and now I have to go to college
Feb. 7th, 2013 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethHas a meeting today at 12. So I set the alarm for 0930. I slept, eventually. So now I'm just tired and cranky but after sleeping. Also my dream slipped away again. Not remembering dreams is weird for me. Do not like it. Being stuck in only the awake world, not nice.
So I have to go talk about my dissertation.
... yeah, that's going to go well.
Have read about action movies, which wasn't terribly helpful. Also about science fiction, which is mostly Ripley and Sarah Connor. Also that sexy women are aliens and earth girls don't do that sort of thing.
There's bits about the femme fatale and how she used to be the most active heroine around, for definitions of active that involved looking sexy and eventually getting dead. I should read a book about the femme fatale.
There were definitions of the tomboy and the feisty girl. Tomboys have masculine style and power, shoot guns or whatever, and usually get explained by some connection to a man - either they grew up with only a father and identify with him, or they lost the men in their lives and had to step up and do manly things. Usually by the end of the story they grow out of being a tomboy and get a man. Books keep using the word oedipal to mean growing up heterosexual, it's offputting. But they do that. The feisty woman gets to do active things like drive the bus and use computers (I don't know why using computers is on the man things list, do you think that's still a man thing? Seems ridiculous. But it meant hacking and programming and science power.) and fix things and maybe point a gun maybe; they turn into damsels in distress and get rescued and get a guy by the end. This can be read either as having it all and being able to be both girly and powerful, or it can be like the tomboy, go back in the box silly girls.
... Doctor is in a box and the box is a woman. That feels like it changes the shape of the stories rather but I don't know how.
There's also 'musculinity', which is doing the action hero thing with muscles, like Ripley and Sarah Connor. It usually gets packaged with protecting children, like being a mother explains and motivates women. Except that's true in T2 and Aliens but not so much in Alien. Also, Vasquez. Muscles and a big gun and not particularly explained. Not even particularly dead, given there's epic dead of nearly everyone.
That's the other thing about women with power, they're usually punished for it. Bad things happen to them. Back in a different box. Weddings or coffins, not wandering into the sunset to go help a different town maybe.
Buuuuut, men get a lot of the same stuff happen.
The action hero has all the muscles, the hard body the articles go on about, though they're usually talking about T2 and Schwarzenegger and seriously how many people have his body? Nobody else, is who. But the action hero they're talking about ends up stripped to the waist and probably in the rain or soaking wet, all gleaming muscles.
And then they get hurt a lot. Bullets and blades and fists. They get holes in the muscles. In Arnie's case they get the muscle stripped off and reveal the metal beneath, but for most action hero they just bleed a lot and get all beat up and reveal the willpower beneath.
The action hero reveals the triumph of willpower over bodies by enduring pain.
Also blowing shit up.
Book bundled martial arts movies with action movies. Western martial arts, maybe, I got bored of those things and I've been watching the subtitles kind for ages. But there's a different attitude to skill. The body of the martial artist doesn't get stripped down the same way. If they fight in the rain it's so the blood mixes with the raindrops, the clothes don't get particular clingy. Their body is the body in motion, under control of the will, yes, but proving it not through perseverance but through speed and precision and being able to do things no one else can.
It's like the difference between Sherlock Holmes and hard boiled detectives. Hard boiled detectives and action heroes both stumble around and figure out who the bad guy is mostly by surviving all the attempts to have them killed. Endurance, stubborn refusal to fall down, but not skill. Sherlock Holmes and martial artists (and the Guy Ritchie version of Sherlock Holmes emphasises that he is a martial artist) concentrate on skill. They do epic awesome things with their brains and get their bodies to follow.
So one of the books was going on about how this triumph of mind over body, will over flesh, translates when it is a woman doing it, and women are traditionally associated with the body whereas men get the mind and being rational as opposed to emotional and all of that.
One theory is it all looks a bit opposites, because when a man does it that's usual and the being beat up is the exception and he rises above it, but when a woman does it the being strong is the unusual and the being beat up... reads differently.
But if being beat up proves an action hero's strength then why is a woman being beat up evidence she's being punished?
Violence against women is more often sexualised. Which is one of those big sweeping statements that requires a lot of counting to back it up, but, Sarah Connor and the creep. Lots lots lots of women have a backstory involving rape, like that's their reason to get strong, but men don't have that backstory, at least about their own rape. Men have violent bad things happen to women and children around them and then they go off for vengeance, usually using pre-existing skills. Women have violent bad things happen to them, more often sexually motivated, and then they have to learn stuff to go do the fighting parts.
I keep hoping these are just old books, but counter examples where women have no threat of rape involved... I'm thinking on.
All of this applying to Doctor Who though?
Doctor Who is not much about the endurance thing. There's not so much with the being beat up and having to soldier on through it. In The Aztecs there's some traditional fighting so maybe a bit there, but I haven't had new thoughts about The Aztecs since I thought hmm, lets do a compare/contrast involving The Aztecs!
Doctor Who is about clever traps and clever escapes. Trickster, not action. There's Rory the Roman, he gets killed a lot and then he gets better. That's not about the triumph of the will though. Stuff just sort of happens to him. I mean he gets brought back from the dead by enemies trying to get at his wife and her imaginary friend, it's not quite the same as enduring and setting out for vengeance. He does get motivated by woman in a box, but she then gets out of the box again, which is unusual. She uses a sword to protect him in that Black Spot ep, and he's a bit useless and damsel-y. But then it's his turn to use a sword in AGMGTW. His profession, nursing, is stereotypically feminine, and the "lactic fluid" comment from Strax rather underlines that.
There's a bit in the warrior women book where Xander gets to be not a monster by virtue of being not very manly. I'd argue with most of that. Xander being in relationships with more dominant women and then saving the world through unconditional love and being sliced up a lot rather than through hard bodied violence is all taken as him being feminine.
I don't know, sometimes this stuff just *eyeroll*
But Rory gets his moments of awesome, but then he's crying man with baby. And he drives the car but Amy tells him where to go with it. And he's turned into part of the most effective fighting machine in history (Romans! Doctor is fanboy.) but it's a trap and makes him a monster who kills his wife, and he spends a lot of time being in episodes where the Doctor greets him with Rory the Roman or brings up the Roman thing but then Rory later goes "I'm a nurse" for some reason. And then he's the Roman on the space station and Strax is the nurse who finds out dying in glorious battle is not as fun as he'd thought. Rory is turned into plastic, forced into a particular mould of masculine violence, but responds by keeping on going back to his more feminine caring profession. Threats to his wife bring out the violence... sometimes. Sometimes she fights back for herself.
It seems like they take turns, not even alternating with each other, all doing all the things.
And being married is not the end. That's important. I'm sure it's not entire unique, but it is a tiny bit rare. They're married, they're together, and they're still having interesting things happen.
But the stuff I've been reading just gives me contrasts and labels bits masculine or feminine, it's not much like action heroes, Doctor Who isn't doing the same stuff.
There's also the ways the Doctor is more feminine by these books. Plasticity, fluidity, ability to change, that's all feminine apparently. So regeneration is a girl thing? Which explains why Romana is better at it. But he only does that at long intervals.
He reckons he's Yoda or Gandalf, but Amy reckons he's a bloke. He laughs at the guys and shows off to the women, so he's a bloke. But he tries being a normal bloke, with football, and while he excels at the football, he also excels at cooking and making medicines, and kind of sucks at the 'normal'.
AGMGTW is the culmination of a lot of 'what kind of Doctor are you' references. Or, okay, two major ones I've written down so far. But the Flesh thing compares him with other him. The Doctor is being called into question because Doctor, in practice, means Great Warrior, involves killing things like River's kind of Doctor, and does not much include healing people like the doctor-siren on the 'cursed' ship.
But a doctor is stereotypically a male role too. Not because violence, because mind, because will and smarts and thinking.
Mind triumphing over emotions. Getting emotional is a bad thing, at least Amy and Vastra reckon so, when the Doctor goes off looking for boxes in The Doctor's Wife and when he's on Demon's Run. But the emotion in question is anger. Anger is the shortest route to a mistake. Caring about people isn't the emotion they're worried about. Except for how that's what makes him angry.
And then there's River.
... and I've been typing for 45 minutes and I actually needed to be getting up and going to college.
Oh dear.
Going to miss the intended bus and get the one that's a bit tighter for time then.
Must dash.
... do not want. drat it. cannot teleport to college, must go now.
So I have to go talk about my dissertation.
... yeah, that's going to go well.
Have read about action movies, which wasn't terribly helpful. Also about science fiction, which is mostly Ripley and Sarah Connor. Also that sexy women are aliens and earth girls don't do that sort of thing.
There's bits about the femme fatale and how she used to be the most active heroine around, for definitions of active that involved looking sexy and eventually getting dead. I should read a book about the femme fatale.
There were definitions of the tomboy and the feisty girl. Tomboys have masculine style and power, shoot guns or whatever, and usually get explained by some connection to a man - either they grew up with only a father and identify with him, or they lost the men in their lives and had to step up and do manly things. Usually by the end of the story they grow out of being a tomboy and get a man. Books keep using the word oedipal to mean growing up heterosexual, it's offputting. But they do that. The feisty woman gets to do active things like drive the bus and use computers (I don't know why using computers is on the man things list, do you think that's still a man thing? Seems ridiculous. But it meant hacking and programming and science power.) and fix things and maybe point a gun maybe; they turn into damsels in distress and get rescued and get a guy by the end. This can be read either as having it all and being able to be both girly and powerful, or it can be like the tomboy, go back in the box silly girls.
... Doctor is in a box and the box is a woman. That feels like it changes the shape of the stories rather but I don't know how.
There's also 'musculinity', which is doing the action hero thing with muscles, like Ripley and Sarah Connor. It usually gets packaged with protecting children, like being a mother explains and motivates women. Except that's true in T2 and Aliens but not so much in Alien. Also, Vasquez. Muscles and a big gun and not particularly explained. Not even particularly dead, given there's epic dead of nearly everyone.
That's the other thing about women with power, they're usually punished for it. Bad things happen to them. Back in a different box. Weddings or coffins, not wandering into the sunset to go help a different town maybe.
Buuuuut, men get a lot of the same stuff happen.
The action hero has all the muscles, the hard body the articles go on about, though they're usually talking about T2 and Schwarzenegger and seriously how many people have his body? Nobody else, is who. But the action hero they're talking about ends up stripped to the waist and probably in the rain or soaking wet, all gleaming muscles.
And then they get hurt a lot. Bullets and blades and fists. They get holes in the muscles. In Arnie's case they get the muscle stripped off and reveal the metal beneath, but for most action hero they just bleed a lot and get all beat up and reveal the willpower beneath.
The action hero reveals the triumph of willpower over bodies by enduring pain.
Also blowing shit up.
Book bundled martial arts movies with action movies. Western martial arts, maybe, I got bored of those things and I've been watching the subtitles kind for ages. But there's a different attitude to skill. The body of the martial artist doesn't get stripped down the same way. If they fight in the rain it's so the blood mixes with the raindrops, the clothes don't get particular clingy. Their body is the body in motion, under control of the will, yes, but proving it not through perseverance but through speed and precision and being able to do things no one else can.
It's like the difference between Sherlock Holmes and hard boiled detectives. Hard boiled detectives and action heroes both stumble around and figure out who the bad guy is mostly by surviving all the attempts to have them killed. Endurance, stubborn refusal to fall down, but not skill. Sherlock Holmes and martial artists (and the Guy Ritchie version of Sherlock Holmes emphasises that he is a martial artist) concentrate on skill. They do epic awesome things with their brains and get their bodies to follow.
So one of the books was going on about how this triumph of mind over body, will over flesh, translates when it is a woman doing it, and women are traditionally associated with the body whereas men get the mind and being rational as opposed to emotional and all of that.
One theory is it all looks a bit opposites, because when a man does it that's usual and the being beat up is the exception and he rises above it, but when a woman does it the being strong is the unusual and the being beat up... reads differently.
But if being beat up proves an action hero's strength then why is a woman being beat up evidence she's being punished?
Violence against women is more often sexualised. Which is one of those big sweeping statements that requires a lot of counting to back it up, but, Sarah Connor and the creep. Lots lots lots of women have a backstory involving rape, like that's their reason to get strong, but men don't have that backstory, at least about their own rape. Men have violent bad things happen to women and children around them and then they go off for vengeance, usually using pre-existing skills. Women have violent bad things happen to them, more often sexually motivated, and then they have to learn stuff to go do the fighting parts.
I keep hoping these are just old books, but counter examples where women have no threat of rape involved... I'm thinking on.
All of this applying to Doctor Who though?
Doctor Who is not much about the endurance thing. There's not so much with the being beat up and having to soldier on through it. In The Aztecs there's some traditional fighting so maybe a bit there, but I haven't had new thoughts about The Aztecs since I thought hmm, lets do a compare/contrast involving The Aztecs!
Doctor Who is about clever traps and clever escapes. Trickster, not action. There's Rory the Roman, he gets killed a lot and then he gets better. That's not about the triumph of the will though. Stuff just sort of happens to him. I mean he gets brought back from the dead by enemies trying to get at his wife and her imaginary friend, it's not quite the same as enduring and setting out for vengeance. He does get motivated by woman in a box, but she then gets out of the box again, which is unusual. She uses a sword to protect him in that Black Spot ep, and he's a bit useless and damsel-y. But then it's his turn to use a sword in AGMGTW. His profession, nursing, is stereotypically feminine, and the "lactic fluid" comment from Strax rather underlines that.
There's a bit in the warrior women book where Xander gets to be not a monster by virtue of being not very manly. I'd argue with most of that. Xander being in relationships with more dominant women and then saving the world through unconditional love and being sliced up a lot rather than through hard bodied violence is all taken as him being feminine.
I don't know, sometimes this stuff just *eyeroll*
But Rory gets his moments of awesome, but then he's crying man with baby. And he drives the car but Amy tells him where to go with it. And he's turned into part of the most effective fighting machine in history (Romans! Doctor is fanboy.) but it's a trap and makes him a monster who kills his wife, and he spends a lot of time being in episodes where the Doctor greets him with Rory the Roman or brings up the Roman thing but then Rory later goes "I'm a nurse" for some reason. And then he's the Roman on the space station and Strax is the nurse who finds out dying in glorious battle is not as fun as he'd thought. Rory is turned into plastic, forced into a particular mould of masculine violence, but responds by keeping on going back to his more feminine caring profession. Threats to his wife bring out the violence... sometimes. Sometimes she fights back for herself.
It seems like they take turns, not even alternating with each other, all doing all the things.
And being married is not the end. That's important. I'm sure it's not entire unique, but it is a tiny bit rare. They're married, they're together, and they're still having interesting things happen.
But the stuff I've been reading just gives me contrasts and labels bits masculine or feminine, it's not much like action heroes, Doctor Who isn't doing the same stuff.
There's also the ways the Doctor is more feminine by these books. Plasticity, fluidity, ability to change, that's all feminine apparently. So regeneration is a girl thing? Which explains why Romana is better at it. But he only does that at long intervals.
He reckons he's Yoda or Gandalf, but Amy reckons he's a bloke. He laughs at the guys and shows off to the women, so he's a bloke. But he tries being a normal bloke, with football, and while he excels at the football, he also excels at cooking and making medicines, and kind of sucks at the 'normal'.
AGMGTW is the culmination of a lot of 'what kind of Doctor are you' references. Or, okay, two major ones I've written down so far. But the Flesh thing compares him with other him. The Doctor is being called into question because Doctor, in practice, means Great Warrior, involves killing things like River's kind of Doctor, and does not much include healing people like the doctor-siren on the 'cursed' ship.
But a doctor is stereotypically a male role too. Not because violence, because mind, because will and smarts and thinking.
Mind triumphing over emotions. Getting emotional is a bad thing, at least Amy and Vastra reckon so, when the Doctor goes off looking for boxes in The Doctor's Wife and when he's on Demon's Run. But the emotion in question is anger. Anger is the shortest route to a mistake. Caring about people isn't the emotion they're worried about. Except for how that's what makes him angry.
And then there's River.
... and I've been typing for 45 minutes and I actually needed to be getting up and going to college.
Oh dear.
Going to miss the intended bus and get the one that's a bit tighter for time then.
Must dash.
... do not want. drat it. cannot teleport to college, must go now.