01 April 2010 @ 04:35 am
Gold Guns Girls  
I was reading this post by [personal profile] paperhearts, which is about the issue she takes with the female leads in series such as Castle and The Mentalist. Among her fine points, was this:

These men (who are not law enforcement officers nor have any law enforcement training) step in, and with a little hocus pocus, manage to do the woman's job better than she does. Never mind that neither of these men have gone through a police academy or received formal training, all it takes is writing crime novels or being a fake psychic to slide in and neatly out-perform a woman who has worked her way for years up the ranks. Worse yet, Lisbon and Beckett are made at times to look incompetent, uncreative, unable to think outside of a box.

And I realized, that this was in fact why I hadn't ever given these shows the time of day. I had always passed them over, for no real, conscious reason, even though, on paper, the characters of Castle and Patrick Jane sound like the kind that I just adore having on my television laptop screen.



It's because what I had gathered of the female leads just turned me right off. [personal profile] paperhearts worries that this might be internalized misogyny, and I definitely agree with the possibility, because hey, it's my subjectivity. But to be honest, in any show, especially a procedural I need more than one character that I enjoy to the point where I'm not actively waiting for someone else to come on screen and do something else.

More importantly, I need a female character to imprint on. I identify as female, and I need more than just the awesome, albeit limited selection of genderswapped Kirks, Bones', Winchesters, Reeses and 11th Doctors to provide a media narrative that gives the possibility that I, a girl, can act just as crazy, charismatic, sexual and brilliant as any of these men and pull it off.

So I’ve been trying to nail down the appeal of genderswaps – most specifically, the flip of male characters to female. The most popular lately has been in the fandom for Star Trek XI, with female versions of Bones and Jim generating the most fanwork, and Spock not far behind. Other prevalent fandoms I’ve been involved in that have genderswap that’s carved out its own niche are Supernatural and Stargate: Atlantis. Besides the alliterative quality of the names, I’ve been trying to figure out why the genderswap of the main male characters, the ‘heroes’, if you will, appeals to me so much.

I went through a couple theories;

1. that it’s a lack of engaging female characters in the cast, but I adore Uhura. I was one of the few to really enjoy Ruby, Bela, Jo, Ellen and Anna all through Supernatural, despite the fact that they were often antagonistic or obstacles to the objectives of the show’s emotional focal points, the boys. I thought SGA had awesome female presence through Teyla, Weir and Sam. But again, there's paperheart's point that the crazy brilliant schemes and behaviour almost always belong to the male leads. (This is part of why I loved Ruby's evil crazy long-con ass so much).

2. So really, I think it’s a desire to see symbols, avatars, women who not only transgress the boundaries of the televised interpretation of ‘woman’, but act as if those boundaries were no longer pertinent, and move in a world where they are not, because the genderswapped character originated in a male whose story functions according to the very fact that the boundaries of the socialized female do not apply to him. Genderswap, well-written, clever, emotionally sound genderswap will deal with socialized misogyny, but the basic status and behaviour of the character tends to remain the same, and in doing so provides hope. The stories function as symbolic narratives, the same way narratives and stereotypes carve out places in our minds, are how we socialize ourselves and function in our culture according to these overarching stories we create for ourselves.

A woman who is, like a genderswapped Dean might be, hard-drinking, promiscuous, and entirely comfortable and natural about that fact, physically strong, anti-social and yet desirable, a sarcastic bullshitter, a con-woman, arrogant, condescending, but endearing with streaks of violence and a strong desire for family along with the freedom of the road and mullet rock. Doesn’t she sound awesome? Hard to live with maybe, just like Dean is in canon, but awesome nonetheless.

This is why I love good genderswap so much. Though I'm talking always-been-a-girl swaps, I do also mean the opposite way around. So many female characters seem to be written first as women, then as characters while male characters get to be characters first and above all (see: Jane, Castle, House) that putting those televised characters into female bodies and making it work is one of the most surprisingly happy-making things I've discovered within fandom.

Of course, there are the occasional female character who goes above and beyond the stale, neurotic narrative of a successful woman who seems to act just like a high school girl, and I love them. Aeryn Sun, Dani Reese, Gemma Morrow, Lucretia, Katharine from the Vampire Diaries, and, well, I'm struggling here.

The actual female characters we do get aren’t awesome in their infinite variations. A female character doesn’t have to be a man’s woman, tough, a tomboy to be awesome, but the enjoyability of the genderswap is, for me, in the perceived freedom of TV’s male-coded behaviour as compared to what a woman can get away with.

Or perhaps it's the caliber of actors as well the writing. Certainly the actresses portraying the female characters mentioned above do not lack for charisma and talent.



So, for the tl:dr crowd (and I don't blame you): where do you guys think the popularity of the genderswap of alpha males springs from? And why the prevalence of genderswap in certain fandoms, and not others?

 
 
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havocthecat[personal profile] havocthecat on March 31st, 2010 07:43 pm (UTC)
You may disagree with me, or even be upset me for saying this, but what I am hearing from this meta is "women are not awesome, therefore I prefer to write or read about men-as-women in order to have actual awesome characters."

Why not swap the roles of the characters? For example, why not write Beckett as the genius writer who comes in and shows up Castle at his job? (Which is, admittedly, only the plot of every single Murder, She Wrote episode ever.) Or take Thomas Jane and write him as the uptight officer, and-- Um, I don't watch this show, but whoever Robin Tunney plays, take her and make her be the brilliant maverick instead?

Uhura's not cool enough as a women, so let's make Spock into a girl instead of developing Uhura's character in fic, because Spock is cool already. Or Elizabeth and Teyla aren't nearly awesome enough as women, so we have to write John and Rodney as women, to make up for that. Or people want to write Sam and Dean as women, because taking one of the women on the show and developing her character or expanding her role isn't considered worthwhile.

Honestly? I don't care about the popularity of genderswap. There are times an author can use it to explore notions of gender and gender roles (and there have been genderswap stories I have read and liked, as well as having written a couple), but the massive prevalence that I see these days is, most of the time (though not all of the time), just another way to erase canon women from the narrative.
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Something like a crossroads song: spn: mary fucking winchester[personal profile] charlieblue on March 31st, 2010 08:07 pm (UTC)
You may disagree with me, or even be upset me for saying this, but what I am hearing from this meta is "women are not awesome, therefore I prefer to write or read about men-as-women in order to have actual awesome characters."

Which is absolutely not what I meant at all, but I do see your point. In focusing the post on male-to-female genderswap, I did denigrate existing female characters, and it was thoughtless of me to not further explore this flipside of genderswap.

I'm not sure if you got the vibe of the female characters not being cool enough from my post, or were talking about the general tendency of genderswap, but I do love those female characters and enjoy writing and reading fic that focuses on and explores their characters further than the show already has.

I don't think genderswap is necessarily written in order to shut canon women out of the narrative - it certainly isn't why I write it or read it - but given the nature of certain fandoms such as Supernatural that tend to actively dislike female characters, I can see that this might be a motive.

What I meant to focus on was the exploration of gender roles that genderswap entails, and in making this post I was a blinkered by my liking for this aspect of male-to-female genderswap to the point where I failed to explore the uglier side, and I really do apologize for this.

I'm not upset at all, in fact, I'm glad you commented with this, because it's made me look closer at my own presumptions here.


Edited 2010-03-31 08:07 pm (UTC)
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havocthecat[personal profile] havocthecat on March 31st, 2010 08:28 pm (UTC)
Well, the thing is, how many female-to-male genderswaps are you really going to see? I mean, people just plain don't write about female characters as much in genderswaps. I can think of a couple of examples, but that's it.

(And, um, I partly got the vibe of female characters not being cool enough from some of the things you said, but also from the general tenor of many genderswap fics.)

And, you know, there are some really good stories out there that focus on the nature of gender roles, and explore that really well. But I don't think that every single genderswap writer considers the nature of gender roles and exploration with every single genderswap story that they write. Or maybe they do, and they don't think about the way it can also push women off to the side, and how it can imply that the women in canon aren't even good enough to be women in fanfic.

(Please note I say it "can," as in it may do so, not that it does so automatically. I'm trying not to make a broad overgeneralization here.)

I'm glad you're not upset. :) Genderswap fic is my unending source of frustration, in some ways, because it has so much potential, but I, personally, don't find that most of it lives up to the potential. And it's really hard to find the canon female characters I like in any genderswap story.
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Something like a crossroads song[personal profile] charlieblue on March 31st, 2010 08:42 pm (UTC)
That's really true. It's odd, because I almost recoil at the thought of writing a female character as a male because I feel like it would imply that the female character would be ... better as a man. Which is silly, because that's another kind of double-standard.

Reading back over what I wrote, I was careless in the way I talked about canon female characters. I meant to lay out why the reason: 'a lack of well-written female characters' was not really viable for me in motivating genderswap, but got sidetracked, which is a flaw of mine.

I think precisely because genderswap is so politicized that a lot of people try to skim over the heavier aspects of the subject in favour of humour or romance. Which is why there are those few, shining examples of what makes great genderswap, and those usually involve consideration of those things you mentioned, of gender roles and the way the change impacts not just on the universe or swapped character, but also pre-existing characters, both male and female.

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medie: trek - stxi - girlSpock[personal profile] medie on April 1st, 2010 12:43 am (UTC)
Hrm, honestly? On the matter of Castle, she's actually very far off the mark. S1 was iffier, but season two has been exceptional on Beckett. Particularly in terms of Beckett and how Castle views her. The show is very, very good about displaying Kate's competence and the fact that Castle adores that about her.

As for genderswap, for me it's a lot about exploring how that character would work as a woman. For example, in Trek I ADORE Uhura as is, Chapel, etc, but let's take Spock as an example. A lot of the time, when I genderbend him, I'm trying to explore how Vulcan being matriarchal would affect him. In such a case, it wouldn't make much sense to use say Christine or Nyota in the role. The change required there would be so massive as I'd lose their voice in it. At least, I feel that I would. I'd rather feature them in the story as themselves than do that.

Erasing established female characters from the narrative is a worry. Battlestar Galactica did that with Starbuck. With Kara filling the 'daughter' role for Commander Adama, his actual daughter vanished into the ether and her name was given to a Cylon. Which, eh, no.
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Something like a crossroads song[personal profile] charlieblue on April 1st, 2010 07:15 am (UTC)
Fair enough; I haven't watched the shows enough to judge, I was merely talking about my first impressions of them. For what it's worth, I'm glad that Beckett's character has developed.

That's definitely part of the attraction of male-to-female genderswap for me. I really enjoy and am fascinated by a good exploration of how a female character placed into a situation that's been designed for a male character could balance and navigate the differing social pressures.

Battlestar Galactica was very disappointing in that its female characters had such damn promise, but a lot of it was thrown away on fecundity plots and just ... stagnating in the roles they had been given while the plot moved forward. I'm thinking especially of Roslin here.
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