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.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-08-31 03:45 pm (UTC)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.