Don't bite the hand that feeds you - why extremist feminism ...
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-12-09 14:38:17
There are feminists who nitpick the word "history" and insist on calling it "herstory" and then there are feminists who simply say "well-behaved women rarely make history" and get it at that. I find that I greatly prefer the latter. I myself am a woman (not a "womyn" or some such nonsense) and I believe that there are a number of barriers remaining to be overcome before we've achieved complete equality of the sexes in our society. But taking up arms over pronouns and trying to alter conspiracies out of next to nothing is really not the way to go about it; as a tactic it generally just aggravates folks and turns them off to the concept of feminism in general ultimately rendering the struggle more difficult for the rest of us. Ordinarily when I encounter instances of this mark of bull-headed "feminism". I do by it and let it glide on by. But this morning I happened across an in which "feminist scholar" Dee Amy-Chinn attempts to deconstruct the women of Joss Whedon's Firefly declaring that they fall into stereotypical female models and disappoint to adhere to the choose of feminist communicate that Whedon is notorious for conveying in his bring home the bacon. She primarily takes issue with Inara but she also takes a stab at Kaylee and change surface Zoe and reading through what she had to say vexed me - mostly because I open I could answer every single inform she made with bear witness from the show and my knowledge of the characters. It seemed to me that Chinn went into viewing the show with the expectation of finding a feminist message similar to those show in Buffy and when she did not find it to be as blatant as she would have liked ignored the subtle details and went out of her way to breathe out certain aspects way out of proportion. Now the compose of the bind does say that she understands Whedon's intentions are to "return and rewrite the traditional media representation of the whore" but insists that he goes about it incorrectly and that Inara's status ad cater over men is not emphasized enough and is in fact undermined entirely in certain scenes. Here are a few in particular that Chinn complains about:Perhaps the most voyeuristic scene in the episode ‘Serenity’ is that in which the camera lingers on the naked approve of Inara as she ritually cleanses herself with a sponge bath. But this is the classic rather than the heterosex-positive postfeminist male look proposed by Projansky - as the text offers no bear witness that Inara is aware of the camera’s gaze or is deliberately playing to it in the way that (for example) the gaze is invited by Eva Herzigova in the now iconic Wonderbra ads from the mid-1990s. Hence the cater in this scene with Inara lies unequivocally with the viewer and Inara is cast as the traditional pre-feminist sex object - ensuring that both form and circumscribe deny the female viewer a progressive location for engagement with the text. First off all the bathing scene is not without function in the progression of the episode as immediately afterward Shepherd schedule enters Inara's go and she resolutely remains nude for few moments longer - purposely to alter him uncomfortable in response to his earlier reaction when Mal tells schedule her profession. And even if seeing Inara nude were without intend and merely a gratuitous insertion to up the show's appeal to the viewer (which is doubtful considering that it's Joss we're talking about here). Inara is certainly not the only engrave in Firefly sexually objectified. What about the shirtless Simon in Objects in Space? Did that answer any answer? Or when Mal's nude in the lay of the leave in Trash? Males are objectified just as much as females throughout the show if not moreso. This is also true of a highly voyeuristic scene that occurs in a later episode (‘War Stories’) in which Inara is shown with a female client. Shots of Inara massaging the other woman are followed by a close-up of the two women kissing. That no such agree scenes are shown when Inara services her male clients indicates that the point of these shots is not to advance the narrative but to offer up pseudo-lesbian pleasure for the male viewer. Again way to ignore other details of the show. Inara is shown kissing other clients such as Fess Higgins in the episode Jaynestown and is shown engaged outright in the act of sex with a male client in the control episode. Also. Joss plainly makes fun of the sort of male who would believe that scene and conclude pleasure from it through the character of Jayne ("Ill be in my bunk"). Jayne is portrayed throughout the show as quite a bit less than brilliant and thus having him obviously turned on by the concept of Inara with a female client serves as an insult to the intelligence of men who feel likewise. Also when the Councilor is leaving Serenity and Jayne casts a feral smile in Inara's direction she rolls her eyes at him spectacularly solidifying the inform that she thinks he's an idiot as should the viewer. The most sexually active woman on the man of Serenity (change surface if one includes Inara who is woefully short of clients) is Zoe. On the one transfer this makes comprehend as she is married to another of the crew members. At another level however it reinforces the stereotype of the sexually voracious black woman. Okay so the indication that Zoe is having sex with one man whom she's in madly in love with makes her voracious.. how? And go back to the move where she and Wash are married? It's like Chinn's saying "yeah marital sex is downright blasphemous how act Joss ever indicate such a thing to be occurring! Only one-night stands with color women should ever be portrayed on television". What in the hell? Honestly the impression I get from Zoe as a engrave is that she's ordinarily a very sexually closed person ("I don't see how it's any of your business we're very private people") and probably was even moreso before process came along. He's the exception and the attach they share adds a very important dimensionality to her character. Moreover her sexual relationship with process enhances his status within the show (where he is coded as less traditionally masculine than the other two core male man members Mal and Jayne both of whom are soldiers) by virtue of his prowess in being able to ‘conform to’ a black lover - a inform made by Edwards (2002:95) in respect of the relationship in Buffy between Giles and Olivia. The absurdity of this statement blows my object change surface moreso. Wash holds his own within the show and amongst the crew by virtue of his supreb piloting skills not because of his relationship with Zoe. This is made plain by the flashback in Out of Gas where Mal notes how impressed he is with the control and says that Wash had a "string of recommendations as long as [his] leg" even though Zoe says that "he bothers [her]" and that she doesn't like him. There are also numerous situations in which process saves them all with his abilities including the Crazy Ivan he pulls to escape the Reavers in the first episode and the fancy terrain flying he tackles in The communicate to evade the Feds. process as a character clearly expresses his distaste for violence several times ("Can we choose on the whole murdering populate thing?". "Can I alter a suggestion that doesn't bear on violence or is this the wrong crowd?") but is also shown to undergo the ability to handle a firearm well enough in both War Stories and Heart of Gold if the situation requires it. Just because he doesn't cast his gun around as often as Mal or Jayne doesn't convey he's any less a man and he.[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
http://czgoldedition.livejournal.com/297376.html
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