Strong women and identification
Jan. 20th, 2013 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethBeen reading a lot about gender and action heroes and also Doctor Who and how they designed identification figures for a loyalty program for a family audience.
One of the essays suggests that companions are identification figures for children because of the screaming bits. The parts where they're powerless are parts children can identify with. And then the parts where they're having adventures in time and space are the attractive fantasy parts.
So I was thinking, there's a lot of grump about screaming women that need rescuing. It is sometimes even well aimed grump. It's annoying when the only thing women do is scream and need rescuing. But I hadn't thought before about the powerless parts being about making them someone to identify with. Cause we all start out screaming. If it was powerless = women identify I'd be annoyed and it would be a stupid idea. But it's the child part. Every kid knows the monsters are real because every kid starts out stranded ignorant among giants, totally dependent on others for rescue. Everyone can understand that bit.
So I reckon it's only a problem if one person only gets that bit. Because then there's no attractive fantasy, or no role model to look at it from another point of view. The planning thingies for inventing Doctor Who point out that children aren't interested in the adventures of kids the same age or younger, but they don't say why that I recall. I speculate they're interested in people who can do more than them. Because once you know monsters exist, you want to know how monsters can be defeated.
Yelling for help is one pretty good way when you're a kid. Again, it's annoying if one person yells and someone else comes to help every single time. And it's annoying if it's always women screaming. But I've been grumpy previously about the screams-and-dies combination so popular in movies. And before the credits in certain TV shows. Screaming should be socially useful, serving as an alert to others who can help or protect themselves according to their resources. And in Doctor Who it does work that way. Yelling 'Doctor' happens a lot - a lot a lot - but it has the cardinal virtue of actually working. Yell for help, get help. Get by with a little help from your friends.
It's like how the Doctor consistently reckons running, fear, even being a coward, as good things. Because then you haven't slaughtered billions, and fear keeps you fast so you have a better chance of surviving. It's very anti action movie in that respect. Run away and figure things out, do lots of talking, bring friends along because they keep things interesting but also because then they protect you while you figure things out.
So being powerless and screaming aren't necessarily annoying, because they have their place. It's just they tend to be unbalanced, especially because gender. There are imbalances of knowledge and power, and since the Doctor is a bloke who knows everything and can do almost everything, it tends to be the blokes who are ahead on points. Which is why we need a female Doctor as soon as possible. A female person of color Doctor. Because otherwise this imbalance is built in. But the other way to balance things out is to introduce someone who knows things, sometimes more than the Doctor, and can do things, sometimes more than the Doctor, and is not a white bloke.
Hello River Song.
It was annoying she was black that one time because she was also kind of evil and criminal and stuff. She turned white for her redemption arc. That's a bit of a problem. But it's kind of cool that River was black that one time because (a) Time Lords can just change, it's a silly category for Time Lords, the Doctor could be black later (which I think he said in a Sarah Jane Adventures bit but can't remember for sure) and (b) River is cooler than the Doctor and River was black and is a woman.
River isn't always cooler than the Doctor, they take turns. And they rescue each other. And when the Doctor rescues River it's generally because she's whistled him up like a cab, so he's part of her plan.
I like it.
So, why, if these are to me the important parts of River Song, did I say I would write about A Good Man Goes to War?
... because there's Rory and nursing stuff in there that's easier to get at than anything Rory related elsewhere. Though I did just get four pages of notes out of rewatching Vampires of Venice when I only have that notepad to keep track of who screams for help, who rescues who, and what cool stuff does Amy get to do. Because again I picked a bad episode for Amy getting to do cool stuff.
River is older looking than the others except for when she's the same age or a baby. As identification strategies go this is afaik unique. She's a one person team TARDIS.
Team TARDIS has changed a lot since the beginning though. The different ages were meant to be three different age bands for three different segments of the audience, like grandparent, parent, child, but a teenager because of that children don't like younger children bit. The teenager kept getting older, the Doctor kept getting younger, and now instead of being someone's Grandfather he's usually being referred to as a parent, were you a dad, I could be your dad, no you look about nine, or calling him Uncle Doctor. They all got closer together. It's like there's only one interesting age now.
I want to fix it back to being lots of ages because I find people younger than me increasingly less interesting (sorry). Which is what the first inventing them people thought was true about audiences. So it's probably not just me.
Also it's depressing when only people younger than me get to have interesting stuff happen to them.
But you can tell more stories with more variety of people.
But they've managed to have the oldest, the couple in the middle, and the baby, while at the same time making everyone kind of the same, and making the baby also be the one who knows most and bosses everyone around.
... I think I've seen a diagram of that family in some self help books...
I need to turn my random meanderings into something worth handing in for a progression point, and I have a week to do it.
... I really, really miss that semester I was ill. I'd quite like that much extra time back now. But even then I'd be coming up on the first progression point and I'd still have a bunch of nothing so basically I'm just being a bit rubbish.
Also I forgot breakfast today and only turned my computer on to check the date for sell bys purposes so I'll go see to that now.
One of the essays suggests that companions are identification figures for children because of the screaming bits. The parts where they're powerless are parts children can identify with. And then the parts where they're having adventures in time and space are the attractive fantasy parts.
So I was thinking, there's a lot of grump about screaming women that need rescuing. It is sometimes even well aimed grump. It's annoying when the only thing women do is scream and need rescuing. But I hadn't thought before about the powerless parts being about making them someone to identify with. Cause we all start out screaming. If it was powerless = women identify I'd be annoyed and it would be a stupid idea. But it's the child part. Every kid knows the monsters are real because every kid starts out stranded ignorant among giants, totally dependent on others for rescue. Everyone can understand that bit.
So I reckon it's only a problem if one person only gets that bit. Because then there's no attractive fantasy, or no role model to look at it from another point of view. The planning thingies for inventing Doctor Who point out that children aren't interested in the adventures of kids the same age or younger, but they don't say why that I recall. I speculate they're interested in people who can do more than them. Because once you know monsters exist, you want to know how monsters can be defeated.
Yelling for help is one pretty good way when you're a kid. Again, it's annoying if one person yells and someone else comes to help every single time. And it's annoying if it's always women screaming. But I've been grumpy previously about the screams-and-dies combination so popular in movies. And before the credits in certain TV shows. Screaming should be socially useful, serving as an alert to others who can help or protect themselves according to their resources. And in Doctor Who it does work that way. Yelling 'Doctor' happens a lot - a lot a lot - but it has the cardinal virtue of actually working. Yell for help, get help. Get by with a little help from your friends.
It's like how the Doctor consistently reckons running, fear, even being a coward, as good things. Because then you haven't slaughtered billions, and fear keeps you fast so you have a better chance of surviving. It's very anti action movie in that respect. Run away and figure things out, do lots of talking, bring friends along because they keep things interesting but also because then they protect you while you figure things out.
So being powerless and screaming aren't necessarily annoying, because they have their place. It's just they tend to be unbalanced, especially because gender. There are imbalances of knowledge and power, and since the Doctor is a bloke who knows everything and can do almost everything, it tends to be the blokes who are ahead on points. Which is why we need a female Doctor as soon as possible. A female person of color Doctor. Because otherwise this imbalance is built in. But the other way to balance things out is to introduce someone who knows things, sometimes more than the Doctor, and can do things, sometimes more than the Doctor, and is not a white bloke.
Hello River Song.
It was annoying she was black that one time because she was also kind of evil and criminal and stuff. She turned white for her redemption arc. That's a bit of a problem. But it's kind of cool that River was black that one time because (a) Time Lords can just change, it's a silly category for Time Lords, the Doctor could be black later (which I think he said in a Sarah Jane Adventures bit but can't remember for sure) and (b) River is cooler than the Doctor and River was black and is a woman.
River isn't always cooler than the Doctor, they take turns. And they rescue each other. And when the Doctor rescues River it's generally because she's whistled him up like a cab, so he's part of her plan.
I like it.
So, why, if these are to me the important parts of River Song, did I say I would write about A Good Man Goes to War?
... because there's Rory and nursing stuff in there that's easier to get at than anything Rory related elsewhere. Though I did just get four pages of notes out of rewatching Vampires of Venice when I only have that notepad to keep track of who screams for help, who rescues who, and what cool stuff does Amy get to do. Because again I picked a bad episode for Amy getting to do cool stuff.
River is older looking than the others except for when she's the same age or a baby. As identification strategies go this is afaik unique. She's a one person team TARDIS.
Team TARDIS has changed a lot since the beginning though. The different ages were meant to be three different age bands for three different segments of the audience, like grandparent, parent, child, but a teenager because of that children don't like younger children bit. The teenager kept getting older, the Doctor kept getting younger, and now instead of being someone's Grandfather he's usually being referred to as a parent, were you a dad, I could be your dad, no you look about nine, or calling him Uncle Doctor. They all got closer together. It's like there's only one interesting age now.
I want to fix it back to being lots of ages because I find people younger than me increasingly less interesting (sorry). Which is what the first inventing them people thought was true about audiences. So it's probably not just me.
Also it's depressing when only people younger than me get to have interesting stuff happen to them.
But you can tell more stories with more variety of people.
But they've managed to have the oldest, the couple in the middle, and the baby, while at the same time making everyone kind of the same, and making the baby also be the one who knows most and bosses everyone around.
... I think I've seen a diagram of that family in some self help books...
I need to turn my random meanderings into something worth handing in for a progression point, and I have a week to do it.
... I really, really miss that semester I was ill. I'd quite like that much extra time back now. But even then I'd be coming up on the first progression point and I'd still have a bunch of nothing so basically I'm just being a bit rubbish.
Also I forgot breakfast today and only turned my computer on to check the date for sell bys purposes so I'll go see to that now.
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