(no subject)

[shadowkat]

Well, I finally was able to access and see the season finale of Doctor Who S6 otherwise entitled The Wedding of River Song. But I almost killed my internet access attempting it. Not sure why the universe was attempting to stop my viewing of this episode, seemed rather innocuous to me. And a tad bit anti-climatic, but they always do appear that way - when you have to go through a lot of effort to see them. Same deal with Phantom of the Opera - I swear I would have appreciated it more if I didn't have to work so hard to see it. May post a review of Doctor Who at a later point. Need time to digest it first. Also been spending too much time today as it is wrangling my computer. I won, but it was an epic battle.

There's not that many good genre series airing this season, is there? Apparently they've reached their saturation point. While the cop procedurals...appear to not have one in sight. Very odd. You'd think people would get bored of the serial killer/murder of the week? But no. The highest rated season premiers appear to be Unforgettable, Person of Interest, NCIS (both versions), CSI, Castle, Hawaii 5-0, Blue Bloods, and Pam Am. Everything else was a sitcom, a news show, football, or a reality tv show. If you like cult television at all - you are a bit regulated to either cable, the low-rated shows no one mentions on the networks, or the CW. Depressing, isn't it?

Hung out with a friend last night - saw the flick Contagion by Steven Soderburg. It's okay. Nothing to jump up and down over. Although there is a rather funny line by Doctor Sussman (Elliot Gould) to annoying/whiny/opportunistic blogger (Jude Law - who by the way has pimples, quite visible when his face is the size of a wall):

"Blogging is just graffiti with punctuation marks. "

We roared with laughter. This thing did have a lot of really good one-liners. The main theme of the movie was how disinformation causes chaos. The villain if there was one - is the blogger played by Jude Law. Being uninformed or misinformed by unreliable internet sources and careless can kill you.

Friend's response was basically the same as mine - this would have worked much better as a mini-series on tv. We both wanted more. The movie format was too abbreviated for the story to be told in a satisfying manner. That's been my problem with a lot of movies lately...they are almost too short. Neither of us found it the least bit scary, in fact we both burst out laughing when the woman next to us started coughing. Possibly because we both know far too much about the subject - being junkies of this particular trope. (We've read Andromeda Strain, watched it, read Hot Zone, and I also read Virus hunters and just about every book, movie or tv series that pops up on the topic. Plus discussed at length with medical professionals. I find the process of hunting down a virus, figuring out how it was caused, how it was transmitted, and how to stop it rather fascinating. ) Overall, we liked it. And it was free - my friend had free passes, so we didn't have to pay. Spent the money on sushi, saki, magritias, and other munchies at various places instead.

We also discussed Game of Thrones and The GRR Martin Series - I told my friend that the tv series was actually pretty good. But she's decided to read the books instead. A friend of hers, a guy, said something that I found decidedly odd about the series, although it has been mentioned before, elsewhere. He stated that GRR Martin clearly either did not like women very much or had problems with women, because his women characters are horrible and shallow, with no depth. I thought, huh? Was more puzzled and bewildered by the comment than anything else. I just finished reading chapters in Brienne, Sansa, Yasha, and Cersie's points of view. But..He's read all the books apparently and is not a feminist, fairly conservative in his tastes, but like's female characters. Which doesn't tell me all that much. Just seemed an odd statement. Granted some could be better developed, but that's true with some of the male characters too. I don't know, I don't think Martin's female characters are as well drawn as Whedon's, Tolkien's (better than Tolkien's - Tolkien barely has any), and anyone else out there. What do you think?

Admittedly there are a few writers out there that I wonder about in that regard - Ryan Murphy, I keep wondering if he has some unresolved female issues. But I wouldn't say it about Martin. Martin seems pretty normal, as far as I can tell. Granted I've only read three of the books and am a quarter of the way through the fourth, but still.

Comments

[angearia.livejournal.com]

I find that strange, the critique about GRRM's women. Maybe it's because the women aren't ~nice~ enough? I think by the later books, Cersei's become one of the most psychologically fascinating characters. And Dany's pretty amazing, too. Sansa's a bit underdeveloped -- the story around her is interesting, but she's gotten less character complexity so far. Melisandre is fascinating, too. Oh, and Asha Greyjoy's awesome.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I had the same reaction. Just found it to be strange. I bugged my friend by asking "what did he mean? And how so?" Which of course she couldn't really answer having not read the books and not wanting me to spoil her on them.
She just said - "he said they were written as shallow and spiteful and without the same depth and heroism as the men or complexity", which again bewildered me.

Maybe it's because the women aren't ~nice~ enough?

Possibly. I mean we do have crazy Lyssa. And I suppose Catelynne and Cersei come across a bit harsh. Dany may seem less heroic than say Jon Snow? I don't know. I've been tossing it around in my head. But I honestly think they are equally complex. Also, considering we are in a medieval society, where power is basically defined by brute strength and men rule...Martin's women are surprisingly strong and outside traditional role models. Also we have the whole range. Yasha Greyjoy who is a warrior who fights to be Queen by fighting ability, and camarederi and won't ever be married or have kids vs. Ceresi who fights for her power through her children, sex, and marriage or manipulation.

While Cersei certainly isn't likable, I agree that she is one of the most psychologically fascinating female characters that I've seen and one of the best villains.

Sansa is oddly growing on me. She is only 15. And all of her illusions have been dashed to smithereens. I find her heartbreaking and riveting. I love how she uses politeness and manners to survive.

No, I really don't understand how anyone could say Martin doesn't like women or can't write them well. I think he's doing a very good job, much better than most fantasy writers that I've read (granted I haven't read that many). (I mentioned to my friend that Martin's female fanbase was about as large if not larger than the male fanbase. Not that necessarily means anything...)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

She just said - "he said they were written as shallow and spiteful and without the same depth and heroism as the men or complexity", which again bewildered me.

Yeah, that... Confuses me. All Martin characters are fallible. None is simply heroic. Where I think he does a good job with women is that he shows a variety of them. Do some have unflattering characteristics? Yes... But so do the men. Sure some irritate me and some make me cheer... But there's a variety ( and Asha does rock)

[elisi]

V. quickly, since I'm on my way to bed...

I found DW initially just odd. Not bad, but just really strange and I didn't know what to think. (Well apart from FLAILING MASSIVELY that all my dearest hopes and dreams were fulfilled and more beside. But you know - it was odd.) However, having re-watched it and thought about it, I am now deeply, deeply in love. The mirroring is INSANE and I called so many things by getting the metaphors right. It was the actual plot that was confusing, but having sifted through it, it's marvellous. Crack, but marvellous crack. ♥

(Icon more than a year old, btw. Had KathyH make it for me...)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what I think about it at the moment. Wasn't quite what I expected and still processing it. It's one of those episodes I'll have to think about for a while before I write anything. Will give it credit for this much - it does play with your head long after you see it and does stick with you, which is actually more than I can say about 90% of the things I've watched this week.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

If he's not a feminist than it might be that the women are not stereotypically female enough. You know, not kind, caring and nurturing enough. With Martin the women go all across the board, but also on the dark sides. Power is corrupting, Being a fighter means you get your hands bloody, for men and for women.

I think people who don't reflect much about the depiction of women have maybe gone away from the nice background characters that just look pretty, but they now expect these infallable ueberchicks that can do everything, and are supernice and supercute while doing it all in high heels (it's a beef i sometimes have with whedon even). So when there are flawed women, hardened women, women who's dreams don't work out, like Martin's then it's perceived as weird.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

That was my reaction, although I bit my tongue and didn't tell my friend that. I couldn't help but wonder if he objected to the depiction because Martin didn't "romanticize" or "glamorize" the characters - as a lot of fantasy writers do.

Agree on your criticism of Whedon - I have a similar beef, although to be fair, on the tv series - I don't think that was his initial intent - he tried to be more creative with the casting on Buffy at least, but the network nixed it and/or didn't work.

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

I'm so relieved that you managed to get ahold of Doctor Who's finale... and I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it. I found it both entertaining and satisfying, but then I didn't have to jump through a million hoops to see it.

It is true (and very odd) that there are virtually no new sci-f shows on this year... last year we had the The Cape and V and No Ordinary Family (or were those the year before? I forget) but evidently the Hollywood suits decided that they didn't do well enough.

Now we are going to get American Horror Story and Grimm.... (so maybe we'll get a little horror and fantasy.... who knows).

It sounds like you found Contagion to be way more entertaining than most of my friends (who found it creepy and they kept washing their hands) - I haven't seen it my own self.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I'm so relieved that you managed to get ahold of Doctor Who's finale... and I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it.

No, no...I did enjoy it. I just was a little disappointed in it. ;-)

Now we are going to get American Horror Story and Grimm.... (so maybe we'll get a little horror and fantasy.... who knows).

Actually I think Once Upon a Time might be more fun. It has a bounty hunter who doesn't believe in fairy tales discovering from the son she gave up ages ago that she's actually the daughter of Snow White, but the fairy tale world has been frozen into the real one.

Grim is basically another horror procedural. And American Horror Story has been described as kinetically morose take on the haunted house (ie. think Amityville Horror meets Nip/Tuck).

There's some interesting stuff popping up mid-season, Awake (about a man who in one time-line lost his wife and in the other his son),
Smash ( a musical dramedy about putting on a Bway show), Alcatraz about prisoners who mysteriously disappeared 40 years ago and are now randomly popping up again (which sounds like The 4400 meets Criminal Minds).

Cape and No Ordinary were last year - and sort of sealed the end of the superhero trope, or Alphas might. I think the superhero trope may have hit its saturation point, too many of them.

It sounds like you found Contagion to be way more entertaining than most of my friends (who found it creepy and they kept washing their hands) - I haven't seen it my own self.

Hee. I read about the Ebola virus in the 1990s. Once you read Virus Hunters (real life people going into the jungles of Africa and dealing with the Ebola virus) and Hot Zone ( a real life case study of an ebola virus that almost got out of the lab and infected the US.) - Contagion is nothing.

Plus? I've been watching Fringe. It's basically Monster Disease of the Week.

No, disease movies don't phase me. If it had been The Thing or a
movie about monster spiders? Or about serial killers? Or evil little creatures coming out of the closet? Now That would have bothered me. LOL!

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

There was a controversy a few weeks back when the Tiger Beatdown feminist blog did a massive post (http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/08/26/enter-ye-myne-mystic-world-of-gayng-raype-what-the-r-stands-for-in-george-r-r-martin/) all about how all the female characters in ASOIAF are horrible and GRRM is writing pseudo-medieval fantasy just as an excuse to show loads of rape. I haven't read the books or seen the TV show but that's probably the best place to go to get a line on the complaints.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Odd, there isn't that much rape in this series. Actually surprisingly little considering the setting and time period.
Sure it's mentioned, but rarely shown.
I'm trying to think of a main character outside of maybe Dany that was raped?
Cersei?

Have these people read the books? Very weird. Farscape and Buffy have a lot more "rape" actually.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

And he managed to (okay really rather weirdly) make Dany's marriage to Drogo less... rapey (unrealistically so, actually which is why I was okay with the way that the series played it out). On the other hand, why I pretty much loathed Drogo was his and the Dothraki "rape!yay" mindset, but you're right that we didn't have to 'see' it much. (And was why I was on Murri Maz Durr's side [who knows if I spelled that even close to correctly) when she took revenge on Drogo and schooled Dany on 'you think you 'saved' me?').

Cersei definitely hasn't been raped (unless you consider her entire marriage to Robert to have been so... which I suppose you could make an argument for, but it was too much a part of the (Earth) time period to fall easily into any neat category.)

But, yeah, given what many of the women have gone through the fact that Sansa, Asha, Brienne, & Penny (I don't think you've read to the point of meeting her yet) haven't been raped under the circumstances is actually rather astonishing.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thank you for replying to this. I was thinking of asking your opinion - because you've read further than I have.

Outside of the Dothraki "rape!yay" mindset - I really haven't seen anything.

I suppose you could use Lolly being "gang-raped" as an example? But, that is referred to mainly in passing, blink and you sort of miss it. We never see it happen, Lolly isn't a major pov character, and the women who mention it don't like her. If anything it appears to be there just to remind us of the time period and the periles of being female. But it's no different than me picking up the newspaper this morning and reading more or less the same story.

Cersei definitely hasn't been raped (unless you consider her entire marriage to Robert to have been so... which I suppose you could make an argument for, but it was too much a part of the (Earth) time period to fall easily into any neat category.)

Well, if he does, she doesn't appear to see it that way. If anything I felt she was annoyed that he was more interested in someone else than her.

I suppose...Brienne? But she's never raped. She has the threat of rape, but that's realistic. That would be the case now. And it's not glamorized. Nor does it even happen.

There's no exploitive rape in these books. Nor even much rape for that matter.
There's hardly any sex, actually. Lots of decapitations, lynchings, burnings, removal of body parts, and gruesome deaths...but not really that much in the sexual violence or sex department. Which is a bit odd due to the time period and the circumstances.

Which begs the question - did the people on Tiger Beat even read the books? And if so, what are they comparing them too? Bewildering.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Okay read the Tiger Beat post - weird, it's like we are reading completely different books? People are bewildering.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Well, there's the Boltons, I suppose. Roose straight-up admits to having raped his bastard's mother but that's past history. And the Bastard Bolton is, in any other world, a sadistic serial killer. He definitely tortured and raped. And I don't remember how much was shown vs. told around regarding the fake Arya married to him, but... yeah. On the other hand, he's a sadistic serial killer with men too. And what he's shown doing to a male character is every bit as horrific, so as horrible as the Bastard Bolton is, writing-wise it didn't come off as sexist. Horrifying? Definitely, but a horror to humanity not simple misogyny. We're supposed to think of the bastard Bolton to be a sadistic serial-killing monster who needs to be put down like a dog and yay to any character who can do it.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Just sounds like more proof that there are male characters that are just if not more unsavory than female characters. (shrug)

The Boltons and the Freys were pretty nasty in Storm, but they are nasty to everyone, male/female alike. Didn't appear to be choosy.

And the rape still happens off-stage (unless something major happens between where I'm currently at in Feast and the end of Dragon), it's still not really shown.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I read the post or tried to, hard to read, it's so angry and bitter. Also appears to be more of an insane rant than a thought-out critique.

GRRM

[sophist.livejournal.com]

It's pretty funny that you and I watched The Wire at the same time, and now I'm reading GRRM at the same pace as you (just finished vol. 3, starting vol. 4).

My view is that most of the characters are unsympathetic because the values of the time period are not ours. That said, I actually think it's a pretty accurate reflection of what the "romantic" Middle Ages were like, if a bit exaggerated.

To the extent that I do like particular characters, though, the ones I like are the women: Dany and Arya in particular. I don't think of the series as anti-women, since the men are, if anything, more unsavory than the women (I mean, is Cersei really worse than Tywin?).

Re: GRRM

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

My view is that most of the characters are unsympathetic because the values of the time period are not ours. That said, I actually think it's a pretty accurate reflection of what the "romantic" Middle Ages were like, if a bit exaggerated.

That was my take as well. Most fantasy novels tend to be the Middle Ages by way of the 1800s Victorian sensibilities...which I always found to be incredibly amusing. As if the writer were writing the tale from a Victorian mindset or
view of their own age.

Martin's is closer to the actual circumstances and a lot less romanticized.

Granted, you could say that his choice of time-periods is a bit circumspect, but most fantasy tends to take place in the Middle Ages - because there's no science and technology back then, and more reliance on magic and superstition. In short - it's more believable to have horses, wizards, and dragons in that setting. Not to mention war by sword as opposed to guns. Also, all ages have a certain level of rape and pillaging associated with war - so picking modern times wouldn't necessarily be better. Martin tends to like a certain degree of realism in his story-telling, and fantasy, which tends to be a bit darker. ( The Wire -for example - is a bit noirish for the same reason, yet totally different time period.)

To the extent that I do like particular characters, though, the ones I like are the women: Dany and Arya in particular. I don't think of the series as anti-women, since the men are, if anything, more unsavory than the women (I mean, is Cersei really worse than Tywin?).</i. I tend to agree. We have a range. Catelynn - I found to be more sympathetic and a lot brighter than Ned Stark. And Cersei is in some respects more likable than her father Tywin - who in many ways created her. Her motives make more sense than his. Granted you could argue that Jamie and Tyrion have better arcs than Cersei, but in some respects Yasha has a better arc than say Theon Greyjoy. It's well balanced. May depend on how "romantic" the reader's world-view is? I mean if you prefer CS Lewis or Terry Moore, this may not be your thing?