Thoughts on female characters in sci-fi
May. 8th, 2013 01:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayI've been thinking about something a friend and I were talking about last week. We were doing the "OMG, can't cope with baby talk, we're skipping knit night and eating cheesecake while we chat geek stuff" thing that we sometimes do when the knitting group we met through gets a little too mama-oriented.
Both of us are child-free and single. Both of us know way more about children and childbirth than we ever wanted to. Sometimes we need to take a break.
To get back on topic, the geek talk segued into a discussion of women in science fiction as it sometimes does. My lovely friend, H, stated that one of the big things she loves about sci-fi and its related genres is that portrayals of women are far better here than in the mainstream. Women are written as equals and potential leaders unlike in more conventional TV shows and films.
At that point I choked on a mouthful of tea and stared at her a little.
I can't decide whether it's because of the corners of fandom that I inhabit or because I dissect these things more than she does, but that doesn't entirely ring true for me. It was interesting to hear her explain why she feels that way and I can see it. Note: we were discussing films and TV here rather than books. Whole different kettle of fish to rant about in books.
After all, how many mainstream cop shows would feature an Olivia Dunham character? One of the things I love about Fringe is that the gender roles in it are fascinating: Peter has the storylines that would traditionally be given to the female love interest a lot of the time while Olivia is definitely the lead. And she's definitely a female lead, not a man wearing heels, although she's also given a lot of storylines that would traditionally be reserved for male characters.
There were plenty of other characters for her to throw at me: Captain Janeway, Buffy, all the women of Firefly, Natasha Romanov (I'm starting to see a theme to a lot of her suggestions, BTW), many of the female characters from Once Upon a Time: they're all strong, brilliant female characters whose roles are not defined by their gender.
And I'll admit, when I look at the comparisons she gave me I can definitely see her point. Grey's Anatomy, for example, is a show that should be fantastic for female characters. Look at the balance of the cast and the idea of it, a group of doctors (spilt fairly equally gender-wise) working through their internship and residency to become top surgeons. Should be amazing!
And yet. The majority of the storylines revolve around romances and domestic issues. In a show with so many women, it struggles to pass the Bechdel test in a lot of episodes. Even characters who start out wonderfully are now caricatures of what they once were (Christina, what happened?) and don't get me started on the fluffication of Bailey.
Turning to most other mainstream shows, it's rare to find an equal balance of the genders outside of domestic family drama type shows. Generally there will be, at most, two major female characters for every crime/legal/medical/insert other profession show. And they'll rarely have scenes together or escape the inevitable love interest trap for their male colleagues.
Given all that, I can understand why H sees sci-fi as a more equal medium. And it is *better* than a lot of mainstream shows for this, but it's still not a great genre a lot of the time and most of the examples she can give are from the last decade or so. Historically, science fiction has usually relegated female characters to the secretary/communications officer/assistant roles.
Sigourney Weaver's character in Galaxy Quest, who's only role in the in-film TV show is to parrot back what the computer tells her, is funny and poignant because it's so recognisable.
Shows tried. We had the wonderful Liz Shaw for a while in Doctor Who, until it was decided that someone with a bit less science and equality was needed. Not entirely unreasonable: the companions in Doctor Who are supposed to be the ones getting the Doctor to explain things in an audience-friendly manner and Liz was supposed to be a brilliant scientist, which made her asking those exposition questions more than a bit silly. Sarah Jane in Doctor Who was also a wonderful stand-out and Doctor Who does better than many older shows, but when you start to look closely at a lot of those stories there is still a thick vein of misogyny running through.
We still have too many shows in this genre that fail the Bechdel test completely. A lot of films still do - just take a look at some of last year's box office hits. The ones that don't still stand out just because it's unusual to have great female characters on our screen who are given agency and the ability to be more than an onlooker to the action. And their actions are still often dismissed: how many times have you had to remind people that Natasha Romanov did a heck of a lot of the world saving in The Avengers and it wasn't all about the boys with their toys?
I guess my point is that, while H is probably correct that sci-fi does a better job than a lot of genres at giving us good female characters, there's still an inequality there and we can't get complacent about it. We can't pat ourselves on the back because Natasha Romanov rocked and Olivia Dunham got shit done: we need to make sure these characters become less of a rarity.
Both of us are child-free and single. Both of us know way more about children and childbirth than we ever wanted to. Sometimes we need to take a break.
To get back on topic, the geek talk segued into a discussion of women in science fiction as it sometimes does. My lovely friend, H, stated that one of the big things she loves about sci-fi and its related genres is that portrayals of women are far better here than in the mainstream. Women are written as equals and potential leaders unlike in more conventional TV shows and films.
At that point I choked on a mouthful of tea and stared at her a little.
I can't decide whether it's because of the corners of fandom that I inhabit or because I dissect these things more than she does, but that doesn't entirely ring true for me. It was interesting to hear her explain why she feels that way and I can see it. Note: we were discussing films and TV here rather than books. Whole different kettle of fish to rant about in books.
After all, how many mainstream cop shows would feature an Olivia Dunham character? One of the things I love about Fringe is that the gender roles in it are fascinating: Peter has the storylines that would traditionally be given to the female love interest a lot of the time while Olivia is definitely the lead. And she's definitely a female lead, not a man wearing heels, although she's also given a lot of storylines that would traditionally be reserved for male characters.
There were plenty of other characters for her to throw at me: Captain Janeway, Buffy, all the women of Firefly, Natasha Romanov (I'm starting to see a theme to a lot of her suggestions, BTW), many of the female characters from Once Upon a Time: they're all strong, brilliant female characters whose roles are not defined by their gender.
And I'll admit, when I look at the comparisons she gave me I can definitely see her point. Grey's Anatomy, for example, is a show that should be fantastic for female characters. Look at the balance of the cast and the idea of it, a group of doctors (spilt fairly equally gender-wise) working through their internship and residency to become top surgeons. Should be amazing!
And yet. The majority of the storylines revolve around romances and domestic issues. In a show with so many women, it struggles to pass the Bechdel test in a lot of episodes. Even characters who start out wonderfully are now caricatures of what they once were (Christina, what happened?) and don't get me started on the fluffication of Bailey.
Turning to most other mainstream shows, it's rare to find an equal balance of the genders outside of domestic family drama type shows. Generally there will be, at most, two major female characters for every crime/legal/medical/insert other profession show. And they'll rarely have scenes together or escape the inevitable love interest trap for their male colleagues.
Given all that, I can understand why H sees sci-fi as a more equal medium. And it is *better* than a lot of mainstream shows for this, but it's still not a great genre a lot of the time and most of the examples she can give are from the last decade or so. Historically, science fiction has usually relegated female characters to the secretary/communications officer/assistant roles.
Sigourney Weaver's character in Galaxy Quest, who's only role in the in-film TV show is to parrot back what the computer tells her, is funny and poignant because it's so recognisable.
Shows tried. We had the wonderful Liz Shaw for a while in Doctor Who, until it was decided that someone with a bit less science and equality was needed. Not entirely unreasonable: the companions in Doctor Who are supposed to be the ones getting the Doctor to explain things in an audience-friendly manner and Liz was supposed to be a brilliant scientist, which made her asking those exposition questions more than a bit silly. Sarah Jane in Doctor Who was also a wonderful stand-out and Doctor Who does better than many older shows, but when you start to look closely at a lot of those stories there is still a thick vein of misogyny running through.
We still have too many shows in this genre that fail the Bechdel test completely. A lot of films still do - just take a look at some of last year's box office hits. The ones that don't still stand out just because it's unusual to have great female characters on our screen who are given agency and the ability to be more than an onlooker to the action. And their actions are still often dismissed: how many times have you had to remind people that Natasha Romanov did a heck of a lot of the world saving in The Avengers and it wasn't all about the boys with their toys?
I guess my point is that, while H is probably correct that sci-fi does a better job than a lot of genres at giving us good female characters, there's still an inequality there and we can't get complacent about it. We can't pat ourselves on the back because Natasha Romanov rocked and Olivia Dunham got shit done: we need to make sure these characters become less of a rarity.
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Date: 2013-05-10 05:26 pm (UTC)Once Upon a Time is my other "this show has so many amazing women in it" show, but it's also genre.