links: the guild; scary fem rant...

[amezri]

Hrm. I think I sewed my flag patch to my BDUs crooked. *sigh*

In other news, I have discovered the comedy wonder of The Guild. That's right, people, a silly comedy web series about people who play World of Warcraft (Or WoW-like as they don't specifically mention what game). And it's HI-larious. The show is written and produced by Felicia Day, who is starring in Joss' Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. Point of interest: Felicia Day's blog is also very amusing.

Check it out. You will be entertained.

And checking in with the people who have had too many crazyflakes, I've stumbled upon this post in LJ land:

A Rapist's View of the World: Joss Whedon and Firefly
This is a really long rant about Joss Whedon's Firefly. Why? Because I'm angry and I think it is really important that feminists don't leave popular culture out of the equation. Especially considering that popular culture is increasingly being influenced by pornography.

Good. God. WHAT? Look, I don't have a problem with feminists or feminism or anything related to equality and rights for women. Obviously. But seriously, there are some fanatics in every group and I've found one here.

So in the very second scene of the very first episode, an episode written and directed by the great feminist Joss, a white man tells a black woman to 'shut up' for no apparent reason. And she does shut up. And she continues to call him sir. And takes his orders, even when they are dumb orders, for the rest of the series.

Right. Uhm. Okay. Clearly she missed the part where Zoe and Mal were in the military and Mal is her ranking officer, so she's going to have to listen to his stupid orders no matter how dumb they are. Calling him "sir" is military protocol. This behavior is the same for men as it is for women in the service OHMYGOD.

Jayne asks Mal to get Kaylee to stop being so cheerful. Mal replies, "Sometimes you just wanna duct tape her mouth and dump her in the hold for a month." Yes, that is an exact quote, "Sometimes you just wanna DUCT TAPE HER MOUTH and DUMP HER IN THE HOLD FOR A MONTH.” Kaylee responds by grinning and giving Mal a kiss on the cheek and saying, "I love my Captain."

I don't see the problem here. He's JOKING. JOKING. I have on occasion made jokes similar with my friends - both male and female - and they've done the same with me. WE ARE JOKING.

Don't even get me started on the whole Inara-is-selling-herself-to-her-rapists thing and how "servicing" the crew apparenlty includes, oh, I don't know talking to them. I just... I'm not going to touch that.

Completely unnecessary and unprovoked violence is a spontaneous result of this hypermasculinised male character. In Serenity, Mal enjoys using a character called Simon as his personal punching bag. In one scene he walks up to him and smashes him in the face, without any provocation or logical reason. In another scene Simon asks Mal a question and Mal smashes him the face again.

Erm. If you were watching, I think you'll find there was provocation for both punches to the face. I have to admit telling Simon that Kaylee was dead was pretty messed up though.

Zoe, of course, is meant to be our empowered, ass-kicking sidechick. Like all sidechicks she is objectified from the get go. Her husband, Wash, talking about how he likes to watch her bathe. Let me just say now that I have never personally known of a healthy relationship between a white man and a woman of colour. I have known a black woman whose white husband would strangle and bash her while her young children watched. My white grandfather liked black women because they were 'exotic', and he did not, could not treat women, especially women of colour, like human beings. I grew up watching my great aunts, my aunty and my mother all treated like shit by their white husbands, the men they loved. So you will forgive me for believing that the character, Wash, is a rapist and an abuser, particularly considering that he treats Zoe like an object and possession.

Uh. I'm... sorry your family is so fucked up? Zoe could totally kick Wash's ass and he knows it. In "Our Mrs. Reynolds," Wash is amused over the way Saffron fawns over the Captain and jokingly implies that Zoe behave similar. Zoe is thoroughly unamused and Wash backs down immediately. I really don't think Wash is forcing her to do anything she doesn't want to do. Seriously. WTF.

And finally, this reply to a comment makes me particularly annoyed:

I feel awful for Joss Whedon's wife. From what I've read about him and the interviews I've watched, I'm fairly certain that he rapes his wife and abuses her in various other ways. I honestly can't think of anything worse than living with a man like Joss who thinks of women like the way he portrays in his tv shows. How awful. The comment about the money was meant to be about how I personally could see no benefit from being with a man like Joss OTHER than money. Joss uses and abuses her. Probably rapes her and thinks of women as whores etc, etc. Obviously, Ms Whedon has her own reasons for staying. Fear, patriarchal concepts of love, etc. But I would argue that she gives everything and gets nothing. Money is the only concrete thing that she could possibly gain. But as I said money is worth nothing compared with self-integrity, self-esteem, love (sister/lesbian/gynaffectionate love) etc. So she still loses out. Poor woman.

I just. I. Can't even begin to understand. There's feminism and then there's feminism on hyper-crazyflakes.

Comments

[eiluned.livejournal.com]

Crap! LJ ate my comment!

Um... quick reconstruction. That poster needs to be kicked out of the feminist movement because she isn't a feminist. She's bugfuck nuts and she's giving sane feminists a bad name. Black women can NEVER have satisfying relationships with white men? Nearly all male/female sex is rape? Oh, dear god.

This must be how liberal Christians feel when people like Fred Phelps start shooting off their mouths.

[amezri.livejournal.com]

D'oh! I hate when that happens!

Yah, for serious. I don't even think she meant "nearly" all m/f sex is rape -- I think she means ALL m/f sex is rape.

It's unfortunate these nutter are the ones others look at and think, "oh, yep, that's one of them feminists."

[punslingerr.livejournal.com]

*reads scary fem rant*
*proceeds to pound head on desk repeatedly*

I think she washed the hyper-crazyflakes down with the Kool Aid.

I've read some of the comments and her responses, and they're just as whacked out.

Oh, here's her best quote "Argh! I hate men.". OK, I paraphrased, but you get the idea.
Sorry, game over, you lose.

[amezri.livejournal.com]

I kinda of get where she's coming from. Sort of.

Okay, no not really. It's just full of wacky.

[punslingerr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I had a similar reaction while reading through it.

Every time I see some rant that's a little too devoid of rational thought, I'm tempted to write a response that I "got the joke, and am amused at how many people thought it was serious".

[veracity]

Remember the crazyflakes feminism link about fandom and slash a couple weeks ago? Yeah, she was a helper to that one. I can't take _allecto_ serious. I think it's the same person anyway.

Joss has many, many issues on writing women. I don't think he rapes his wife, however.

[amezri.livejournal.com]

I seem to have missed that one... been off the grid lately.

*shrug* I think Joss has fewer issues than most.

[veracity]

I should preface that first comment that I own seasons 1-3 of Buffy and Firefly. I will buy more as they go cheap (I'm frugal). I watched all seven seasons of Buffy and most of Angel first run through. I think he has some issues (mostly mother ones, honestly), but I don't think he's a rapist in any sense of the word. He's not preaching the Gospel here. He's just a man creating shows.

[amezri.livejournal.com]

I do remember you being a Whedonphile, so I wasn't thinking you hated him or something :) But yeah.. I don't think any writer will pin a female down to 100% satisfaction -- someone will always find fault somewhere. Like, don't even get me started on the SG-1/SGA writing staff. Ugh.

[veracity]

Oh SG writers. I referenced them earlier when we were discussing radical feminists (and used this link as an example, as well as the other one that circulated about slash writers). My teacher asked about the differences and I go, "They're bugnuts. That's the difference." I thought it was perfectly valid. And apparently so did he when I mentioned the rape thing. I should mention the SG writers were talked after the test we took.

[assassin-chick.livejournal.com]

Oh dear... that last part you quoted makes it all clear. She's one of those "all heterosexual sex is rape" nuts. I am personally offended by these kinds of 'feminists', because aside from the patriarchy they oppose so vociferously, they are the single biggest threat to the feminist movement there is. *sigh*

And OMGWTF. Joss is one of the few sci-fi writers out there who actually does a half-way decent job of writing interesting, well-rounded, effective female characters. Ok sure, there might be a little fetishisation going on, but jeez, give me a break!

[amezri.livejournal.com]

Yeah, totally. It's really, really scary. Clearly she has some severe psychological and emotional issues and has latched onto some of the more extreme feminist views to cope. Clearly?

Yeah, I mean, most male writers have problems writing women. Heck, most women have problems writing women, so I cut him some slack. He gets credit for trying and for at least having a fair number of female writing staff, which a lot of shows (*cough*SG-1/SGA*cough*) don't.

[tea-fiend.livejournal.com]

What the...? That woman is completely insane.

[amezri.livejournal.com]

Yeeeeeppppers.

[forcryinoutloud.livejournal.com]

Holy bathshitcrazy Batman!! O.O

[arysani.livejournal.com]

you know, i always preferred "batshit crazy", but "crazyflake" is growing on me.

wow.

i just...don't even know. your comments are all what i was thinking - and i'm sure that if she cared at all about context, these things wouldn't be so bad. but because she was out for blood, she threw context and character development to the wind in exchange for making her point. which was totally unfounded due to previous wind-tossing.

i honestly have to laugh, because i played this game in my cultural anthro class when i said that feminism could mean that women CHOOSE to be housewives - that thought, that maybe someone would WANT to be a housewife was so incredibly foreign to them, that it was just plain wrong. unfortunately the only one who agreed with me was the irish-catholic lacrosse player, who, while really hot, had some strange ideas on feminism...i really didn't want him on my "team"...despite aforementioned hotness. *facepalm*

but yeah. i just say "laugh", because there is no other response that won't make it worse.

[veracity]

when i said that feminism could mean that women CHOOSE to be housewives - that thought, that maybe someone would WANT to be a housewife was so incredibly foreign to them, that it was just plain wrong.

I completely understand this. One girl in my class goes, "I'm not the traditional feminist because I want to be a mom, to be home when my kids get in and have to make cupcakes at the last minute and be able to do it." Which is why she's married without kids at the moment. I think a lot of people miss that crucial part of feminism: not making someone else's choices, but instead giving all the options available and letting them do it.

[arysani.livejournal.com]

exactly. and that's when i decided to no longer care about what was all the vogue in terms of feminism - because anymore it seems to be geared towards the same things that the entire movement was supposed to prevent and avoid - just what you said, other people making your choices FOR you. and to me, that's a whole lot of spinning in circles and going nowhere.

i'm also glad it's not just me. :)

[veracity]

I've never been in vogue with feminism. For one thing, I don't think that it's any better to feel superior to men, simply because of gender. That's ridiculous. I want to be equal in opportunities. Not to turn into the thing I'm fighting against. Clearly I fail. Wanting a level playing field without a lot of violence and mudslinging. How very civilized and clearly wrong in the face of some people.

You certainly aren't alone.