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SPN: the absence of women
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.
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.
no subject
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.)
no subject
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.
:(
no subject
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.