A link

[lirazel]

I know a lot of you keep up with metafandom, so possibly you've all already read this long ago, but I just now stumbled upon it and I MUST SHARE.

Fiction, gender, women's pain, and MAN PAIN

If the Buffyverse, BSG, or gender stuff is relevant to your interests (and I know at least a few of you who are interested in ALL OF THE ABOVE), go and read this. It talks about our different reactions to men and women's pain and also explains why I can't stand Wesley Wyndham-Pryce and why I love Buffy Summers, among other things. Also there is Kara love and Adama hate, and even though (as you probably know), I'm pretty apathetic when it comes to Kara, I know a lot of you aren't and love her for very good reasons. So go forth and read!

Comments

[local-max.livejournal.com]

As with others I saw the link when gabs put it out; I originally skipped it because I thought it might be upsetting. Having read it, I think it is a bit, and I disagree with some of its claims.

(Spike was allowed to upstage Buffy on her own show? Do...not...agree.... The narrative treated Wesley more sympathetically than Faith in BtVS? Um, no. But then the author also hates season six/seven. And I'm vowing for personal-sanity reasons to stop reading late-series-bashing articles. And the author doesn't like Joss' work on Emma Frost? Must. Not. Read. Yeah, I have issues; I wrote a whole post while you were out about how I get too upset reading critiques of things I like and have to cut it out. The downside of course is that it is a way for me to reduce cognitive dissonace of liking things that are problematic ethically. Um, uh-oh?)

That said, the central premise is, I think, valid. Adama is indeed a good example--he has lost the least of basically anyone alive as of the end-of-the-world. It does happen for women on BSG. Caprica Six's personal pain over not being loved enough by Gaius, and not being loved enough by Tigh, are given a lot of emphasis, while she was literally personally responsible for the deaths of billions and doesn't entirely own up to that.

For the most part, I am kind of okay with this though, which shows what kind of a weird watcher I am. The narrative focuses on what it will focus on, and for the most part I'm okay with being asked to sympathize with people who don't get how much damage they do. Why exactly I think that the show does expect us to think Adama's a great guy when he isn't, and this is a big problem, but doesn't really expect us to think Caprica is redeemed, even though she is also presented sympathetically, is hard to articulate. Similarly, I just don't buy that Wesley is given a get-out-of-jail-free card by the narrative, or that his pain is completely unjustified, though I can understand why people feel that way.