a fan's love of their favourite episodes, the relationship is getting unhealthy. Stepping back a bit sounds like a good idea.