Feminist misogyny and good television

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 03:19:19 GMT

I've been thinking about marphod's claims that I'm a hypocrite. Specifically, he can't understand how I love some media where the characters are grossly misogynistic (e.g. Mad Men), but can't stand others (e.g. the Dresden Files or Asimov). (Disclaimer: I'm relatively early into both Dresden and Mad Men. I reserve the right to change my opinion, as this blogger did about Dresden and feminism.)

Anyway, I've written long essays in my head to answer this, but really it comes down to the catchphrase I've seen on bumper stickers: "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people." I don't care if the male characters are chauvinists; it's a major character flaw, but I like my characters flawed. Keeps 'em interesting. What I care about is whether the women are actually people.

The thing I love about Mad Men is that the women are exquisitely real people, living in a horrifically sexist era. Yes, the men treat them terribly. I'm not defending those men at all, or saying that their era justifies their behavior. The thing is, I don't have to live in the men's heads; I can look at what they're doing, and all the insecurities and frustrations tangled up with their misogyny, and I can look at the women, and all the ambitions and desires tangled up with their socially constrained roles, and I can see that they're all brutally human. I love it.

Whereas when reading the Dresden Files so far, I don't see any real women. If I want to give Dresden the most possible credit, I can say that it's like Dr. Horrible: both are fundamentally first-person stories, and the person narrating them is utterly and obliviously misogynistic. As a result, in the narrative that their protagonists tell themselves, the women aren't people. They're types: sultry bad girls, innocent do-gooders, vulnerable cops who put up a tough facade. Because these boys (I hesitate to call them men) have no idea that women are actually people, they make their women into stereotypes of femininity.

Now, I'll grant their creators this: there are certainly many, many men out there like that. And I'm willing to grant that it's possible that if I spent enough time in the male worlds of Asimov or Butcher, I might see enough glimpses of the author's own perspective to be assured that they're not as chauvinist as their characters. But as long as they're tying me down into the narrow perspective of their protagonists, I'm not reading about real women -- or if I do, it requires completely reading against the text. While I can read against the text (I'm a feminist Biblical scholar, after all), it gets exhausting after a while. I'd much rather watch and read things that do the work of making their women people for me already.

(I could continue this to talk about why I love Gossip Girl -- which is all about the women -- or why Aaron Sorkin infuriates the hell out of me sometimes. But that's another essay.)

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Words by Sinope

Feminist misogyny and good television