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the answer is: everyone loses
Jun. 17th, 2010 11:46 pmIs it more sexist to prefer to map onto male leads than female secondary characters,
or
is it more sexist to demand that female-bodied viewers map onto female characters?
This is in a cisnormative vacuum, I think. Oh, fandom.
On another note, I get particularly annoyed when fans argue that as characters, there is no differentiation between Castiel and Anna besides their (vessels/bodies'/etc.) sex, so the reason that fandom prefers one over the other is primarily due to sex. That sort simplification really bothers me, because there are other thematics at work in the story — humanism, faith, redemption, trust — alongside nuances like mistrust of executed romance storylines, gender difference, or Dean reading as queer to a lot of viewers, that all plays into it.
On a more personal note, I may be a minority in this, but one of the reasons I find Castiel so relatable is because he isn't human. So a storyline about a character who enters the narrative as a human and becomes an ally is much less emotionally interesting to me than a character who has to learn how to relate to humans and becomes an ally.
That being said, I would love to see Anna again. I was the most impressed with her when she decided to kill the two characters that make the show happen.
or
is it more sexist to demand that female-bodied viewers map onto female characters?
This is in a cisnormative vacuum, I think. Oh, fandom.
On another note, I get particularly annoyed when fans argue that as characters, there is no differentiation between Castiel and Anna besides their (vessels/bodies'/etc.) sex, so the reason that fandom prefers one over the other is primarily due to sex. That sort simplification really bothers me, because there are other thematics at work in the story — humanism, faith, redemption, trust — alongside nuances like mistrust of executed romance storylines, gender difference, or Dean reading as queer to a lot of viewers, that all plays into it.
On a more personal note, I may be a minority in this, but one of the reasons I find Castiel so relatable is because he isn't human. So a storyline about a character who enters the narrative as a human and becomes an ally is much less emotionally interesting to me than a character who has to learn how to relate to humans and becomes an ally.
That being said, I would love to see Anna again. I was the most impressed with her when she decided to kill the two characters that make the show happen.