Telly Feminista

orbitingasupernova:

Let’s talk about sex.

Specifically bisexuality. Okay, so there’s more to sexuality than just mashing genitalia together—and what genitalia—which may come as a surprise to you if you’ve just graduated from the Steven Moffat School of Sexxyyyy Ed. 

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(via eatyourfudgetrev)

watermeloncholy:

SPOILERS

I hate the implication that in order to temper racially problematic themes in GOT, they’re avoiding controversy by erasing POC from certain storylines. If that’s not extremely lazy and offensive, then I don’t know what is. Because to me, behaving as though POC are disposable or writing them out of a story because you just don’t want to deal with them is one of the worst possible things to do. How is erasure a better solution? Where is the logic in that? Do you know what would have been a proper solution? Perhaps finding someone who could actually temper the problematic shit without erasing characters that are important to the overall themes.

This argument came up when Chataya and Alayaya were erased from the narrative—the assumption was that the writers didn’t want to show a female character of colour being whipped (except the writers have completely departed from the story in major ways already and that this is something that could have easily been changed).

And this argument is coming up now… well there are problematic themes with Daenerys’ storyline, so how about we just kill all her people despite the fact that they’re supposed to mean so much to her.

Forgive me if I just don’t see these choices as deliberate ones and believe that the writers are basically making certain decisions for shock value—decisions that will likely create more issues and affect the overall themes in the story later on.

(via monkeyknifefight)

theopensea:

chaucerettescs:

watermeloncholy:

You know, I understand that GOT is an adaptation and that HBO has to make changes because books are obviously absorbed differently than [an audio-visual medium like] television. I’m sure other people understand this as well. 

I love when certain changes enrich the narrative. I have no problem with changes, as long as the point of the story remains the same and as long as those changes don’t come at the expense of the characters. If a character’s motivations essentially remain the same and their purpose is still understood, then I welcome changes. 

However, that’s not what’s happening with Catelyn Stark’s story. Here, you have the creators preaching about how they understand that the women are some of the strongest characters in the series and yet, they made the choice to flatten Cat’s narrative and box her into a place that GRRM removed her from in the first place. What is the point of that? The fact that Cat makes the choice to stay with Robb and that she suggests negotiating with Renly and Stannis is important to her characterization and her story. Cat uses her political acumen to suggest solutions that will bring victory (and hopefully peace)—and this is perhaps the only way she knows that she can have her family back safe and sound. It wouldn’t have hurt to just allow her to have those two lines, which make her character’s motivations quite clear. If the writers have time to insert Ros and give her dialogue and give her scenes with Petyr, then they can manage to accurately portray Catelyn. 

I think people have a right to complain about something they feel is an egregious mistake because really, if the writers are willing to take away a character’s agency…that decision doesn’t bode well for any of the marginalized characters in the series.

Honestly, taking away Catelyn’s agency is like having someone else birth Daenerys’ dragons and then handing them over to her to raise.

Thank you. It is really irritating me how the show is turning Catelyn into a declawed Mama Bear, which was precisely the trope her character subverted in the novels. That was kind of the point of Robb and Cat’s arc in the novels — it completely inverted the tired fantasy devices of the miraculously competent boy-king and his utra-supportive mother.

And I am seriously side-eyeing the argument that these changes are an improvement because they make Cat more “likeable”, which is clearly what the writers were going for. Diminishing a female character’s complexity and political acumen makes her more likeable? Doing this just so she can better fit people’s expectations of what a “good” mother is makes her more likeable? And when the writers repeatedly insist that the show is feminist and that the female characters are the strongest and yet, in the first two episodes, have stripped two of the major female characters of some of their most crucial decisions and actions and given those to male characters?

Yeah, that’s crap.

#i feel like they messed up casting jon and robb with actors a lot older than their book counterparts #because you get this idea that robb’s masculinity is undercut if cat’s making all the smart choices and he’s not #and nononono can’t have a young white dude’s masculinity undercut by HEAVENS ABOVE his mum!

I’m really wondering about the “heroic” arc they’re setting up for Robb vs. what happens in the books, and I think Cat’s getting screwed because of it.

sunisup:

Sometimes I hear people say that racism/sexism/etc in culture isn’t important or worth criticizing.  ”Oh it’s just a book,” they say.  ”It’s just a crappy TV show.”  ”It’s just a commercial.”

This argument always baffles me.  It’s like if you put poison into a fish-tank and then say “Oh well I didn’t poison the fish, I just poisoned the water.”  The fish lives in the water, dumbass; it’s completely submerged in and surrounded by the water.  I’m pretty sure that poisoned water is going to affect the fish.

Similarly, we all live constantly immersed in this miasma of information that we call “culture.”  People are not born prejudiced.  We don’t emerge from the womb knowing that all black men are scary thugs, that all Latinas are spicy sexpots, that all Indians are violent savages, that all women are weepy and frail, that all gay men are depraved pedophiles, and that all people in wheelchairs are objects of pity.  We learn these things, usually starting at a very young age, and we often learn them from our culture — the books we read, the movies we watch, and the constant barrage of advertising that we don’t really pay attention to but which still manages to seep into our brains, and which shapes the way we think about the world, for better or for worse.

If you want to save the fish, you need to purify the water.

(via whybedennydifferent)

A Twitter row kicked off recently between whoever it is that mans (deliberate choice of word) the Mock the Week feed, and a number of people who are sick of the lack of women on TV panel shows.

However, it was interesting to hear Caitlin Moran and Grace Dent picking up the thread on Saturday evening at the Cheltenham Literary Festival. Their hour-long session involved the two very funny women, and a female chairperson, debating around the topic of Twitter and pop culture. The session was fantastically entertaining… and also bizarrely unusual because it was a female-only panel.

During the Q&A, a woman in the audience suggested Moran and Dent should turn this into a TV show as it was so funny, and people would love it. A whoop of agreement went up from the sold-out crowd. And of course, the woman who asked this question was right – this would make brilliant TV. However, both Moran and Dent just laughed wryly, and said they’d never be allowed to talk in such a candid way on TV… because women never are.

This led to Moran saying she turns down appearances on shows such as Have I Got News For You if they ask, because she knows she will be on as the token female guest, that she will rarely be allowed to speak, and when she is allowed to speak – it will be edited out before screening in order to “save her from herself”, with the result that the only clips of her actually shown would be her politely tittering at a man’s jokes. The implication, said Moran, is that women don’t get politics and can’t understand political humour. So she doesn’t bother anymore. Dent agreed.

Jo Brand has also said she won’t go on Mock The Week anymore as she was sick of not being allowed to speak. And Brand’s not the only one to publicly complain about this. Mariella Frostrup, Victoria Wood, Rhona Cameron… these are just a handful of the intelligent and witty women to speak to the press about this problem in the past few years. But still nothing is being done. While women are not being heard on panel shows, the female audiences are turning off in droves – bored to tears by hearing the likes of Stephen Fry, Dara O’Briain and Russell Howard talk YET AGAIN about how pleased with themselves they are.

But back to Saturday, and Dent added that when she writes for some magazines and newspapers, her typically barbed style is generally toned down by the sub-editors, in what she perceives as a well-intentioned effort by the subs to “save me from myself”. Moran agreed that she sometimes experiences the same thing. When Dent wondered aloud if male writers would experience the same level of censorship in their writing, Moran quickly and loudly laughed and said “not a chance”.

But WHY are women so under-represented on TV and radio (let’s save cinema for another time)? Why?! It would be hilarious to see Moran and Dent afforded an hour-long TV show every week, where they could talk in the same articulate, intelligent and hilarious way as they did on Saturday night. If Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and Karl Pilkington can make a career out of podcasts and TV spin-offs of themselves rambling on about nothing in particular, why can’t women do the same? I dare say they’d be just as funny, but a lot less sexist and disablist than some of the unpleasant guff I’ve heard Gervais and Merchant say in their otherwise funny podcasts.

Earlier at Cheltenham, I heard Dent do a reading from her book How To Leave Twitter, and I was thrilled that she chose the section which highlights this very issue – the absence of intelligent women on TV, yet the wealth of identikit programmes with men looking like potatoes in jumpers.

Nobody seems to know what the solution is to making women more visible on panel shows, and allowing women an equal voice on TV and radio. And nobody can tell me why there is such a lack of women being given a voice – and by this, I do not mean women who are there only for what they look like, but women who actually have something interesting, amusing or relevant to say.

Women make up 52% of the population, but you wouldn’t know it by turning on your TV or radio. As a result, I rarely watch any TV these days as it seems so irrelevant to me, and so out of touch with the life that I live.

Anonymous asked: also, for your rant about how the Sherlock fandom hates Donovan: please, people, don't forget that in the Lancelot analogy, she was one of the knights, just like Sherlock. she is NOT a bad person. just because she's portrayed as someone with a bit of a sour temperament in regards to the protagonist doesn't make her the antagonist. it simply means that not everyone is in love with Sherlock and his attitude, which is a realistic and sensible point for the writers to make.

Exactly, thank you.

Let’s talk about Sally Donovan. Let’s do this because I’m sick of seeing negative post after negative post about her, posts that reek of the OP making a snap judgement and attempting to justify their hatred retrospectively. Okay so this might not seem particularly relevant right now, as Series 2 of Sherlock aired three months ago and the third isn’t due for a long while, but the fandom is very much alive.

According to a lot of the fandom, Sally is a bitter, controlling whore and we should all hate her for it. She is bitter because she has been calling Sherlock “freak” since day one, apparently. Except we have no idea if that’s true. The day John and the audience first met Holmes was not the first time Donovan met him; they have a history. Let’s not forget that he is irritating, rude and dismissive and that Sally is not the odd one out in finding him annoying. For one thing, so does Anderson. The fandom doesn’t like him much either but he’s portrayed differently. The one we love to hate. Sally? No we just hate her.

Sherlock: *Big, long, clever speech*
John: That … was amazing.
Sherlock: Do you think so?
John: Of course it was, it was extraordinary. Quite extraordinary.
Sherlock: That’s not what people normally say.
John: What do people normally say, then?
Sherlock: “Piss off.”

John is the odd one out. He can put up with Sherlock because they click, they fit together perfectly. The fact that John can be around him for any length of time is part of the reason their relationship is so unique and so surprising to everybody else. Now bear that mind when criticising Sally for not bowing down to your great master or refusing to be utterly enchanted by him. She might come across as rude but it is a reaction to how she is constantly being treated by Sherlock Holmes.

This ties in with the reactions to her approaching Lestrade with the idea that Sherlock was, in fact, behind the kidnapping in Reichenbach. The seed of doubt was planted in her mind and she let it grow because it made sense and, partly, I’m sure, because she’s hardly fond of him. But again, it’s not as if there was no evidence to back her suspicion up. She was only being conscientous in posing this theory to a higher authority. Besides, it made for a bloody good storyline.

Now, “controlling”. This is such a weird one but it seems to crop up a lot because she attempts to warn John off becoming involved (no, not like that) with Sherlock. “John can make his own decisions!!1” Yep, he sure can, but she genuinely believes Sherlock to be a psychopath and that getting close to him would be less than a good idea. She sees him reacting with utter coldness to horrific events, getting excited when those events result in him having a new case to solve and treating most people with disdain. I can definitely understand why she might want to warn John off him. I feel this is the fandom clutching at straws, trying to justify their dislike. She’s a woman of colour on television, and one that isn’t a fan of our “hero”. I see your game, fandom.

Finally, “whore”. Come on, guys. To start with, it takes two to tango and Anderson’s the one who’s cheating! She’s unattached! Is he being lambasted for this affair? Nope. And anyway, JUST STOP SLUT-SHAMING. Who cares if she’s slept with every guy in her office? Not me, and neither should you. Because it’s none of your business. God forbid a woman should have sex! God forbid a woman should enjoy it! Remember how John hits on every single woman he ever comes across ever? Double standards are not cool.

I’m not saying this is how the entire fandom feels. If this doesn’t apply to you, then fine. I’m also not saying that you have to like her. We’ve barely seen anything of her so far, anyway and I’d love for S3 to explore her character more. But this almost universal active dislike of her is a sexism thing and a racism thing.

theopensea:

keppps:

doctorwho:

“Canton is nice. Vastra and Jenny are nice. Captain Jack is nice in both directions at once.”

Steven Moffat on openly gay characters in Doctor Who.

See also: AfterElton interview with Doctor Who Show Runner Steven Moffat:

AE: I’ve think you’ve done such a good job with all the different characters and representing the world the way it is. At some point, not having a gay character is like not having a black character. 

SM: Yeah. But you can’t be driven by that. I just think you should be open to it. It makes Canton more fun. The moment you hear that a whole other life just unfolds in your head.

Dude just makes me want to facepalm. And then kick shit. “a whole other life unfold[ing] in your head” is not enough. “a whole other life unfold[ing] in your head” is part of the problem. That word “other” is part of the problem. Fine, a story “can’t be driven” by taking conscious steps towards active representation (except no one said that? The whole point about representation is to normalise perceived other. Doctor Who is a prime launching pad for exploring a whole range of othered/minority peoples because the Doctor will be shocked by/judge nothing but malice basically. And so therefore the story with a minority character would continue on as usual, except oh boy! Diversification! How refreshing! But okay Moffat. Okay.)

Thing is, believing it’s enough to have the occasional one-liner is lame. Believing that a casual one-liner somehow makes a minority character “more fun” is negligent and potentially harmful (don’t get me wrong - Canton should be fun. He was fun. But that shouldn’t have anything to do with revelations about his sexuality). Believing that “a whole other world unfolds” in your audience’s head is somehow enough is bordering on … Idek. Idiocy? Is that the word I’m looking for, when the country in which your show is first (and endlessly) broadcast still has big problems with homophobia?

The interviewer is also a plonker. Representation in media does not boil down to one-offs and one-liner explanations/nods to diversity. Comparing having a queer character on screen to having a black character on screen makes no sense - neither of these minority groups have been adequately represented in Moffat’s run as showrunner. For that matter, no minority group has been. Let alone a character of colour who is also queer. That’s one which (correct me if I’m wrong) has never happened on Doctor Who, even in Rusty’s era.

Also Jack hasn’t been round Who since Rusty left so stop.

#i need to life savior moffat

(Source: doctor-who-companion)

dancetoadifferentdrum:

Let’s talk about Samantha Brick’s article in the Daily Mail for a minute.

Because I feel like there are quite a few people missing the point entirely. It’s not about how pretty she is, or how beautiful she is, or how ugly she is. We, collectively, need to stop talking about her looks and whether or not she “deserves” to have such a high opinion of herself, and start commenting on the hateful and degrading nature of the article. This sort of stuff is toxic.

What really pissed me off about the article is that in order to make herself look good, or to try and play the sympathy card, Samantha Brick has essentially shoved all other women under the bus and made enormous generalisations about all of us. No-one has the right to metaphorically stand up in an national newspaper and say ‘I’m beautiful, and you’re all jealous of me’ because those assumptions just aren’t true. Of course it’s going to irk people if you put words into their mouths.

I will not deny that appearance will always cause competition for women because of the expectations placed on us by society and the media. I could write a whole fricking book on female objectification and the importance placed on female beauty in society, but I would be here for an awfully long time and I don’t think I could say anything that others have not said more eloquently.

But more to the point, it is simply not true to decide that that anybody who dislikes her does so purely because of her looks. Because we feel physically inadequate compared to her, or because we’re worried she might be after boyfriends. What Brick fails to notice is that most people just don’t like it when you walk around calling yourself prettier and more successful than them. No, Samantha, other women do not hate you because you are pretty. They dislike you because of your attitude about being really pretty and your condescending and arrogant demeanour.

However, if we back off for a second, we also have to acknowledge that this is the Mail. You have to wonder whether the whole thing was designed to create a backlash, to bring readers to the site, to spawn some sort of media shitstorm. And we’ve all fallen for it! We’ve sat here and bitched about her, and wrote comments far uglier than Samantha Brick could possibly be, when what we could (and should) have done is to turn round and say no, we will not take your sexist bullshit. But unfortunately, the internet has (again) decided to take another shot at a woman for her appearance, rather than her disgusting attitude towards other women.

I’m done.