“Proud Mary Keep on Burning” - Negative Gender Tropes and Feminist Criticism Related to Supernatural
Note: My tumblr refuses to update the tags on this post, so I’m RE-posting it and adding the tags MYself. Apologies for the rerun! - QLM
In one of my previous posts, I reblogged some excellent videos that Anita Sarkeesian from the Feminist Frequency did regarding media tropes related to the portrayal of women in pop culture sources ranging from comics to movies and television (see list below for links to these tropes and their corresponding videos).
- The Manic Pixie Dream Girl
- Women in Refrigerators
- The Smurfette Principle
- The Evil Demon Seductress
- The Mystical Pregnancy
After watching the videos, I immediately started thinking about my new favorite TV show, Supernatural, and how, sadly, it’s guilty of perpetuating a lot of these negative tropes.
One word: Ruby. But also, pretty much every female-gendered antagonistic entity the show has ever depicted. Granted, Lucifer got fresh with Sam that one time, and Crowley did french Bobby, but still… the sexualized bad girls far outnumber the sexualized bad boys. Ruby, specifically, is the quintessential example of lady baddies using sexuality to elicit sympathy and/or manipulate others because of her long term relationship with Sam that ended in complete betrayal.
Actually, besides, Crowley, are there any lower tier characters that have regularly antagonized the boys that aren’t female? Ruby. Bela. Meg. All variations on the same femme fatale theme. Even Anna, the only female-gendered angel in the show (who was actually pretty progressive to start), ultimately became an antagonist when she was reprogrammed by Heaven’s patriarchy and decided to uproot the Winchester family tree. Her sexy times with Dean was pre-fataleness though, I think.
Lilith. Eve. On Supernatural, it seems as though evil is most frequently characterized as being female. I think this is a side effect of the show’s biased male gaze, yes, but more specifically it might be also be latent homophobia.
In order for evil to be effective, it has to be intimate. It’s safer to have sexualized female characters get closer to the boys because a) sexy bad chicks are good for ratings and b) sexy bad boys would offend subconsciously homophobic viewer/creator sensibilities. Having all these antagonists constructed as women allows the writers to play with themes related to evil in terms of temptation and carnality without things getting too “gay” in the process.
Of course, those creative decisions certainly haven’t stopped the show from reeking of homoerotic sexual tension anyways. *cough* Destiel! Wincest!, *uncough*
Ah yes. Mary Winchester and the Faustian bargain that resulted in Psychic!Sam. Mary had to go through A LOT of shit on the show, and all her suffering stems from the fact that Hell wanted to use her lady oven for demonic occupancy. The Mystical Pregnancy is damaging partly because of the way it depicts a wholly natural biological process, but it also diminishing because it reduces female characters to their reproductive functions and domestic roles. Mary, specifically, is most frequently understood only within the dimensions of wife and mother. Thankfully, the time travel episodes provide us with the chance to see her in more of a three-dimensional light, as a skilled hunter, rather than just a motherly martyr.
I love Mary but from day ONE she has been there primarily to pull on our heartstrings and move the plot forward for her menfolk. Which brings us to the next trope…
Mary Winchester again, but, more specifically…Jess. We didn’t really get to know Jess as much of anything outside of a martyr figure whose death was used for a purely functional purpose in the pilot: To motivate Sam to take up arms with Dean and go a-questing for ol’ yellow-eyes. For these reasons, Jess is more so an idea worth fighting for instead of a real, three-dimensional person.
Jo and Ellen might also be seen as characters who edge on this trope, but I think they were a little more well-rounded than Jess. Still, the fact remains that their collective death was both oddly sudden and certainly ineffective in terms of resolving any crucial story conflict for that season. Their deaths really only served to create a sense of urgency in Sam and Dean by upping the “end of days” ante.
Again, women are used as plot-fodder. Eesh.
I think Lisa fills the function of this trope for Dean, but in a different way than the standard Pixie Dream Girl. Rather than comforting her man with wide-eyed, dreamer sentimentality, Lisa embodies the mundane for Dean; the luxurious ideal of “normalcy.” The end result is the same though. Lisa is likewise reduced to representation; a mere symbol of the life domestic and nothing more. That’s why she’s not relatable or particularly interesting. She’s not even a real person; she’s just a lifestyle that Dean eventually discovers he can never have. This is best embodied, again, through her ovaries, when Dean discovers Ben is his progeny.
Lisa is defined by this motherhood role (even if she is not specifically motherly to Dean). Would Dean feel so attached to her if it were not for Ben? Would her role have expanded past one episode if she hadn’t reproduced? Give me a break!
The Impala. She is the only recurring feminized entity on the show. And the poor gal is always being objectified and infantilized by Dean.
“My baby! Nobody touches my baby!”
- Dean Winchester (Every other episode)
Just kidding, but not really…It’s worth noting that there’s not a single female regular in the series, so this is a trope Supernatural avoids only because it isn’t even eligible for consideration. It’s hard to expand upon gender disparity in a given show when one gender isn’t even really represented.
Daniel Radcliffe on the set of Kill Your Darlings.
And just like that…I’m suddenly intrigued.
See, this is what The Woman in Black was missing…man-on-man love.
(Source: trickybastard, via hoboskank)
Sherlock Holmes 3: The Carnal Education of Mr. Holmes by Dr. J.H. Watson (2014).
(xxx)
Jude called it an adventure first. A case second.
Johnlock certainly IS an adventure. One of the greatest ever.
I’m pretty sure a sequel isn’t needed though. Game of Shadows might as well have been called: Gaylock Homo-lmes: A Gayme of Manlove.
(Source: iwantcupcakes, via hoboskank)
Just Saw “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows…”
My final impression?
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
Really! I mean, I figured that the movie was going to be “a little bit gay” seeing as how the bromantic angle is really popular and intriguing, but I had NO idea that the entire film was going to drip with all this blatant, homoerotic imagery.
The first movie hinted at the romantic chemistry between Holmes and Watson. This movie practically bashes you over the head with their sweet gay love, so much so that I began to wonder if their ambiguous relationship was less tongue in cheek this time around and more of an intentional, narrative construct.
I mean, some of these messages are so overt, you can’t even call them subtextual anymore:
1) The scene where Holmes and Watson dance together after Simza asks Holmes if he’s found what he’s looking for…
2) The scene where Holmes describes his relationship with Watson as a being a “partnership” and the Mary/John honeymoon effectively morphs, structurally, into a Sherlock/John honeymoon…
3) And, perhaps most famously, the scene where Watson wrestles Holmes to the floor and rends his garments while Holmes straddles him with his legs.
For me though, all that stuff was just the gay icing on the gay cake. The meat of my theory that there is an intentional gay backstory to the plot is based on the fact that Holmes’ solitary, eccentric “bachelor” life is so clearly juxtaposed with Watson attempting to achieve a socially acceptable “apple pie” married life in the film. It’s a genius approach because that is exactly how and why that kind of romantic relationship would have disintegrated back during that time period.
It’s played up a a platonic loss, the loss of a kindred spirit, but when Holmes and Watson look at each other, under the premise that this will be their last adventure, it just feels like so much more is bubbling up between them…
Do me a favor: The next time you watch the movie, pretend this backstory has occurred:
***
Holmes and Watson used to have sex.
They weren’t “gay” because their era didn’t even really have a language for articulating the nuances of their relationship, but effectively, they were good friends who worked well together and liked to bone on occasion. Which was, honestly, quite frequently.
All of a sudden, Watson (who is bi in modern terms) finds himself a charming woman that he can marry. He loves her as much as he loves Holmes, but only one of those relationships is socially sanctioned. The other isn’t.
Watson is forced to pick, so he chooses a life with Mary.
Holmes (who is straight-up gay) finds himself torn by this development. He resents Watson for abandoning him, yes, but he also wants for his friend to be safe and happy. It’s hard for Holmes because he knows he will never be able to have the “normal” heterosexual relationship that Watson has with Mary. Irene Adler was the only woman he ever slept with, and he swore he would NEVER do that again. Instead, she became his best hag and only confidant regarding his homosexuality / unrequited love for Watson.
Morriarty is especially eager to kill Watson because he and Holmes used to f*ck, but now Morriarty just f*cks Sebastian Moran, who happens to be an expert marksman…IN THE SACK!
It’s sort of this really messed up, gay love quadrangle.
You dig?
No regrets. Just gay love.
Unintentional Homoerotic Robert Downey Jr. Movie Marathon
Yesterday I watched Home for the Holidays…
Today I watched Heart and Souls…
Tomorrow I was planning on watching Kiss Kiss Bang Bang…
See any common threads emerging?
And as soon as the thought to see Kiss Kiss entered my head, I realized I had unwittingly created a pattern. You see, all these movies had two things in common:
1. Mr. Robert Downey Jr.
2. Gayness (or, minimally, deviations from heteronormative male behavior)
A. In Home for the Holidays, Robert plays gay younger brother, Tommy. Who kind of gets gay married to his usually off-screen lover, Jack (not pictured below).
B. In Heart and Souls, Robert plays (another) Thomas, a man who is possessed by ghosty souls that use him to resolve the issues they never got a chance to finish in life. Two of these souls are ladies who overtake his body and make him act effeminate and/or hit on men. One is Kyra Sedgewick and the other is Alfre Woodard. Be still my beating heart.
C. In Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Robert hangs out with a gay detective played by Val Kilmer. I haven’t seen it yet, but I believe there are some man-kisses.
Robert? That’s kind of the idea ;)
This Trifecta of Rainbow-licious R.D.J. Awesomeness just sort of…happened. It wasn’t in any way planned or structured. At least not consciously on my part.
That being said, I still think it’s cool, so I’m still taking credit for it.
and you can also learn that 90% of tumblr are fucking moronic 13 year olds who don’t even read the comics and rape the fandom so hard with gifs like these, its like deviantArt having a clusterfuck with thousands of clones of itself >:I
</comic fan rage>
actually no. NO end brackets. shit like this is gonna be the new quote unquote nerd stereotype, and yes, its quote unquote because this group of vag shlirking girls are no better than the posh chicks reading tiger beat in the 90’s fantasizing about Leo DiCaprio, and are arguably WORSE because they fantasize about fictional characters based solely on the looks of the actors that play them. LITERALLY disregarding the ENTIRETY of the canon because “lol they’re totes gay because they exchanged witty repartee this one time with vaguely barely homoerotic implications and gay couples are ADORBZ” which not only completely disregards the actual fandom, canon, and fucking OBVIOUS character traits (in Tony’s case). but its horrifically condescending to gays in general if you ask me.
so in short: fuck shippers for having the audacity to claim to be fans when all they do is self-impose their own fantasies to a given product, and pretend they aren’t making a mockery of it, as well as any other thing they’d have to gave gobs of cognitive dissonance to find it acceptable.
Jesus Christ! I have no idea where to begin.
1. The Legitimization of the Term of “Fan”
You’re seriously trying to argue that there’s a way to qualify fandom? Like… People who watch the movies<People who read the comics<People who read the comics AND watch the movies<People who read the comics, watch the movies, AND buy the 1,000 dollar life-sized prop replicas and attend comic conventions…or some stupid formula like that?
But that’s only part of it, right? It’s not just that a preference for the movie-verses diminishes the love one can have for a given group of characters and narrative, your argument is actually that there is only one legitimate means of fan expression: Consumption. When people start to manipulate those characters in a way that strays from what is considered “comic canon,” then that is the greatest sin of all.
Well, I would maintain that this means of expression actually shows a much deeper love and appreciation for the fandom than you actually give it credit. These fans are no longer merely losing themselves in a given fictional world, they are dialoging with it and, in doing so, they become a part of it. They explore new dimensions of these universes and really have fun with the characters that inhabit them. Slash-based or not, what you consider to be a “self-imposing” action on the part of a given fan is actually indicative of a lot of expended time, energy, and creativity. Besides…
2. Aren’t interpretation, interaction, and connection what “fandom” is truly all about? Isn’t that what art is supposed to be all about?
When people draw a picture, or write fan fiction, or somehow place their own unique perspectives onto these characters, they personalize their fan experience. By sharing those expression via outlets like Tumblr, we all get a chance to learn more about our fellow fans and be a part of those unique experiences. No one is forcing anyone to adopt a particular perspective when they post a slash fanfic or draw a picture where two guys kiss. It’s not an attack on the integrity of Marvel Comic characters and it’s not a gay coup…it’s just a goddamn photoset.
But let’s cut the crap and get to the real heart to the issue, shall we?
3. The truth of the matter is that a lot of people (straight males in particular, but not as a rule) have trouble picturing their fictional, straight role models acting on homoerotic feelings because, quite frankly, gay thoughts scare them.
And why is that? I’m not going to go down the presumptive, psychological route that insists it’s because you’re a closeted person who is insecure about his own sexuality (although for some people that might be the case). No. The real reason why people behave this way is because men (particularly in the U.S.) have been socially conditioned to fear same-sex intimacy.
Touching, kissing, hugging…anything that suggests that you are vulnerable to another man is considered disgraceful because, for some reason, it means you’re weak or homosexual. And in the minds of some people, secretly, that’s really the worse thing you could ever be.
And who can fault you for that fear? I can’t. The prevalence of this anxiety isn’t your fault. It’s just the way our fucked up society has been structured. Thankfully it’s changing, but as long people still attach stigmas and insecurities to homosexuality…there will still be thoughtless, insensitive acts to go along with them.
But that’s where you can step up and actually do something.
4. Don’t feel threatened by another person’s benign expressions or interests.
I happen to know a lot of beautiful gay women who ship Tony/Steve…and it’s obviously not because they want to make out with either Robert Downey or Chris Evans. I wouldn’t ever want to assume that I knew a person’s rationale for shipping one way or another, but if I had to speculate on the matter, I would imagine that shipping Tony/Steve is partly enjoyable for them because it is a way of projecting their own fears, hopes, dreams, and desires for their same sex relationships onto a mainstream same sex relationship. Because that’s the other beautiful function that art has…as a mirror. It let’s us know how others see us and it lets us express the ways we wish we could be seen by others. Homosexuality is one of those things that has not been well received by mainstream media, and so there haven’t been a lot of “mirrors” out there for gay audiences. That’s changing now, but my point is that by lashing out at Steve/Tony fanworks and slash fans you might be, unwittingly, breaking somebody’s mirror.
Steve/Tont may not be legitimized by the Marvel “canon,” (although GOD KNOWS there’s plenty of comic evidence suggesting that it could work in an alternate universe) but it is legitimized by the fans; by their poignant fan fiction, their tender fan art, essays, comments, photos, and wishes. When you poo-poo the shipping of a particular fandom, you have no idea what sort of emotional connection you may be slandering in the process.
By saying that all these participants are 13-year old, illiterate girls, (in addition to being sexist) you’re just trying discredit the opinions of your fellow fans; fans who have every right to express themselves as much as you do. You don’t have to attack them! You can express your own opinions and interests in a separate post, or minimally attach those ideas to the same post but phrase it with less offensive language and concrete examples for your opinion rather than just offensive generalizations.
If you don’t like it, DON’T SHIP IT.
Simple enough, right?
One final note: I actually appreciate that you think that blithely portraying straight characters as homosexual might be considered a way of trivializing the gay experience, but from what I have seen, most fans construct their works with a remarkable amount of sensitivity and thoughtfulness. There is not a collective effort being made here to stereotype beloved Marvel characters in their newly attributed homosexual lifestyles or diminish their original integrity by having them “play gay house” together. There’s no need for anyone on any side of the fandom fence to experience any kind of “cognitive dissonance” with these people because…
5. THESE CHARACTERS AREN’T REAL. Repeat: They’re not real, so there is no need to remain “faithful” to any single interpretation of them. They’re fictional, so there’s no “truth” about their identities or relationships that COULD be denied if such a thing existed. There’s no reality against which our expectations can collide. Steve and Tony can’t be offended by homoerotic fan fiction because… they’re not real.
BUT
What IS real is the way that superheroes make us feel: Powerful, confidant, and capable of taking on the pressures, discrimination, and hardships of our own lives. You can relate to that, can’t you? That need to look to these characters for some sense of order, some sense of truth or strength? Can’t you believe that Steve/Tony might help some people find that order, truth, or strength in their own lives?
(Source: bartonesque, via callmejude)
The Ultimate Michael Scott Moment
I was in my friend Melinda’s car in a parking lot recently. We had just bought some goodies and were preparing to leave the area so we could run and catch a movie.
Melinda had purchased some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, and asked me if I wanted one.
David: Are you sure?
Melinda: Yes. There are two of them. Please share the fattyness with me so I don’t feel so bad about it.
David: Thanks! (reaches for the candy)
Melinda: It’s kind of hard for me to see (turns head around to get a better look).Go ahead and grab yours while I pull out.
David: (Freezes mid-motion. Pauses to process what was just said.)
Melinda: Say, do you have a watch? What time should we-
David: (frantically) THAT’S WHAT HE SAID!!!!
Melinda: Wha?
***
‘Twas a delayed reaction on my part, but after the dust/confusion cleared, Melinda laughed heartily and high-fived me for my effort.
I’m particularly proud of that joke because, given the implied mechanics, that specific “That’s-what-blah-said…” moment seems to best be describing a “dude-on-dude” kind of intimacy, if you catch my drift.
Unintentional Homoerotic Subtext, anyone?
Why….that’s my favorite kind.
Homocentric readings of books, TV shows, or movies are not attempts to “gay-ify” mainstream culture. The issue at hand is that homosexual characters, plots, and actors have frequently had to remain “in the closet” when it came to mainstream media because the backlash against those images was too vehement for most to withstand. For the longest time, directors and writers had to rely on metaphor, subtext, and subtlety in order to get their true messages across. Additionally, it should be noted that every person reads a “text” with a natural bias that comes from personal experience, whether that be as a person of a specific gender, culture, or orientation. Once we read, listen to, or write about a piece of art, we become shapers of that work. I think Tumblr (and meme culture in general) is a great example of the natural diversification that occurs when a text takes on the new life that a blogger attributes to it. We provide a new context for every work we witness, because we are a context unto ourselves…and one of the benefits of analyzing a story with a rich plot and multifaceted characters is the fact that the text will be capable of supporting a diverse range of readings. As diverse in number as there are people to read it. TRUE! Some of these perspectives may be more heavily supported by “textual evidence,” that others, but every reading should have a right to claim validity if it can be well defended. 
——————-
Their relationship had its ups and downs (as does every friendship) but in the end, they were there for each other. I feel some hesitation about the ending, which suggests that they went on to lead lives that were, to a degree, apart from each other, but I take this decision to be one driven more so by practical need rather than a relief from cultural differences or male-intimacy issues. In other words, Copper, as a domesticated dog, needed to be on the home front while Todd, a wild fox, needed to be in the wilderness, (chasing tail).
I like to think they still see each other occasionally.
It’s also fun to look at the movie from a queer theory angle. Todd and Copper were the curious kids who had “fun” together, but when they reached a certain age, it became wrong for them to experiment or have “those kinds” of feelings for each other. Copper grew up with a hard, unfeeling patriarch who taught him to be a bully and hunts foxes (persecutes gays). Meanwhile, idealist Todd tried in vain to rekindle their past relationship.
Once Todd overstepped his boundaries, Copper struck back with violence (because back in those days, the insinuation of homosexuality was the worst kind of accusation). The two struggled with their feelings, but ultimately, they stood up for each other. It’s very much like Brokeback Mountain, but without Anne Hathaway or an unhappy ending. Oh! And the Widow Tweed could representative of the kindly mother figure (drag mother?) who takes in rough-trick Todd from the unforgiving wilderness (prostitute filled city streets). See? It’s all coming together.
(via neighborly)
