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]

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.

[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. :)

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.)

[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.

[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.