Gender Deaths Link and Mark Sheppard is Awesome

[hells_half_acre]

First: One of my favourite can of worms - someone did a count of death in Supernatural based on gender! It's VERY INTERESTING. Some of you may remember that I wanted to do something similar a couple of months ago, except with sexual-assault (either real or metaphoric), but decided that I did not want to bring that kind of wrath down on myself. Likewise, I have made a point not to read the comments that these guys received on this lovely death-count. I find numbers interesting, but I know that there is more to interpretation and context than numbers alone.

Second: Mark Sheppard is awesome.

I really hope he gets added to VanCon at the last minute or something, because I would love to meet him....plus he's been on Doctor Who! It's odd, but since Supernatural is filmed where I live, it doesn't feel as...impossible...to meet the actors. To me though, Doctor Who is something that just doesn't intersect with real-life. So, yeah, not that I can ever think of questions at Cons, but if Mark Sheppard did come, I would totally ask him SOMETHING about Doctor Who.

Anywho...what I really want to talk about is how awesome this little speech he gave at RisingCon is. Link here, and I'll also embed it below. I know that a section of it sort of encourages the petitions and everything that annoy the crap out of me, but in general, it's just a very heartfelt speech about how the conventions are just as loved and important to the actors as they are to the fans...

 

Comments

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

There numbers won't show a complete picture until they get a total number of characters. I mean, let's say gender Y had 60 deaths and gender X had 50. That looks pretty close to parity...but the picture would change if there are only a hundred gender Ys and only 55 gender Xs.

I'm not sure how they're counting "surviving" characters considering that they say they don't have the time or inclination to count all the characters.

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Like I said in the post - I realize that numbers don't mean much without context, I just think it's cool that they tried. I mean, not all fans who try to do meta have Master degrees in research topics, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try!

I also don't really agree with some of the main characters they included and excluded - I think they were leading their results a little bit there...but again, neat idea. Someone could branch off of this and do a more intensive study if they were so inclined and part of the work would be done for them.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

Oh, kudos to them for the attempt for sure. And pretty charts.

In any case, I think if anyone were to try an academic treatment of the subject, the focus would be qualitative/descriptive rather than quantitative, so it's not that I think they were.

But they seemed to have a point to make, and if there's anything I can't resist, it's an argument on the internet ;)

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Haha, I know ;) You and I have discussed a subject similar to this at length before. You are quite good at arguments on the internet!

My master's thesis was a mixture of quantitative and qualitative research, so I'm a bit of a sucker for using quantitative stuff. But I do agree that they've lead some of their numbers, and didn't do a complete treatment. Still, impressed that they attempted...and also impressed that they were willing to open that can of worms on themselves. I'm not.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

Oh, exactly. What was your thesis on? *is curious*

[hells-half-acre.livejournal.com]

Public Opinion in the Aftermath of the Easter Rising.

I could have published it as an academic article, but I didn't get around to re-writing it in the 3 years after I graduated, and then my Prof. died. So, yeah...sucks. It was fun to do though and I found the topic interesting. It was mainly about when and why the executed leaders of the Rising became martyrs.