SPN: the absence of women

[vaznetti]

The absence of female characters from the ongoing SPN narrative seems to be the subject du jour, so I thought I'd jump in, because I'm usually one of the first to cry "misogyny" in the shows I watch (I'm looking at you, XF) but I don't see that here.


I think my response to this issue is based on the way I read the text, and so I think (a) that there are satisfying textual reasons for the absence of women and (b) that the show itself can be read as making the absence of women a problem. As we see in pretty much every intro for the whole run of the show, the Winchester family is an all-male enterprise, and it's an all-male enterprise because all the women in it were killed off -- not just Mary, but also Jess, at least in part because she was close enough to Sam to be perceived as a threat by the Demon. They didn't decide to leave the womenfolk at home while they went out on the road to do manly things like hunt demons -- they were driven to that when their whole world was thrown into imbalance by an external force which removed (effective) women from the world. Sam and John, at least, would like to return to a world with significant women in it, but they're both particular about who those women are -- they're attached to the idea of women as people as well as women as symbols. Dean's a good deal less particular, but he has all those rejection and abandonment issues, most of which are rooted in the loss of his mother at such a young age; again, the absence of women is a bad thing here.

I guess the short version is -- there are no women in the Winchester family because the Demon killed them all. The Demon is the big Evil, therefore the show does not seem to be telling me that the absence of women is a good thing. The Winchesters cope fairly well with a world which lacks significant women, but that world is not (in my opinion) presented as complete.

I'd like to talk about the guest-stars here, but maybe later -- right now it seems to me that there are villains and victims who are female, and villains and victims who are male or ungendered, and that female guest stars seem about as able to cope with what the Winchesters do as male guest stars. And ultimately, my reading of the show is based on the mytharc, not the MOTWs. Mileage varies.



As for comparisons to Buffy or XF, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the producers used the fact that the main characters are male to sell the show -- it's something to differentiate it on a network which already has a fair number of shows with a strong female presence (I mean, Charmed is still running, isn't it? and every time I catch an episode of Smallville, it seems to be all about the romances). And I don't think that having lots of juicy roles for women necessarily is enough to clear a show. Alias, for example, had a female hero and included good roles for more mature female actresses. It also represented relationships between women as almost universally competitive rather than cooperative, and marriage as a locus for deception and (in extreme but prominent cases) a form of warfare in which the wife is an enemy agent inserted within the husband's territory to undermine and destroy him.

My apologies if this doesn't make sense; I was awake at an unreasonable hour this morning, and lay there thinking about this because I couldn't fall back to sleep.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm. I agree, in the most part, particularly with the "there is a reason the boys don't have women around" and "not having women around is shown as having a negative effect on all three of them.

The other thing that's not working for me is the comparisions to Buffy, mostly because Buffy (and Buffy) never worked for me. (I think you're absolutely correct in choosing Alias as a point of comparision, for reasons I'll get to at the end.) I know Buffy was an affecting show, female role wise, for a lot of people, and yah! to it for that. But when I watched it, I didn't see the sort of independent and capable women that I prefer on my tv shows, and too much of the "we're going to mock men because we can." And it was about childern, and teenagers, not women. YMMV, obviously, and there were moments of brilliance.

If SPN is about a group of guys saying, "We don't have women in our lives, and it is fucking us up" then maybe Buffy could be read as "We don't need no stinking guys! And besides, guys are stupid and break things."

Finally, the calls for more women (which sometimes seem to say "we need more strong women of any sort! Anywhere!") seem, to me, to be done without regard for the underlying theme of family. The Winchesters are screwed up because (in part) they don't have a female balance within the family. That's not something that adding a gal character is going to be able to fix - she's still going to be not a Winchester.

For me, the main diff between Buffy and SPN is that Buffy priviledged "found" families over devotion to blood family - which is a common theme in modern tv and lit, I think. (Alias being one with a strong family dynamic that still doesn't match SPN's.) As you say with F/SF shows with lots of gals, there are lots of shows that emphasize companions and causes and romantic partners over family. Not so many the other way, I think.

Anyway. Maybe more later.

(Did you get the email?)

- hossgal

[veejane.livejournal.com]

maybe Buffy could be read as "We don't need no stinking guys! And besides, guys are stupid and break things."

This is a very shallow reading. If you didn't watch much of Buffy, that may explain why you didn't notice the importance of both Giles and Xander. Xander played the buffoon, often, in the early seasons, but both characters were distinctly "needed" from the very first.

You make an interesting point, that a new female character would disrupt the focus on blood-family among the Winchesters, but, I think that might be kind of interesting. I mean, Jess wasn't family, was she? Not blood family. What if she had lived and gone on the road with the boys? It would have been a different show, but it would have been pretty interesting.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, if we're looking at the entire run of Buffy, and only one season of SPN, then that doesn't give us a terribly deep look at SPN, I think.

I saw Xander as the constant butt of jokes, of most typically being the one who did nothing that could not be done by some else, who was most constantly in shadow while the others - Buffy, Willow, Faith - were pushed into the spotlight. When he did get his spot, at the end of S6, it was in the same way that Dean opperates on SPN - I'm not going to let you go. And that was after 6 seasons. So I'm fairly satisfied that my read isn't incorrect.

Giles was also played for laughs more often than not, I thought. (Granted, a lot of BtVS was played for laughs. And me and comedy are not the best of buddies. So, put that in the balance, too.) He was also not cast as masculine (tweedy glasses wearing librarian?) although that, too, faded somewhat - in later seasons. Buffy's "need" of him was as a teacher/mother figure, not as man or, I would argue, particularly as father.

In response to what you say below re: the men of SPN taking on female roles, I saw the same thing in BtVS, only with girls taking on the male traits of violence, killing, and casual sex, but, at the same time, rejecting the "female" traits of emotional intimacy, nurturing, and community. I think the trade wasn't a particularly good one.

(And while I say all this, please, this is what *I* got out of Buffy. It didn't work for me, didn't talk to me. Other people, other gals, it told them that they could be the kick-ass heroes of the story, too, and that is *great.* It's like scowling at how Dumbledor is a scheming manipulator and not to be trusted and the HP books are overly simplistic and *ignoring* the fact that kids who never read were gobbling down the books. *waves hands* There are a variety of scales to measure success on.)

What if she had lived and gone on the road with the boys? It would have been a different show, but it would have been pretty interesting.

Yes, that would have been interesting (I'm going to respond to your comment in Mely's post about what sorts of gals I wouldn't mind seeing in the show) and there have been more than a couple brilliant fics running with this idea. But, as you say, it would shift the story from a clan-saga to yet another "found family" drama.

There are thoughts running around in my head about Ponderosa and Dallas, as well as about Everwood, which is another male-heavy family story.

*sigh* Dean pretty. Guns loud. Sam good.

- hg

[vaznetti]

I mean, Jess wasn't family, was she? Not blood family. What if she had lived and gone on the road with the boys?

Wasn't the point that Sam was on the point of asking her to marry him? At which point she might well have been considered family (since I don't think SPN has the jaundiced view of marriage that Alias does).

I agree that it might be interesting to see a new female character interact with the Winchesters, but I also like their wretched family dynamic very much, and would want to see most of the attention remain on that.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I would posit, rather, that the ritual shearing of women out of the story is important because the women symbolically reflect on the men. Carol Clover's got a whole chapter on this, in Men, Women and Chain Saws, about this subset of horror movies where it's all about establishing and testing masculinity, and masculinity is tested via its "opposite" -- the women in the main character's life are possessed, or kidnapped, or tortured, etc. etc.

And the main character's quest -- and he's always a he -- is to rescue or avenge the girl, and in so doing circumscribe the parameters of masculinity. It's all about him, and while he cares for her, in the scheme of the story she exists only to be a rag doll in his drama.

It's notable, within the Winchester family dynamic, that we have males acting out traditionally feminine roles -- the psychic, the "selfless mom" role. In the absence of women, the men take on aspects of traditional femininity -- male encompasses female, and female, being dead, encompasses nothing.

Like, there's a long and strong tradition of horror pictures doing the same thing, but, it's kind of dull and irritating to pick up the stereotype without giving it a twist.

[vaznetti]

In the absence of women, the men take on aspects of traditional femininity -- male encompasses female, and female, being dead, encompasses nothing.

I'm really not sure about that "female encompasses nothing" thing. I think that the dead women in SPN are hugely important as symbols, and that they've been removed from the board (by the Demon) because of their potential power to interfere with whatever it's got in mind. I mean, I agree that that power is never made actual, but I don't think that it's unimportant because of that. And although the male characters do take on aspects of femininity, they do so in an incomplete and unsatisfactory manner -- the whole family unit is in disarray, and no matter how much Dean plays the Mom, he can't fix it. And if the narrative is about establishing and testing masculinity (is that what you think is going on here?) then this must necessarily remain the case, because masculinity is to be defined in opposition to femininity -- the all-male world is going to have to remain incomplete and out-of-balance. Or would you argue that the horror-movie narrative posits the all-male-world as sufficient? Because I really don't think SPN does that.

I think part of the difference in my reading is that I really don't know anything about horror-movie narrative, so I don't pick that up; I do know about reading works in which women play a marginal role against the grain. It's just that I don't think this particular against-the-grain reading stretches the text in an unreasonable way.

[iseult-variante.livejournal.com]

I think you are getting at something I hadn't been able to verbalize - yes, women are absent, and the text itself says that THIS IS BAD.

(I always wonder if I am a "bad" feminist, because I so rarely see sexism. With SPN, I have sort of a, "... yes, there are no women? But, like, that's the show?" reaction.)

I look forward to seeing your discussion of the guest-stars. :)

[vaznetti]

I look forward to seeing your discussion of the guest-stars. :)

Heh. I was thinking of ducking out of that, really.

And thank you. I'm glad this line of argument worked for you.

[se-parsons.livejournal.com]

I read an article once on Disney heroes that was talking largely about the fairy tale convention of absent or ineffectional parents, particularly mothers.

That's how SPN reads to me.

Mother is dead and acts only as a motivating force for revenge, Father is absent, to free up children to go have adventures. It's pretty standard mythology stuff.

How much more deeply do we need to read it? This is STOCK plot stuff from forever.

YMMV, of course.

[se-parsons.livejournal.com]

"Ineffectional". clearly the sinus headache has killed my brane.

[vaznetti]

I don't think you're wrong about the absent-parents thing (although that requires a second explanation for Jess -- but it's not really hard to work one in.)

[calicomary.livejournal.com]

First off, I'm glad this hasn't turned into the writerly version of a screaming contest.

Secondly, as a way of introducing my perspective on gender roles in the media, one of the things I hate about commercials (aside from the fact that they exist) is how subtley or explicitly gendered they are. Every product is specifically geared to appeal to the masculine or feminine gender, or both but in completely different ways.

In story based media (movies, television, books, etc.) I am also particularly irked both by archaic depictions of women as well as attempts to "modernize" them. I use quotations because it is often assumed that the way to modernize the female is to make her more like the male, which assumes that the male standard of behavior is the right one.

I remember being particularly frustrated during my first watching of "Bloody Mary." I don't remember her name, but the girl who didn't die, I just wanted to strangle her. It was such a typical female role in the horror genre.

On the other hand, the Sherrif in "The Benders" made me smile (if only because I like the actress). She was tough, she was able to handle Dean's bull, but she was also "in touch" with her emotions with regard to her brother. She didn't strike me as an attempt to masculinize (is that a word) a female character, but rather an attempt to depict an actual human being. That's what I look for in stories, authentic human characters.

*sputter, cough, sputter, dies*...So, I've run out of steam. Phooey

[vaznetti]

My understanding of the way money in TV advertising works is that the most-desired demographic is young men -- and I can imagine that SPN was deliberately gendered to appeal to men as well as (or even rather than) young women.

I don't disagree with anything you say here; persobnally, I think a number of the guest stars (both male and female) "come to life" as individuals (even though I think many of them also do serve as symbols or motivators for Winchester family drama.)

[andromakhe001.livejournal.com]

Oh I know what you mean. It annoys me so much when I see it. I always remember specifically this commercial advertising little electrical cars for kids. Not only was the male female equivalent like 2 girls to 4 boys but if a boy and a girl were in the little car together--the boy was driving. And the car the little girls were allowed to drive was...pink.

You ask me that's far more bothersome than what Supernatural is doing. They have a pretty good mix of characters, outside the leads. Sure they have the bloody Mary girl(and there ARE girls like that) but they do have the Benders' sheriff too. And the flight attendent in Phantom Traveller, Dean is terrified of flying but she, who had been in a plane crash recently, is calm cool and collected in the face of not only a potential second plane crash but a demon taking over her co-pilot and a couple of whacko young guys she doesn't know trying to exorcise him. :) What I like about SPN honestly is that it doesn't seem to give much regard to gender in terms of how the other characters are treated. Dean and Sam are treated as they are as a function of their lead roles, not just because they are male. On the 'even playing field' of the other characters--the characters both male and female are treated pretty equally and females often show alot of gumption. More often than the male guests really. But everyone, male and female, except the Winchesters, are dealing with things they didn't think existed, supernatural things that were supposed to be scary stories, not real--and they all freak out about it.

[dotfic.livejournal.com]

You have some really interesting thoughts here. I occasionally wonder about this. Because usually I'm very concerned with the role of women on a show I'm watching, their importance and how they interact. Either a couple or partnership show like The X-Files, or an ensemble like The West Wing.

Mary and Jess do serve as symbols more than anything else, but not in a way that diminishes who they were when they were alive. I honestly don't know what to make of the role of women on SPN, whether it is a concern for me or not. The guest star women are usually fairly strong/independent types, with a few exceptions. But the show really isn't about the women in their lives. It's about the Winchesters.

And as you point out, there are shows with more prominent roles for women that in many ways undermines their strength with the story arcs. Despite frequently being victims on SPN, on the whole I think women come across positively on SPN--they're cops, they're friends, or lovers, they're smart, intelligent, incredibly strong, sweet or just plain evil. The random Dean chippies are not shown as victims of his seductions, they're shown as happy, willing, and able to have fun as much as he is.

But on the whole, I dont know what to make of it usually, and decided to relax and not think about it. The show has never offended me in that way. Maybe there aren't enough good roles for women on TV overall, but I think women have done well on TV lately, and we don't have to be looking over our shoulder because there's a guy-driven buddy show. SPN isn't kind to its female characters, but it doesn't denigrate them. The women are never caricatures. There are plenty of women there just as scenery, but the show does that to its male leads (Sam in a towel) as much as it does to the women.

[vaznetti]

Usually this sort of thing -- a lack of active female characters -- would bother me, but it doesn't in SPN, and I wanted to figure out why. (Although for all I know, really it's all just "mmm, eyer candy" and the rest is icing.)

I think that for me it helps that although both Mary and Jess are symbols, I read them as active rather than passive -- Mary actually does act within the canon of the show, and Jess might as well. And I can't shake the feeling that they were killed off in order to prevent them from taking action. And I see a distinction between them being disempowered by the show and murdered by the demon.

I don't really understand when people say that the women are all evil or victims (except jokingly, which I've kind of done) -- because there are plenty of female characters who are neither, just as there are plenty of male characters who are victims or evil.

[rez-lo.livejournal.com]

Christ, I'm so good at missing the really interesting discussions. I've been thinking about this since our first exchange (and, I confess, since a couple of meta posts that struck me as pretty wide of the mark--what mark, I'm still not sure). Thanks for posting this. I'll be sending you email that's hopelessly after the fair, no doubt.

[vaznetti]

I could get you links to the posts that sparked this, if you want. Otherwise, I'm looking forward to your email.

[lunardreamed.livejournal.com]

I've been seeing tidbits of this across lj, so I want to respond. At the end of the second season of NCIS (they killed off the female character and obviously had to replace her with another female character), there was a huge outcry (let's face it, mostly from slashers) that they didn't want another woman added, who would only disrupt the dynamic of the show (now that there were four guys and one girl, who stayed "home" in the lab). I argued against this because part of what I enjoy about shows is having a character to relate to and being female is often a necessary requirement. (I loved Buffy.)

Anyway, to me, that doesn't apply here. This is a show about two brothers. I hope it remains a show about two brothers. I wouldn't mind seeing female guests (especially a female hunter) or even an occasional recurring role, but essentially I don't want a female in there. Other shows, I argue for it, because it is a team show and should include women. Or a family show, which should include women. But this isn't either. Not to me. (Which, by the way, is why I don't want John hanging around too long. I like him as being a symbol similar to that of their mother.)

I do agree that we should fight for female characters, but I think someone else mentioned that you can't throw them in anywhere. I think a long term relationship for one of the boys, unless it was John, would unbalance the show, because it would draw focus from the brother dynamic. I think that a female character would either be resented by the fans, become a backdrop character, there for demographics, who would disrupt the premise which drew people to the show in the first place. I don't think that that's a good way to encourage strong female characters on TV. We need to do that by showing them in a setting that spotlights them and those wonderful characteristics. Supernatural just isn't that show now, and probably shouldn't, and can't very effectively become such a show. Sometimes, I think that people get so focused on the war that they battle the wrong things and others start to resent the whole war.

Finally, I don't think there's anything implicitly wrong with a show that has no strong female characters, just as there isn't anything implicitly wrong with a show that had no strong male characters (I think Charmed did a good job on that). And it's not like we've got pure male shows cropping up all over TV, so I don't see a fight on that front. Where I do see the fight is on the shows that do have female characters, but fail to show them as what I think of as strong characters. (I'm talking about Without a Trace or CSI, here, where the women are either married with kids, or sleeping with all the guys, or mooning after the guys. Seriously, Warrick's gambling "problem" lasted 6 episodes, Sara's been letting her crush get in the way for 6 seasons. Not to mention, Catherine has a new dilemma each season. And they ruined a fantastic character like Lady Heather. They could have left her alone, I was happy with two episodes, but they had to bring her back just to make her a criminal.) These are shows that do need strong female characters, can incorporate them, and have failed in some ways.

(Oh, by the way, Charmed ended its last season.)

[cocombat.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. That sums it up for me. I don't want any other main characters. Not boys, not girls.
There are two at the moment, with John as a reoccuring guest. I'm quite liking the non-ensembleness, but, that'll probably change over time.
*sigh*

Given that there are only two main characters, I'm ok that they're both guys, it's 'narrow focus' rather than sexism, as long as the females that are represented on the show are as equally rounded as the male guests, and play a range of roles, which I think they do. My only quibble at the moment, is the lack of female hunters.
:P


In contrast, I am much, *much* more offended by ensemble shows which do have female characters, only for them to be marginalised or fulfill only stereotypical roles.
:(

[vaznetti]

One of the things I've seen again and again is a fan-based backlash against a new female character on a show; that always leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I usually end up becoming a vocal supporter of those female characters just on general principles (see under, Lauren Reed on Alias).

I suspect that over time the show will expand its focus somewhat, simply to avoid becoming repetitive, but that will need to be done carefully and logically. Particularly so long as we have the road-trip format, adding a new regular would be very difficult; I think the easiest way to expand at this stage would be to use recurring guest stars. I mean, I know not everyone agrees with me, but I'd really like to see Missouri again.

Where I do see the fight is on the shows that do have female characters, but fail to show them as what I think of as strong characters.

I agree. Because it's in a context where we have women who ought to be heroic, and whose heroism is consistently undercut in ways which are linked to their gender, that I really see sexism at work in television narrative.

[astri13.livejournal.com]

Here via the NL.

And I really agree with this. I never saw the absence of women on the show as a sign for "keep them barefoot, pregnant and out."
The premise was two guys fighting evil and I soon found myself invested in the guys.

There are some shows who have female leads yet if the show killed them all off I wouldn`t really care because I do not care about their characters. I doesn`t work like: Me-woman, there-woman, me-likes. The character is what counts. Be they male or female.

And I`m soo glad they didn`t go the route in keeping Jess alive and adding her to the backseat or something because dear god in heaven I could see a love triangle rearing it`s ugly head right now. I`m so sick of this theme.
And frankly I don`t want a kick-ass chick in the backseat ever. Whose only reason for being there is being the quota-woman and love interest for the guys.

Write in a good female villain or an experienced female hunter or a helper in the human world. There are enough possibilities that don`t end up in a Lana Lang.

And as for needing strong female characters as in well written, I miss them on lots of show. And lots of them do have females in the cast. It`s not the same thing.

[vaznetti]

Write in a good female villain or an experienced female hunter or a helper in the human world. There are enough possibilities that don`t end up in a Lana Lang.

I may be a lone voice on this, but I could stand to see Missouri again to play a part like this. I don't think we particularly need a female villain, since we had Meg last season, but yes, a female hunter, or someone like that, would be nice. So long as the focus stays on the Winchester family dynamic, which I think is what most of us are watching for.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

This is sort of a general response to a lot of the comments (based on, but slightly different from, a comment in my LJ). I think it's treading new ground, but my ego may be deluding me; and of course making a general rather than specific response risks misrepresenting your argument. But I think some of our disagreement is based on proceeding from different assumptions, and it's worth clarifying that.

The problem for me is less how the show treats individual characters (where the writers actually show some kind of awareness of the corner they've backed themselves into, or at least of the cliches they might want to avoid) than how the show defines and genders humanity. Characters on the show divide roughly into heroes, victims, helpers, and monsters, and while men can be all four, women are limited to three at best. If this were a single occurance, it wouldn't matter; but it's not. It's one of many examples of a culture that overwhelmingly genders heroism and genders it male.

The closest the show's come to addressing this is "The Benders," where the deputy sheriff is so complex and real and *human* that I strongly suspect the role was written male and cast gender-blind--because the sheriff isn't treated as a Girl, she's treated as a person. And if writing to male default and then casting gender-blind gets me results like this, I am all in favor of it. But I think you're actually dismissing some of the show's most feminist writing if you focus on the mytharc to the exclusion of the MoTW, because the mytharc is *so* much more strongly gendered than the MoTWs. The mytharc tends to treat all women as reflections of Mary (Jess is very real to Sam, but to the narrative I think she's simply another Mary), but the MoTWs have more specific and individual characterizations and frequently treat the women as reflections of Dean or Sam--more often Dean than Sam, I think, but I'd have to do a count to be sure.

[vaznetti]

Characters on the show divide roughly into heroes, victims, helpers, and monsters, and while men can be all four, women are limited to three at best. If this were a single occurance, it wouldn't matter; but it's not. It's one of many examples of a culture that overwhelmingly genders heroism and genders it male.

This actually makes sense to me -- that is, I understand it as a problem that a viewer might have. It isn't a problem I have, but it's a problem I can understand. (The problem I have on a regular basis is with shows that have female characters in a position which ought to make them heroes and then systematically prevent those women from attaining heroism -- this is my long-standing problem with Scully, who should have been the hero, or at least a hero, on XF, and was barred from that narrative position by the structure of the show itself, and that seemed to me to be explicitly linked to her gender. I think that among the reasons the treatment of female characters on SPN doesn't bother me is because it's not hitting that sensitive point: the show seems to me not to be saying "women can't be heroes" but rather, "this is a story about male heroes," and I read those sentences as implying two different things about the possibilty of heroism in women. Especially because, as I've said above, I think that the maleness of the main characters is presented as a problem rather than an unquestionable norm.)

I'm not sure whether or not what you're saying about the guest-star women as reflections of the male heroes undercuts the gendering of heroism you see here; I mean, one can imagine a universe in which, after Provenance, Sarah goes on to become an expert in haunted painings, but that does not occur within this narrative universe.