Sexism

[hells_half_acre]

Ok, not that I actually want to have a discussion about this - but, I've been thinking:

Why is the prevalence of "bitch" and "whore" insults treated differently from the number of insults of "son of a bitch", "bastard", etc ?

Why is it that you can say bitch on TV, but you can't say asshole or motherfucker? Because, I'd argue that the ban on the more scandalous insults for males is part of the reason it seems that Supernatural uses female insults more often.

Why is everyone taking issue with the line "I was going to kill her - of course, I'd have given you an hour with her first"? From what I saw, it'd be consensual...well, the sex part, not the killing.

liliaeth  brought up the excellent point that Supernatural treats it's female villains the same way it treats it's male villains. If Dean would punch a male demon, he'll punch a female demon...if Dean would insult a male enemy, he'd insult a female enemy...so, is it just that for some reason "bitch" and "whore" are considered worse insults than anything you can say on TV about guys?

I mean, "whore" I can sort of understand, as it's also a commentary on whether women are allowed to have sex or not...and if they are, how much...but, you could take it's broader meaning, which is just "a woman of loose morals" and yeah, that pretty much fits demons (and the Whore of Babylon) pretty damn well.

I've talked about the other accusations of sexism before, so I won't get into them here. But, I was just curious about the actual LANGUAGE...because it seems to be something that offended people's delicate sensibilities this past episode...and I'm just wondering why that is. Are we not allowed to insult females at all, or are we just not allowed to insult them using the classic female-centric insults? Are the censors themselves inherently sexist because they allow the worst of the female-insults,  but only the mild male-insults? What's the worst male-insult you can use on TV? If Dean started calling men bitches and whores, would we still call him sexist? Maybe that's what Sera has to do to get around this problem.

As you all know, I'm more concerned with equality of pay and rights when it comes to issues of sexism...and I'm less concerned about insults. I did take issue with being called a whore once, but that was more because it was a friend who was in a couple calling me that...and quite frankly, after being in a couple for 5 years while I had been single, sure, I had had a few more sexual partners, but they had had 100x more actual sex. So, I just thought it was an extremely inaccurate statement. 

Anyway, I'm not going to argue for or against the existence of sexism on the show....I don't really care either way. I'm just interested in the actual language here - why it's the way it is, and whether the problem lies in the writing of the show, the rules of the censors, or the way we've been conditioned to interpret the words.

Personally, like I told someone in the comments of my reaction post - I actually find that the references to rape, and the insults, and basically everything that offended everyone, actually gives the show a sense of realism...because, like it or not, we live in a world where horrible things happen and people get insulted by blue-collar thugs who were raised in a car with a small armory and no mother....

And yes, I know I'm opening a can of worms...it's why I'll probably not actually respond to any comments left. I don't actually want to get into a debate, I'm just interested to hear your thoughts - whether or not they coincide with my own.

ETA: I'm unlocking a flocked post that I put up last night - because there's some very interesting discussion there about misogyny and sexism in Supernatural.

Comments

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

It's kind of a two-edged sword. We live in a culture, unfortunately, that's language is still very gendered, and still coded with the idea that being a woman is bad. (e.g. "be a man" as good, but "you're such a woman" as bad. There are about a billion examples. It would depress me too much to list them all.)

whore, bitch, cunt, twat, slut, even son of a bitch (an insult against one's mother)... there's a pattern here, and it's not a pretty one. Bastard probably fits in, because it's related to, as you said, the control of women having sex. A woman having a bastard is/was (depending on where you are) a great shame, a man having a bastard...just accepted. So does douche (female genitalia or anything relating to it is apparently so terrible that it makes up a lot of our insults.)

Then you have cocksucker, fag, and other homophobic insults, which is a whole other can o' worms, but I suspect that a lot of it- like in the ancient world, which used similar insults- relates to the idea of the 'penetrated' as the lesser (and feminine) role.

Then there is asshole (and derivations there of), fucker, motherfucker (I'm not really sure where to characterize that one), jerk, jerk-off, idiot, moron, scum, etc and a host of more creative but less common insults.

So yeah, our language itself is kind of misogynistic, which is not terribly surprising considering that it developed over centuries, and fifty years isn't going to put a dent into it.

However... since there are (often more family friendly) insults that are more gender-neutral, and not relating to the great sin of being a woman (or being an assertive woman, or being a woman who has sex, or had sex), I think it is reasonable to ask that a show maybe expand its vocabulary and lay off (or even just reduce) the reliance on women-related insults. Orwell was right: our language does influence how we think, if subtly so. Our very language constantly reminds us - subconsciously- that women are lesser, inferior, horrible. It'd be nice to move away from that.

I'm not arguing that they should censor their language- more than they already do at the behest of the network and the FCC- but maybe when they're writing, they could just inch away? Throw something in for variety? Supernatural tends to bitch/whore etc far more often than a lot of shows that try to be equally or more so gritty.

It's a little thing, but I can see how for some people it might be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

It is pretty hard-built into our language, and just after I posted the entry, it occurred to me that if you WERE able to say cocksucker on TV, I'd probably take offense to their use of it because I really don't like homophobic insults.

Though, you are correct in that it all relates back to being the penetrated (female) role.

Oddly enough, when I think of douching, I think of anal douching, so I associate douche and douchebag with the category of homophobic insults (or shit-related insults), not misogynistic insults.

I do agree though, that Supernatural has relied a bit too heavily on bitch recently. Not only does it add to the straws on the camel's back, but it also looses it's impact when used too frequently. I'm just thinking back to my youth watching The Princess Bride - and the fact that the ONLY "swear" in the entire movie was Inigo calling the count "you son of a bitch" at the pivotal moment in the revenge plot really added a nice punch to the scene.

Certainly, art is a reflection of society - so it must be society that has the problem - but at the same time, someone has to change first...

[marlowe78.livejournal.com]

I just posted a post that I don't mind that language, but I have to say, reading your post I had to think about it some more.
I applied the problem solely on the amount of swearing and never really considered the fact you pointed out, that it's usually female anatomy that's used as a swear-word, no matter who it's applied on.

That is extremely sad, now that I realize it :-(

I have to go through my swear-vocabulary and check if this rule is applicable to my language too, because right now I think most female-based swear-words are borrowed from English. I need to count.
Fun-things to do in the evening \o/ (I'm not being ironic, I really consider this fun)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Ooo! Let me know what conclusion you come to! I'm not a native speaker (by far, actually, my German is horribly rusty), but as far as I could remember swearing was mostly animal-based.

Well, besides the obvious direct translations of English swears.

Anyway...yeah, it is rather sad that most swear words in English are female or gay based. "Bitch/Cocksucker" etc...I'd argue that "motherfucker" isn't female based - it's incest based :P

In French-Canada all swear words are religious based. I like that better. It sounds funny when you directly translate it. "Tabernacle!" "Challis!"

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'd like to know your conclusions, too.

Though I suspect most languages have them- it's just that English (American especially) has over time, developed a smaller vocabulary of swear words and just focused on the crudest.

[marlowe78.livejournal.com]

Well, I tried to cheat and google some insults and swear-words.
I came up with one link to a list of 2.500 words, but most of these I never heard in use, though they certainly are insulting. Well, some are, some would need to have a context, because just written, they aren't.

Anyway.
Of course we have swearing that's based on female anatomy. >There is the very, very demeaning word, which is actually worse than "cunt", though it means the same. Whore and the likes is used, but I don't think very often anymore, or maybe I just don't live in circles where it is? Mostly, it's used when someone is referring to his girlfriend cheating. Which I'd say is a valid use ;-)

I know thought, that in certain circles "whore" is a word used for ANY girl, no matter her morals, and that's really a very sad thing.

But nonetheless, I mostly have to agree with hells-half-acre that most swearing is based in animals, like "pig", "monkey-ass" and things like it. Also, a passion for "ass" is notable - you can put any fun-thing behind it (ass-face, ass-hole...) and any other kind of fecal words. I personally think they are gender-free.

There is, of course, the anti-gay-vocabulary, most often used by adolescent boys and (sadly, I have to say) persons with migration-backgrounds.

So I won't say we don't have anti-female swearing, but I'm daring to say that our insults are equal-gender-insults.
Of course, we have "son of a bitch" (or more accurately, son of a whore) and bastard.

I'm not saying "our insults are better" or anything. I think they are a bit less-female-anatomy-is-bad, because even in the list of 2.500 insults, I found more disgusting fecal-words than anything female-related.
They certainly are embarrassingly juvenile.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Cool :)

Is it weird that I'm happy that I was right? Not due to any feminist reasons, but simply because at least I still retain SOME knowledge of the German language :P

Though, I had forgotten the unending varieties of "ass" combination swear words.

Animals and butts! Haha, definitely sounds like 12 year-olds.

I guess the problem with English is that uneducated horny 16 year-old straight males came up with our swear words.

[marlowe78.livejournal.com]

LOL

If we put it that way, your swear-words are more adult than ours :-D

Also, it means we didn't evolve much from the sand-box. It explains SO much...

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

LOL awww, but I love you! You guys are so *precious*

(totally joking...well, joking about the condescension. I do in fact love you!)

[jillsjourney.livejournal.com]

i'm with you on most of how you see it in show, but the "give him an hour with her" thing is gross because remember, meg is a demon inside an innocent girl. if cas is having sex with the demon, he's raping the meatsuit. also, if they "give" her to him, *they* are deciding she'd do him, not even the demon.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Also, I guess Jimmy would be raped as well.

I'd just assume that if Meg wasn't up for it, they wouldn't force the issue. :P But yeah, I can definitely see the problems...especially given the meatsuit thing, I always forget about that.

[liliaeth]

honestly, if it came down to it, and Cas had said yes, then Dean probably would have gone all 'huh what?' and quickly retracted his statement.

He's not actually expecting Cas to take him up on the offer. (he was shocked enough to see Cas actually kiss Meg.)

It's weird though, I seem to be the only one coming out of that ep shipping Soulless Sam/Meg, I have no idea why. Their interaction, to me at least, was much more interesting than the one kiss Cas and Meg got.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

I don't ship anyone on the show, but Meg being impressed by Sam - and the fact that she's traditionally constantly molested him, certainly makes for a good set-up to something.

I also agree about Dean. It was more of a joke line than anything else, which is why I didn't take offense to it at all. I say really nasty things all the time about what I want to do to certain boys - doesn't mean I'd actually do it :P

[liliaeth]

honestly, I don't really ship anyone either. Even Cas/Dean is more of a like, than an actual ship.

As you might have noticed, I'm actually more of a gen lover where spn is concerned. (which is odd for me, since I do tend to ship in a lot of other fandoms)

I think it's because all the closest relationships on spn to me are more interesting when you keep the sex out of it, than when it does get included.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm the same way. I find it odd, because I originally got into fanfic and online fandom as a teenager solely because of slash - and with SPN, I've just moved completely away from it, to the point where it actually turns me off reading certain fanfics.

And I think it all comes down to the relationships being intricate and interesting enough in canon that sex would make them less rich rather than more.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure which is worse- making it a joke, or having it be serious. Perhaps they're equally bad. Rape isn't funny. I don't want to sound like a bore who takes everything too seriously, but I don't think rape should ever be something made lighthearted- at least as long as things are as they are.

A few years ago, I lived with a roommate who'd recently been raped. (And had her case dismissed. The country we were in had a rape conviction rate of slightly less than 3%. It's something like 40% in the US.) I watched her try and deal with that. I saw her sobbing because she had to see her rapist around town several times a day. And we watched a lot of tv as a group in our house. And sitting there, noticing how she reacted to these sort of things, the casual dismissal, the using it as a joke, the 'she wanted it', using it for tiltillation... I don't know. It left me really sensitive to it.

But I think maybe that it would be better if the whole world was.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yes, I certainly agree with you that it SHOULDN'T be used as in a joke. But, at the same time, I have to acknowledge that it often is - especially by people who have never been affected by rape.

It's also an interesting character point though, because in my opinion, Dean himself has been a victim of rape at this point.

Now, that being said, I think at that point, Dean was joking about it while he was thinking of Meg as a demon (not that raping demons is alright of course), and he wasn't thinking about the woman the demon was inside (or the man that Castiel is inside).

I mean, you also often have people jokingly talk about hitting children, and there are things that we don't use anymore - like back on the old sitcoms where you had "to the moon, Alice!" ...which was an indirect way of the guy telling his wife that he really wished he could beat her and maybe one day he would.

So, maybe one day we won't be allowed to joke about rape either.

I'd also like it if one day men getting abused by the female partners wasn't a joke either - as I've had to see a good friend go through that, and I find nothing funny about it...not to mention the inherent sexism in the fact that most people don't seem to believe that women CAN be abusers.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

Or the old favorite, "men can't be raped."

There really isn't a support system available for men who have been abused or who have been raped, and it's awful.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Couldn't agree more.

Though, in a sign of perhaps changes for the good, I did see an advertisement on a Vancouver bus the other day for a help centre/hotline for male victims of sexual abuse.

[lethiaw77.livejournal.com]

I'm jumping into the the discussion here, because this seems where my comment best fits but I read all the way through.

First I took Dean's comment as an offer to both Meg and Cas with the implication that they would both be willing participants in the activities...a Dean version of "you two get room."

Second as far as the innocent people inside of Cas and Meg, I was under the impression that Jimmy was no longer around (or am I confusing cannon with fandom again??). And for some reason I thought the girl in Meg was dead also (this I could be wrong on though).

This is NOT directed specifically to anyone here just a comment: We are criticizing the show for this, yet our fandom is filled with things like my icon (yes I'm just as guilty). How is this really any different???

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

I'm just going to clarify, not add onto the main discussion anymore:

You are confusing canon with fanon. We have no supporting evidence one way or another to say whether the hosts are still alive - in Castiel's case, the last time we saw Jimmy was S4, and in my interpretation he lived through that episode and was still alive at the end of S4. Now, whether he was brought back along with Cas the two times Cas exploded was another matter...in S5's My Bloody Valentine, Castiel was craving hamburgers because of Jimmy...whether it's just Jimmy's body that craves hamburgers or Jimmy himself is not explicitly said - so, really - as I said, not confirmed one way or another, I suppose it's up to interpretation.

[liliaeth]

I tend to go with the scene in the hospital, with Cas telling Dean that the doctors thought he was brain dead, while Cas was unconscious, as proof that Jimmy was dead by that point. If he'd still been alive, the doctors should have been able to scan his brainwaves right

Then again, it might be possible that God brought Jimmy back to life along with Cas after Lucifer killed him. We really have no way to know for sure one way or the other.

As for Meg's host, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure she's dead, or at least that she will be as soon as Meg leaves her body. She's sustained too many injuries so far for her to be otherwise.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, Meg's will definitely die as soon as the demon leaves it - but that's not the same as being dead already.

Good point about Jimmy. I was going by Pestilence's "An occupied vessel, but not a bit of angel left..." meaning that if the vessel was "occupied" there was someone to occupy it from...but that's pretty weak, and you're right, if Jimmy was still in there, you'd think he'd show up on an MRI.

[borgmama1of5.livejournal.com]

I don't have a problem with the lauguage when it is something that the characters would say.

In general, I don't like hearing 'bitch' etc. used in real life against real people, because I personally don't like use of demeaning language. I think its use lowers the standard of acceptable public and private behavior to the detriment of all humanity.

I actually find the nasty put-down snark of sitcoms a whole lot more offensive than the words used in Supernatural, where they are applied at least in mostly appropriate situations. It's been clear since the initial episode that the Winchesters don't finesse their words, and would, if tv permitted, use a lot stronger expletives.

What I do have an issue with is gratuitous scenes that seem to be inserted to just appeal to adolescent boys (Cas has a boner!) that make no sense in context of the episode (he was pulled away mid-battle in heaven and is now just sitting watching porn?) If they had left out his comment to Sam about being busy, then I could accept Cas killing time watching tv.

It's the little things like that which scream sloppy writing that bother me.

As far as torturing Meg, let's face it, that's what sells the show to male viewers in the select demographics, right? And it didn't bother me as much as the crime dramas that have women tortured all the time because Meg wasn't being a passive female victim. Her attitude was as bad-ass as Dean's.

I wouldn't have written the scene that way, but then, I'm not a writer for the show.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's basically how I feel about things too. I'd sooner criticize the show over sloppy writing than I would over being misogynistic...that being said, I think claudiapriscus makes a good point that sometimes the two overlap.

[liliaeth]

thing about curse words, and esp. the ones used by the main characters...

I'm just speaking from personal experience here, but most people, unless they actively think about putting some creativity in their curses, are very one note in the words they tend to use.

It's very realistic for Dean, to not have five or ten or more different words to use for different situations. So he keeps using the same ones, because those are the ones that come straight to mind for him.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's also a good point in terms of realism.

Personally, whenever I'm enraged, I just seem to dwell on variations of the word "fuck" and that's really my entire range :P

[marlowe78.livejournal.com]

I was just prowling through here in search of a convenient place to post something- I'll be doing it in one of your other posts, or maybe send a pm.

So, this is a cool discussion. Especially because of this: Why is everyone taking issue with the line "I was going to kill her - of course, I'd have given you an hour with her first"? From what I saw, it'd be consensual...well, the sex part, not the killing.

Who takes issue?
I've not come across it - not that I looked - and I find it a very strange idea to be offended over.

I'm not feeling insulted about any language, in fact I agree with you that it reads, feels and listens (?) as more true, more real if the guys say what they think! If Dean and Sam were real, they'd certainly not bother with being pc to an enemy. And it would be pretty weird if they were. So, I'd think letting them say "fudge" instead of "fuck" is funny, but no-way realistic.

There is one other thing: "whore", though usually used for females, could as well used for a male villain. Could, in fact, be used on Dean - and now, if you go with "person with loose morals", very much so on Sam.
So I don't think it's actually THAT bad. I wouldn't like to be called a whore, but nobody expects the demons to like it. In fact, it's MEANT to be insulting.

Maybe it's because I'm from Europe and I don't see the political and sexual correctness on TV a lot less important. If I want a show to look real - or, well, more real - I'd let the persons swear as they would in that situation if they were real.

I personally think it's MORE sexist to allow males to be insulted as "dick" or anything but never allow females the same. Why make a difference? If women want true equality, they have to take the bad with the good.

I'm female, and you should listen to me swear at drivers who piss me off: I do NOT call women anything less insulting than men.

My advise to Sera Gamble would be to keep at it. If she dares, since US is a lot more... well, strange and weird with that kind of thing.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is basically how I feel on the subject as well. I didn't take issue with any of the language - but a few of the reviews I read did...and a few of the comments on said reviews did.

I think you hit the nail on the head though, in that the US is just really strange sometimes about the whole PC issue. I also wonder why we don't treat movies the same as TV. I'm thinking here of all the films that have this kind of language or worse and I never see people get huffy about it - it's just realistic for the characters. I'm wondering if for some reason people hold Sam and Dean up to some ridiculous higher standard. As if Sam and Dean should be enlightened and know better...they're two boys who were raised in a car by a military father. All things considered, their doing pretty well in terms of respecting women/sexuality.

I got offended when my friend jokingly called me a whore - but it was more the context...in that, we had figured out that I had had more than twice as many sexual partners as he had. I took offense, because while I had certainly had more partners, he had been in a committed relationship the whole time - so technically, he had had WAY more sex. :P I just felt the joking insult was inaccurate. I'm practically a fuckin' nun!

Anyway, yeah...basically, I'm with you. Maybe it's because I also lived in Germany?! Haha, I doubt it. I think it's because I spent my teen years being horribly misogynistic, so, I know what actual misogyny looks like.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

I think the thing you run into is that they aren't real people, and their 'realness' is created by the skill of the writers. The writers make conscious choices to use that language (or to include a scene that borrows heavily from bondage porn, or whatever).


It's like the casting issue. It's easy to start justifying it in terms of the story, or by simplifying the issue into the other extreme- PC GONE MAD, casting by quotas, etc, etc. But you really also have to examine the fact that these are all constructed things, that there were people making conscious choices to continue to enable those systems of institutionalized racism and sexism or homophobia. Like...hmm... Stargate Atlantis. After a while, despite all the in-story justifications one could offer, you do have to wonder why the minorities play the primitives and the savages.

And I know that it's possible for the characters to still be "realistic" and not OOC, and for the stories to still be compelling, because I've read a lot of fic written in this fandom that has rivaled Supernatural at its absolute best, but minus the problematic elements (both in regards to women and minorities) without it being a big deal. You'd never notice. And I doubt it's something they set out to do, either.

So we must go back and ask, "Why does the show chose to do things this way? Why does it play into this dynamic?"

I mean, you might say that it's kind of odd that two boys raised in a car by a military father know so much Yiddish, or make references to Vonnegut or don't use racist slurs, or seem generally as well-educated as they are (in the language and concepts that they use*, etc.). But we don't, because we can either make it fit into the story when we notice it....or we never try to make it fit in the story, because it doesn't strike us as odd. It just seems "normal".

And considering all that? What makes a little feminism any different? I think they could maybe move away a little bit from the women-negative language or from the madonna/whore complex without it breaking the flow, or standing out.


*Obviously, you could argue for Sam going to Stanford or native intelligence and things, but that's not really it. Canon is that the grew up on the road with a mechanic/marine/hunter, changed schools a lot, and most of their contacts were similarly rough types.

I live around and work with a lot of people who have had far more privileged upbringings that that (e.g more stable lives, poverty but not quite as severe as implied about the boys,) and who are very intelligent... but they don't speak like the people in the very well-educated, cosmopolitan, upper-middle class areas I grew up in. I don't mean they're all, "I ain't go no blahblah," but more like... hmm. I noticed it mostly through a bit of culture shock on my part. That these intelligent women I was working with don't make or get the kind of references that to me *seemed* universal. And so I found myself constantly stopping and having to explain what I meant, and it was kind of bewildering. And it was more than just references. There was a language difference too- I remember at some function we were made to play a twenty questions game (minus the limit on questions, and with answers like "Goodwill to Men" and "White Christmas"), and I said, "is it an abstract concept?" and no one knew what I meant. (Saying, "Um, well, something that's not concrete" also lead to another around of 'what?')

But the boys make those references, and use that language. And they do because the writers do. Those are the references the writers understand and use themselves.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

True, you make a valid point...which I think I can distill into the sentence "The boys are already unrealistic, why not make them language-feminists too?"

And that sounds a bit sarcastic, but I actually agree with your point. I suppose it's the question of whether you want art to reflect culture or if you want art to advance culture. It's always a mirror, but is what we need a a mirror that corrects our flaws rather than just reflecting them?

On a completely unrelated sidenote: I love the fact that Dean knows so much Yiddish...I have a personal fanon where at some point growing up John moved them to a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood, and Dean went to Hebrew school to fit in.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

I love the Yiddish thing to. But I think it works really well as the example (and yeah, I hadn't quite imagined it as specifically yet, but I loved the idea of backstory there), because man, that's kind of unrealistic right there, but it works. And if that works, and they're already pretty far removed from what they would be in "reality", why should misogyny (of a sort) be the only thing that's excused on the grounds of it being 'realisitic'?

I'm not even arguing that they should go boldly forward and break new ground of feminist storytelling. Just you know, that maybe they could lean a little more towards the bodily-function insults and a little away from calling female characters whores.

Small steps! And after that, maybe they could have a female villain whose sexuality isn't....hm. Isn't portrayed as threatening. That might be difficult, so maybe they could just avoid the sexy angle all together and just go in for the evil.

And then, they could have some female characters who could be as vampy as the bad girls, but not be evil or excessively morally ambigious.

(none of the above is unique to supernatural- actually, it's very common. But you know, the variety wouldn't be hard to do. I see it in books all the time.)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Yes, you've swayed me.

I guess part of the problem is that I have such low expectations when it comes to TV. Most of it is such godforsaken crap that the fact that I actually enjoy Supernatural and find it to be compelling, well-written, and well-acted, is a miracle...and so I try not to put too much pressure on it, by not expecting it to be perfect.

Whether I'm wrong or right in doing that, is debatable. Personally, if listening to the female-based insults is the price of admission, then I'll pay that price, because everything else is great for me. It's like when you put up with your spouse stealing your socks - everything else is good, so you just buy extra socks and hide them in odd places.

But yeah, in an ideal world, I think it probably WOULD be nice if Supernatural moved to the animal/ass end of the insult spectrum. Though, maybe in English they'd have to stick with butt-insults, because "cow" and "dog" are pretty gender-specific too. Geez...english ruins everything :P

From hence forth, everyone shall be called Assbutt!

[marlowe78.livejournal.com]

I love your perceptiveness and I think it's necessary that people like you fight for the acknowledgment of these issues. Because obviously, most women don't even know and realize how warped our and their perceptiveness already is and sit on their asses and say: "but it's more REAL that way, because men say things like that!"

I did too, so I would know.

And you're right to ask: WHY do men say it like that? Why is it an insult to be called a girl? Is it because men really, truly see it that way, or because the media (any kind of media), in pretending to be realistic makes men think that it's the way they SHOULD be, and women to just accept it?

It's a hard fight, I admit, especially when it comes to people who just don't get that, and call it being pissy and a feminist - meaning it as an insult!

So thank you a whole lot for making me realize it.

I will go with h_h_a and say that I still love this show for the way it's written, but I agree with you that it wouldn't make that much of a difference if they'd be less clichéd.

There is this prequel-scream that makes me MAD so often: a women (usually beautiful, non-Asian) finds a horribly mutilated person and she SCREAMS.
There was one scene - was it "my bloody Valentine"?- where it was the MAN screaming, but we NEVER see a woman just...stare. Why is that? Why can't they show someone staring horrified at the bloody body instead of squealing like a pig?
I'd say there are a lot of women who'd react like that. And it'd make it even more awesome.

Just like it's pretty bad to always have the good guy say something sassy before offing the bad guy!
See "The End", when Dean pulled the trigger on Lucifer. WHY did they ruin this awesome scene with a sassy remark? It'd been brilliant if Lu just turned around an BANG.

*Grumble*.

Sorry for veering away from sexism. (Huh...sounds wrong...), but there are a lot of things that could be written better.
And the whole sexy-women= evil is one of those, as is the insult-vocabulary

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

Have you heard about Psych? It's not the greatest show, but one of the best things about it was a scene in which the leads (both men) run away screaming from a Scream-like situation. (IIRC.) It was awesome.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to add in that while I agree with you that the screams get annoying (and I agree with claudiapriscus, the turn-about on psyche was most welcome)....they couldn't put what realistically *I* would say if I discovered a dead body...it's those damn censors again :P

Now, that being said, there was this one time I was walking in the woods and a moose jumped out at me - it's interesting in those scenarios to discover what you WOULD say if you were startled and scared out of your wits...what did I say? "Oi!" - I laughed and laughed about that one (after I was a safe distance from the moose).

(And just in case anyone is reading this who doesn't know that much about moose, and thinks I'm a wuss - moose will KILL you EASILY if they think you're a threat...so, yeah, finding yourself only a foot away from one is really really not good)

[marlowe78.livejournal.com]

One other thing concerning the nakedidity of Meg and other women on the torture-table, one that my dad - of all people - pointed me towards.
He said that for most men, being naked isn't as degrading as it seems to be for women. It's more natural for a man to walk around with nearly nothing on, showing his body (whether it should be shown or not).
So therefore, it's a form of torture in itself to pull off a woman's clothes, leave her defenseless.

It's a good point, I think. I'm not saying it makes it better that they are naked, but that way, I can understand why they'd do it on screen.

Whether or not the fact that a naked woman feels more exposed than a naked man is made by the media or 'invented' by male torture-masters is a whole other can of worms.

And whether or not a man would maybe feel as exposed as a woman if tied down naked, and only refuses to show it shall be left out as well. I know that it's probably not that simple, but it's still a valid argument as to WHY so many torture-the-woman scenes are displayed naked.

Another thing, because someone said that the boys are less objectified.
I agree, and that is why I liked the smarmy vamp in "Live free and Twihard" was so cool: for once, they made Dean the object of not only hate but lust. Something that everyone who reads fiction already thinks anyway.
You could argue that there was Alistair, and I'd agree, but it never was that blatant, that clear. And I loved it.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

If I understand what you're say- which is iffy, 'cause I am operating on waay too little sleep here- you're saying that it makes sense for the women to be shown naked because it's a classical way to make a woman feel more vulnerable.

Which may be true, but the same also applies to men. To be naked- unwillingly- in front of someone that is clothed is to be in the weaker position. It makes everyone feel vulnerable. That's why it has been done to prisoners and slaves (and think also those awful pictures from that prison in Iraq).

And then on top of that, I think there are two different systems nakedness plays into. For women, access to their bodies always seems to belong to everyone but themselves. For men, the opposite is true, so being in that position- not having control over their own body- is even more humiliating, I suppose.

But I'm getting away from the real question, which is why in the artificial environment of a tv show, where nothing is realistic (even the torture), why nudity for women is one they feel the need to include.

But I sort of have the answer for that. There's a whole history of women-in-distress/pain imagery used for titillation, going all the way back in the history of film.

Think about the ads for torture porn for more explicit examples.

But as I think I've said, or maybe just implied, the part that really, really bothered me was how sexualized the torture scene was, way beyond the innuendo used to make the boys feel vulnerable (the male fear of being in the woman's role, subject to unwanted sexual advances, sigh.). They actually directly went for attacking a (very sexual) woman's genitals, and implied she was being raped with a knife.

That's a pretty horrific on so many levels, and they chose that. They would never, ever, ever do that to a male character, bad guy or no. And you have to wonder why then it's okay because it was a female character. Why it can be used as titillation. I'm not saying they should do the same to men; I'm saying it shouldn't be acceptable, period.

I don't hate the show at all. I am hopelessly addicted to it. But stuff like they had in 6.09 (?) disturbs me. You could have cut out all the extraordinarily misogynistic stuff and it wouldn't have affected the plot at all. It was just a waste of time, except it was there for a purpose, just not one related to plot. And I think when any show (or movie, or book) does that, it's important to be able to stop and say, "this is wrong". If only because if you don't recognize that stuff, it has a way of sneaking into your brain and getting internalized. (e.g. "this is what women deserve").

[marlowe78.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I didn't operate on full scale either when I wrote that. I had just realized that I nearly missed that it's Saturday, the day I can watch the show. So I was doing more than one thing at once, I think three or four.

I forgot, for example, to say that apart from my arguments, which weren't really arguments FOR anything, just statements of what my dad said, I DIDN'T LIKE THESE SCENES in the show.

I thought - like you - that it was too much, not to mention utterly unnecessary for the plot. It was disgusting and served NO purpose that I could see, should in fact, have been left out, or changed to "normal" torture.
If there'd been any reason for this scene, maybe. But there wasn't, it was, as you pointed out, just plain torture-porn. And I can say that it was wrong without problems, BECAUSE I love that show, not despite me loving it.

As, btw, should have been the scene with Cas watching porn.
Why would he? What for? Why did he kiss Meg? Is there some purpose behind it that we just don't know yet, or was it to make us laugh, haha.


Anyway, I rambled a bit when I posted that. It wasn't as thought-out as it should have been, especially since I really DO know about the degradation of nakedness. Since my dad is a guy, I thought his view was interesting - we don't get a lot of man-thoughts here ;-)

He didn't think long about it, and he also claimed that nakedness to for the Iraqi-prisoners was worse than it't have been for western prisoners. Not sure about that, but when I look at some individuals running around here, utterly shameless in their half-nakedness, I wonder if it's true on some level.
You're right, it's a difference between CHOOSING to be naked and being FORCED to be naked. No matter what gender (there is a huge amount of utterly shameless women as well).

Or choosing who has access and who doesn't.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

As, btw, should have been the scene with Cas watching porn.
Why would he? What for? Why did he kiss Meg? Is there some purpose behind it that we just don't know yet, or was it to make us laugh, haha.

I'm just going to address this question...

Yes, they did it for a laugh...but I also think they did it to make Cas more of your stereotypical soldier-on-leave. They pulled him out midbattle, and the truth is (as we find out at the end of the episode) he doesn't WANT to go back. Since Castiel really isn't that sexually experience, I think watching the porn and kissing Meg back, were basically his version of "fuck it, I'll probably die soon, I might as well have some fun"

But, you know, I could just be reading way too much into a cheap joke :P

Oh, and yeah, there is a difference between how different cultures view and feel about nakedness. Europe, I think, is the most comfortable with it - or I should say, the most comfortable with it of the places I've been and the people I've met - I don't know any Africans or South Americans, so I don't know what their feelings on the subject are. But, when I lived in Germany, my friends and I always joked that you could always tell the Canadians/Americans in the change room, because they were the ones trying to get undressed/dressed without anyone seeing anything. :P

I've also had some middle-eastern friends (granted, only females) and yeah...I think forcing them to be naked in front of men would be way worse than forcing *me* to.

But as you say, it all comes down to being forced to be naked and choosing to be naked. You could argue that a demon probably doesn't care about the nakedness of it's vessel, because there's a disconnect there...but, at the same time, you have to consider that there is a real person trapped inside that vessel with that demon, and she probably cares a great deal.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying this to take away from your point at all - and I think your point is strong enough without this little bit of information - but I just have to point out that (at least for me) the implied-rape-with-knife wasn't implied strongly enough for me to draw that conclusion.

Personally, when I saw that scene, I thought Christian was cutting into her back and letting gravity do the work for him. Even on rewatch, the way the straps were tying her down, it would have made it extremely awkward for him to rape her with that knife and he couldn't have done it from the position he seemed to get into when he went to resume torturing her.

But, even if you take away the rape with knife thing - you have a point about the scene. Whether men being naked has the same level of impact to defenselessness is moot, as it has SOME impact. (Just as marlowe suggested that her father probably isn't thinking of this from all angles.)

Especially if we consider that the show takes place in America and not Europe - not saying that demons would be body-conscious, but the fact remains that Americans are far less willing to walk around nude than in Europe (where marlowe is writing from).

In any case, this is an interesting discussion that hopefully has caused everyone to think about an important topic.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

I think marlowe hit the nail on the head when she said it was about choice, not really body-consciousness.

If you're wandering around on a nude beach, you're controlling your own body- you're the one who made the choice to be naked. And if, say, there's a perv or your grandmother or something, you could clothe yourself. Same thing with you know, choosing who gets to see you naked. You consent to letting your doctor see you naked, and your lover and maybe the students of Sketching 101. But just because you might be comfortable with all those situations doesn't mean you can be assumed to not care about the choice. (I'm getting kind of deja vu here, because I made this exact argument talking about the TSA scanners).

It's having that choice and control taken away that's the terrible thing, that could make even...an exhibitionist feel violated. It's a statement of control and domination.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

It's having that choice and control taken away that's the terrible thing, that could make even...an exhibitionist feel violated. It's a statement of control and domination.

Agreed. It's a very good point.