Super-unnatural

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So this post is about Supernatural, which I recently watched all 10-and-a-half seasons of. (I say recently because I watched those 228 episodes within the last two months.) I think you can probably tell that I love this show; I feel I need to state it explicitly because of what is about to come next. Now here it is: I am so fed up. The further I get from last night’s half-season premiere, the angrier I get. I want to take back #girlpower and shout from the rooftops where my women at?

SPOILERS BELOW

They murdered another female character. This is not really even spoiler-level because they do this all the time. This is how I imagine their writing sessions: 

Writer one: Do you think we should kill-off a recurring character to try to bring back the illusion of high stakes?

Writer two: Yeah okay but I really like >insert character< and >insert character< . . .

Writer one: Oh don’t worry. We can just kill the girl again.

I’m sure this isn’t how it happens, especially because I can’t imagine anyone that is not hopelessly devoted to Charlie and the writers gave her the axe too… but… then why does it happen so often? I mean, could it be *gasp* sexism? 

(Just so you know, I do try to write about things other than sexism in TV, but it’s just so rampant! It’s everywhere!)

I kinda think it’s that sexism thing. Now before you say it, I know that people die in almost literally every episode, and that many of those dead people are male. I’m not ignoring that I’m just not talking about it. It’s irrelevant. I’m saying that the show systematically erases women and focuses on men. The world has not built a place for women and keeps trying to kick us out because it doesn’t know how to deal with us. Or worse, it just doesn’t care if we’re there or not. 

Fundamentally, this is a misogynistic show (now bear with me here, I know it hurts). To be clear, because we live in a patriarchal and misogynistic society, anything that accepts rather than fights that system is misogynistic on a basic level (even if accidentally). (Sadly, accidental misogyny occurs alarmingly often.) This show, in its lack of important female characters, reflects a mistrust of women. In its sexist comments and sexual objectification, it exhibits the mistreatment of women. It’s full of characters that are so casually and non-threateningly misogynistic that we think this is normal. And that is not okay with me.

Yes it is about two brothers so of course it can be a bit of a boys club. And that’s not an accident. That was a choice that Kripke made, and that was exactly the feel he wanted with his classic rock, muscle cars, and down-home Midwestern mother-loving boys in flannel. That’s fine I guess. I can live with it for reasons of nostalgia, although I recognize that I don’t really belong there no matter how much I want to be a part of their world. But so many of the decisions that the writers have made leave me feeling just a little let-down.

The most problematic thing for me is that “boys club” mentality. It’s exclusionary and tends to make value judgments in a sort of “us and them” way. 

Something that comes to mind here is the devaluing of women through language. Some of Dean’s most iconic lines are subtly but powerfully degrading to women. I include in this: “No chick-flick moments,” and the word “bitch.” The boys are afraid of “acting like a girl” because obviously, that’s so embarrassing. Who would want to be a girl? Certainly not me. . .

The show as a whole represents women as expendable, as the angel Ambrielle described herself right before she died in last night’s episode. Women aren’t important because they don’t save the day (not factoring in Charlie, who is a beautiful anomaly). Women die often and with very little fanfare, and then are usually replaced by someone very similar. And no one really cares. Part of this comes from the simple fact that the women just don’t last very long before they die.

Let’s get down to the numbers

The Winchesters are obvi in all the episodes. According to imdb, next is Cas, with 87 (8 seasons). Bobby was in 58 (9 seasons) and Crowley in 55 (7 seasons). John is in 20 (including both actors, 10 seasons) while Mary is in only half that, 11 total (8 seasons). Ruby is the highest female with 18 (5 seasons), which includes all three of her actresses (so the most common female character is the 7^th most commonly occurring character over-all). People often compare Kevin with Charlie, as they lived and died in close proximity, but Kevin was in 15 episodes (3 seasons), more than twice Charlie’s 7 (4 seasons). Kevin’s mom can barely even be considered a recurring character, appearing in only 3 episodes. The number of male characters who appeared in more than three episodes (37) was nearly twice the corresponding number for females (20). (I used 3 for this because that’s when I stopped being able to recognize every name). I’d say that right now Jody is the female character closest to being in the main cast, and she’s only been in 10 episodes.

But anyway, as this blog says:

The point isn’t the actual numbers, it’s what they represent.

What this means is that there is no consistent female voice on Supernatural. There is no female presence really at all.

Now I’m not trying to tackle all the things in this post, I only wanted to talk about the deaths really. So I’ll get to that.

I will never forgive the show for what they did to Charlie. But with Rowena, I was starting to have some hope again. She was climbing in the numbers, appearing in 15 episodes. That’s the most of any female character besides Ruby. And then just as I was starting to like her, she was gone. Just like that, Lucifer snapped her neck. And now Amara is the only big female character that’s part of this season’s story arc. And she’s the story arc’s main villain (well co-villain now) so she must surely die when this season is over (unless the writers are going to be cool this year and let a female main villain live for more than a season, like they have done with nearly every male main villain). So basically my representation hopes have been dashed again. Why do they kill all the women?

Historically, this trend started in the very first episode. All of the female characters pre-season 5 are basically dead and buried. All of the female characters that even have the potential to still be in the picture are more recent. Claire, Donna, and Alex are from season 9 and Kate and Krissy are from season 7. Jody is the female recurring character that’s been around the longest, and her first episode was in season 5. (Claire is technically from season 5 I guess but they didn’t start using her as a recurring character until season 9.) Everyone before her is dead or gone. The show has been doing a great job lately of introducing new female characters, and even letting them have relationships with each other, (which has been missing since Jo and Ellen in season 3) but it hasn’t been taking the opportunity to develop those characters and bring them into the family. 

I know it’s not just female characters who die, but it is female characters who are missing from the main cast. And even though male and female deaths on the show occur in similar numbers, a higher ratio of female characters are dying because there are more male characters than female. Also, as I said earlier, it is not super relevant because my issue is with the fact that there is a dearth of female recurring characters compared to male. All four of the series regulars are men and they have been for the duration of the show; the recurring female characters like Jody only show up about once a season. That’s not equal representation; it’s not even close.

Also, many of the men who die get to come back while the women don’t. Sam, Dean, and Cas have all come back from the dead multiple times. Crowley came back after they burned his “bones.” These were all permanent returns, but there are plenty of less permanent returns as well. Bobby came back as a ghost and then was seen in hell, and then again in heaven and then again in Sam’s coma dreams. Kevin came back as a ghost, we saw Ash in heaven, we saw Benny in purgatory after his death, John came back briefly when the gates of hell were opened. Grandpa Samuel came back for a pretty extended period of time. Adam came back. Lucifer keeps coming back. Curiously, the women don’t really tend to come back once they’re dead. (Jo is the only one who came back in a later episode; Charlie was resurrected moments after her first death. That ratio is about 1 for every 6.)

I just want to know why! Some have said that it’s because the fans don’t like the female characters as much. This may be true, although maybe that would change if they started developing and showcasing their female characters more. I loved Rowena, who I thought was really interesting and three-dimensional. I don’t know what the deal is, but I think that there is obviously something wrong if the fans and creators don’t care about or respect the women of this world to the point where they don’t want them in the world at all. I just hope that Supernatural gets to keep going long enough to get it right.

Here are some similar blog posts if you'd like to read more about this:

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See here for an update on The Death and Life of Rowena MacLeod post 11.18 "Hell's Angel."

Also, look at this picture* because truth.

WARNING ******************* ADULT LANGUAGE 

*picture is from this article at cracked.com

Doctor Who You Calling Sexist: Donna Noble

Donna Noble

 

Why people love her

She stands up to the Doctor

No romantic interest in the Doctor

Compassion, empathy, female solidarity (lady/lady relationships)

She was a change of pace (much funnier, faster, different feeling, older, matier)

Why people hate her

She stands up to the Doctor

“nag” and a “hag”

Old, fat, ugly

Loud, obnoxious, annoying voice, grating

What I think about her

She stands up to the Doctor: this is something that I personally love about Donna, especially because I think it is something the Doctor desperately needed. My favorite instances of this were when the Doctor or others valued him as a Time Lord over her and she was never afraid to step in and say “I’m a human and I have just as much say as he does because I’m here and I’m willing to do what needs to be done.” Yeah Donna! We are not second class citizens because of the bodies we were born into! I think this really came through in the End of Time episodes, as the Doctor chooses the humans over the Time Lords, and makes the ultimate sacrifice to save Wilf even though he felt he had so much more to offer. I mean, the Doctor was a real mess. Who knows what he would have become without Donna there to check his intense emotions and curb his darker tendencies. Actually we do know: according to Turn Left, he would have let himself die in The Runaway Bride. And failing that, I bet he would have gone all “Time Lord Victorious” earlier, with no one to check him and none of the past experiences he needed to battle his newfound power.

On the one hand, I get how the disagreements can be seen as negative. For one, as a society we are moving toward favoring cooperation over altercation. This is especially difficult for someone like Donna, since women are expected to be more considerate and therefore more cooperative; therefore she gets judged more harshly for arguing because she is going against societal gender roles. Furthermore, as in most arguments, someone has to be wrong. And sometimes that someone is Donna. I don’t think anyone would argue that Donna isn’t flawed, and her outspoken contrariness is definitely part of those flaws. But at the same time, that’s how she shows her passion, courage, and sense of right, which I think is what the Doctor loves about Donna. I wonder if there is similar audience logic at play here as what turned us against Martha. “Donna is yelling at the Doctor, the Doctor is always right, therefore Donna is wrong” instead of “Donna is yelling at the Doctor, Donna has a good point, therefore the Doctor is wrong.” For some reason we are always taking sides; even though the Doctor wasn’t hurt by Donna’s yelling at him, audience members feel the need to defend him against her. Even though, in fact, I think her yelling was helping him. Really I think he was much happier with Donna, disagreements included, than he was with Martha, who was always trying to please him.

Seeing this theme, I have to wonder if there’s sexism at play. Why do some many of us take the Doctor’s side and trust his judgment even though he has shown us so often how wrong he can be? Do we have some sort of bias towards trusting men over women? A bias to value logical judgments over emotional and circumstantial assessments?

So what do people say about Donna’s standing up to the Doctor? It’s not that she’s brave or intelligent, quick-witted or determined. It’s that she’s “bossy.” This word has gotten a lot of flak recently for its pejorative connotations and bias against girls (and I think rightfully so). In my opinion, I’d say the Doctor is bossier than Donna because he’s the one who more consistently acts like the boss. He’s always giving out orders and expecting to be followed because he’s the cleverest. He outright tells people that he’s in charge and he delegates jobs to everyone, including Donna.

Donna much more rarely assumes that she is the boss of people she has just met. She is more likely to take the empathetic route. In fact, when she goes off it’s usually not telling people to do things, but rather voicing what she will not let others do to her and with her help. (i.e. “You can’t just leave them.” “You’re not mating with me, sunshine.”) She demands the respect she feels any human deserves, as opposed to demanding respect because she thinks she is better than the people she is speaking to (as the Doctor sometimes does). So why do we hate her but love the Doctor? Do we think that he has more claim to the boss title? Is Donna “bossy” precisely because she acts like a boss but cannot be one? Why can’t she be one? Because we don’t think she has any right to be the boss, to make decisions, to let people know what she thinks?

And what qualifies one to be the leader anyway? Sure the Doctor has more experience in space than Donna does, but he’s just as capable of making mistakes. It’s like Dumbledore says, as he’s “rather cleverer than most men, [his] mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.” The Doctor only rarely asks for input, so if you disagree with him you’ve got to be vocal about it. He’s also a tad arrogant, which means that it takes a lot of determined convincing to change his mind. In some ways, he’s really not a very good leader. I think this is something that the Doctor has slowly started realizing. That maybe sometimes he can’t be the leader, but he can be the advisor instead.  That he should be more empowering and less overpowering.

Is Donna a good leader, or is she just a “nag”? Obviously Donna does tend to harp on a bit, but I don’t think she is a stereotypical “nag” character. First of all, we are allowed to like her, which is unusual. Second of all, she gets some development so that we understand why she nags instead of just laughing at her or hating her for it. I think one of Donna’s strengths is that she does use her leadership to empower, instead of using it to belittle like her mother does. For such a “bossy” person, she was really unendingly compassionate. She was never cruel, she just had a harsh way of trying to make the world a better place. As the Doctor said, she was always “yelling at the world” only because she felt it was the only way to be heard.

Donna had a lot of flaws, but of all the companions I personally think that hers were the most well-written. They were explored and explained and had background. We see a lot of her interaction with her mother, who has obviously shaped her in a major way. Same with her Grandpa. She also grows and learns a lot, which is why it’s so sad when that growth is taken away from her. The writers also explain some of her flaws, writing in background that makes sense with those flaws. For example, I think Donna does like ordering people around; this is because it gives her the power, or at least a sense of control over her life. And in her everyday life she didn’t often get to feel that. She was a temp, the ultimate in being told what to do; her mother was obsessed with controlling her life; her dad was taken from her pretty recently; and I think she probably felt like she didn’t have a voice because she didn’t think she was able enough to work in politics or any other profession that has a say in how things turn out. In fact when we met her, she didn’t even think she had any control in her friend group—she was convinced that somehow Neris had hired the Doctor to ruin her wedding day. And then it turns out that she had been manipulated by her fiancé for months and was being used as an instrument in the Racnoss Emperess’s plans. So yeah, I’d want to try for some control too.

Now on to some other complaints: She was a bit loud. I guess that’s just up to the person whether that annoys them or not. I found Catherine Tate’s acting choices to be funny and poignant, and not annoying. But I concede that it was loud. What’s interesting about this though is that people basically universally loved it when David Tennant got loud to match her. So again, why is there an imbalance there?

Some people apparently disliked Catherine Tate’s accent (I ain’t bovvered, though). It is a bit affected, but I personally think it worked really well. I think it came off as affected because of all the yelling, as that required her to pronounce her words in a specific way to make sure she was heard and understood. Her voice was really realistic in quieter and more serious scenes. I think the affected accent is something she does for comedic effect, and lots of people eat that up so I don’t fault her for it.

She’s a hag: I’ve heard people say things like “she’s so (insert negative qualities here), and she’s not even cute!” As though her attractiveness could make up for her negative qualities, or that unattractiveness is itself a negative quality. Unfortunately, I think this is something generally perpetuated by Doctor Who, as it does tend to cast very attractive young ladies as companions. In my opinion this is particularly sad, as I think Catherine Tate was a much better actor than any of the other companions and yet people write her off based on her looks, her weight, and her age. Although I would just like to say, I think Catherine Tate is good-looking. She’s Hollywood Homely, as in everyone around her is way above average and she’s just a little above average, which makes her seem ugly in comparison. She’s probably average or even below average weight in America, but again, she’s not what people want to ogle. And she’s about 10 years older than every other companion, which can make a big difference in our youth = beauty culture.

Lastly, I think Donna had an additional obstacle: people didn’t like her when she was introduced. I think this was kind of essential for her character arc, so that we would be more invested when her memory and therefore growth was on the line. But honestly, the way she was introduced was weird. A lot of people hated her in The Runaway Bride because it was a bit of a jolt right after Rose, and that drove the audience to compare the two of them.  Then she disappeared for a year with no opportunity for improvement. Donna’s waspish personality was also not explained at all in that episode, so people were not looking forward to her return because they didn’t understand her. I think sometimes the writers of the show really overestimate the audience’s capacity for forgiveness, although it seems to me that the majority of viewers did eventually get over this.

Just an anecdotal thought about Donna hate: I have noticed a somewhat gendered division when it comes to opinions about Donna. The people who hate her are usually men or people who are devoted to the status quo. People who love her seem to be made up of mostly women or people who otherwise related to her “differentness.” I think she was sort of a symbol for women’s rights (and no that’s not because I think that all women should rule over men and order them around). It’s because Donna operates as a check to the Doctor’s assumed inherent authority, exposing him as only one half of a team that needed her. I think she was also a huge encouragement to women (and any one under cultural pressure dealing with non-acceptance) who felt like they were not special because of their age/weight/looks/lack of education and lack of privilege. So maybe people who identify with the Doctor didn’t want to have their authority questioned (and privilege checked) and were uncomfortable with the thought of getting bossed around. Those who identify with Donna are probably those who feel like they often get looked over, and were itching to see the tables turned with a hero that represented them and who wouldn’t back down. I think women probably also enjoyed seeing a female character who was talented and important who maybe reflected more what the average woman looks like rather than what the average man is attracted to. I will tell you, it is nice to be catered to in your entertainment, which is why some heteronormative men may have felt gypped that they were not being catered to in that way.

I think there are a lot of good things about Donna relating to this that were missing in some of the other companions. Because there was no romance, the writers had to find other ways to make her interesting and relatable. Sad to say, but I think the romance threads in the other companions have just been lazy writing, and filler in place of realistic personality traits, and just thrown in to cause a bit of superficial drama. I think Donna’s reception shows that a lot of viewers are ready to move above that.  She didn’t have to waste time with the tired jealousy trope (because no romance = no jealousy, which I don’t think is necessarily actually real, but it seems to be what the writers think—and the inverse as well, if there’s romance there must be jealousy. So. Tired.) We hunger for something different, something that doesn’t just represent one small subset of what a woman can be, but is holistic and realistic, something that explains what we see within ourselves as viewers. Donna was so different that we got to see and understand a different part of ourselves through her. And we loved it. Plus, Catherine Tate had at least 10 more years acting experience than any other companion, which is just pleasant to watch. And she’s a comedian, which meant that we got to actually see a companion making jokes instead of being the butt of them. Score for women everywhere, especially funny ones. I think Donna was also good for audience members who see the Doctor as more of a dad or brother figure than a lover, because they could finally relate to a companion. And Donna had really interesting, mature relationships with female day-players, which as I talked about in this blog post, we don’t see nearly enough of on TV shows like this. Plus, it was just a welcome change of pace. David Tennant was able to work off of Catherine Tate marvelously, and it made for faster and wittier interactions that were more interesting to watch. Instead of having clever lines written for them, the cleverness was in the delivery, which is much more fun. And the show knew that they were breaking the mold with Donna, which led to all sorts of fun jokes and character explorations. Because she’s different, Donna gets to sort of make fun of all the tropey things the show has done in the past (with all the “not a couple” jokes especially.)

I personally think that Donna was the best written companion. So I’m pretty pleased with her representation because this is what I want most: well-written female characters that I can relate to. And I think the writing for her was feminist in a lot of ways. I think it was quite feminist for them to cast and create a woman who did not fit the companion mold, because the companion mold is really pretty mainstream in the current patriarchal system. I still have sort of reservations about the writing, and one is the use of comedy. And I always have a problem with what writers paint as funny that I think should be taken more seriously, so I’m not sure if there’s really a solution. The “nag” is a trope that’s used in comedy that really puts down women and says that they shouldn’t be able to offer input, and when they do it’s stupid and funny. I think the writers did a good job trying to subvert that with Donna, but obviously not well enough if viewers still peg her as a nag and detest her for it. And they did often try to make it funny that she was so eager to share her opinions. So I don’t always know what to do with that. Studies show that women are much less confident than men are. If we want to change that, we have to stop putting them down for speaking up.