Anyone else's TV pleasure ruined by feminism?

People always say this about GoT; that the rape and misogyny are there for historical accuracy.
Then why so many straight, white teeth and smooth hairless bodies? And dragons?

It's a fantasy series, dragons aren't really a very sensible criticism. And it's meant to be on the dark and earthy side, all round. Anyone who doesn't like that obviously isn't going to like the show but the story has narrative coherence, including all the violence.

As far as a lot of the sexposition, that's a valid criticism though I think the non-violent sex scenes were a heck of a lot more problematic. It's shoehorned in to appeal a certain type of viewer, which was pretty standard HBO bs for all their shows. They actually toned down a lot of narratively important sexual stuff from the books to avoid upsetting people and to make certain characters more likeable - in some cases it was probably necessary given the change in medium but it didn't always work as effectively in terms of storytelling.

The relative hairlessness was always rather silly , but it is usual for actors on shows to be more cleaned up than people in historical settings really would have been. No one really wants to look at the pimples, boils, goitres, and bad teeth of the past.

I think a lot of women find Liam Neeson very attractive

I think a lot of other women think he looks like a wet leather handbag.

Great thread. Yeah, I can barely watch anything anymore, and I think it's getting worse. LOVED The West Wing and ER in the 90s, and I think they had great female characters.
My DP watches a lot of action movies and I'm like "Oh look there's Tom Cruise, and a control room full of plain 50 something men, and one 28 year old woman who is there to be rescued and shag Tom at some point."
Oh, I'm fun to be with

It’ll be interesting to see what they do with Black Widow in her own film because she’s been written abominably in the Marvel films. Not to mention killed off to save fucking Hawkeye! On the one hand she’s an amazing kick-ass woman who doesn’t need alien or superpowers to be a very effective fighter and spy, but if I have to see her besting an opponent by wrapping her legs round his head and shoving her groin in his face one more time I might scream! And don’t get me started on all that ‘I’m a monster because I was sterilised as a child’ shit!

Agreed on Mike Bartlett, I don’t know why he is so rated.

Recently I’ve noticed when a woman has been a similar age to her husband, it’s been because it’s based on a true story and therefore they’ve stuck with the ages of the real people.

The other danger is they go woke. There was this terrible drama about Silicon Valley types but in Britain and they were so woke and trying to be right-on about women, but the female characters were still just small parts and accessories to the men.

Yes! And even the Bechdel Test is a pretty low bar. Lots of people rave about Mike Bartlett - he of Dr Foster and the new Life on the Beeb. I can not get on with how he writes women's parts. The actors themselves always wang on about him writing strong women characters. This is not what I see.

I was rewatching House during lockdown, and what really pissed me off was how they treated Cuddy who was a very smart woman at the top of her field. She's always dressed in ridiculously tight and low cut office clothes, and there's even a scene in House's imagination where she's dressed as a sexy schoolgirl and dancing around a pole. Yuck.

Argh yes, the age gap in Entrapment - never mind jumping the shark, it jumped a humpback whale!

One thing I particularly hate is the whole thing of "we must make this character relatable to our female audience, by making sure that no matter how professionally or politically or artistically successful she is, she has a ditzy vulnerable side, because our viewers want to feel like she's just like them at heart (and of course our viewers are ditzy and vulnerable and let's face it, a little bit dim, ammirite?...)."

See for example Ally McBeal (only managed episode 1 of that, for that reason), and (this may be a minority opinion) Elizabeth with Cate Blanchett.

Then of course there's the annoying tendency among critics to assume that one single character who is ditzy by design (Bridget Jones - a choice on Helen Fielding's part, and only one character among many female characters she could have chosen to write about) - that that character is therefore "every woman" and speaks for a whole generation, and that's what we're all like.

I'm not against an age gap per se, as I'm partial to an older man myself BUT we recently watched Entrapment and not only was it an absolutely god-awful film, the two main characters are Catherine Zeta Jones (aged 29 on release) and Sean Connery (aged 69 on release) and there was absolutely NO chemistry between them whatsoever. Zero. It was terrible.

People always say this about GoT; that the rape and misogyny are there for historical accuracy.

Then why so many straight, white teeth and smooth hairless bodies? And dragons?

Yeah. That bit where Osha seduces Theon and she drops her robe to reveal a completely hairless fanny. She's supposed to be a wildling! Back when GoT was being broadcast, I spent quite a long time arguing with a smug man on the Guardian episode blog about why there was so much rape and female nudity, and he pulled the "historical accuracy" argument on me too. Women were treated like chattels in medieval times, blah blah blah. I pointed out that a show set in an alternate world that features dragons, ice zombies, and fire-retardant princesses didn't have to cling to the societal norms of real-life medieval Europe, and he accused me of demanding unrealistic fairytales, like all women do when they try to ruin a fandom for the menz...

My bugbear is the "empowered sexy stripper/prostitute" trope. Deadpool, Sin City, The Hangover, Knocked Up - they all feature either a sassy, wisecracking sex worker character who does what she does because she loves sex and men sooo much (usually in contrast to the shrewish, uptight wife or girlfriend character) or a horrible strip club scene that makes you think less of the male characters who go there. It will be a long time before I can look at Paul Rudd without imagining him flubbering his face into a stripper's buttocks.

THIS. In so many programmes/ films the blokes meet up at a strip club. They don't go themselves to see the women (though many get handed a woman at some point), it's just a meeting place with t and a as background. So easy to just use a bar instead but clearly men cannot be trusted to keep watching unless they have some dehumanised eye candy. Any objections can be plausibly denied..."it's what the characters would do".

This device is often used in crime dramas where there is partnership between a male and female investigator. Eg, Bones, X-Files, where the woman is portrayed as a bit uptight. The interaction between the laid back, open minded male investigator and the happy stripper is used to make the female investigator appear even more uptight, jealous, frigid or whatever pejorative term the writers and directors want to use for a professional woman who is not sexually available at the drop of a hat.

I've returned to the 90s and am watching West Wing, there are subtle and obvious challenges to the patriarchy and feminism I find fascinating. There was even a bit on hate crime which lead to a big discussion with DH (who rarely engages) afterwards.

I tried watching Sex in the City again which I used to love but it's too awful for words. I guess I'm all grown up now.

Great thread OP, really interesting to see how feminism tinted spectacles change even our viewing habits!

[quote EmpressSuiko]@GiveMyHeadPeaceffs Game of Thrones has a lot of misogyny because it’s based off of history, it reflects how woman were treated and even still get treated in some parts of the world.

The books are worth reading though, the TV show obliterated some really strong female characters and made them utterly useless and just pretty to look at which caused a lot of upset in the fandom.[/quote]
People always say this about GoT; that the rape and misogyny are there for historical accuracy.

Then why so many straight, white teeth and smooth hairless bodies? And dragons?

My tv pleasure wasn't ruined by feminism, but some movies and tv shows definitely have.

I really wonder for example, what my thoughts would be on the character of Daenerys in Game of Thrones have I seen the show when I was younger and more unaware of the strong female character trope.

I spent the my viewing time not being able to stand her because her entire characterization was "badass queen!" and being pissed that people are actually praising her as some sort of feminist hero when actually the writers character a one dimensional character and got praised for it because they slapped a feminist label on her.

My biggest pet peeve is when movies/shows do this. I would rather watch something that contains violence towards women if it makes sense in the story and has well written female characters.

This thread has been a huge lightbulb moment for me. For the past few years, I have found that I no longer have any real interest in most films or TV. Genres that I would previously have enjoyed just don't entertain me any more. And this is probably why.

The worst age gap couple I saw was Liam Neeson and January Jones playing a married couple in some generic thriller. I mean, she's January Jones FFS. Even if she married an older man he wouldn't look like Liam Neeson.

I found this with computer games, although I do enjoy some that have a bad reputation like GTA, which although I have some issues with is mainly played for comedy, there are others which really bother me. Especially in a game called Heavy Rain, the female protagonist is terrible. Goes through sexualised violence totally not needed for the story and seems to be there mainly as a prize for the male in the story.

Though quite a few men in Austen have to marry for money as well.
Trying to remember... do any of the men actually have to marry for money to avoid destitution, or is that just easier than getting a job, which at least wasn't impossible for them?

It's often the tension in the story, whatever way it goes - what is marriage really about, money and security, or a kind of fulfilment, or do they go together?

@BrandineDelRoy thank you for doing that because I just had a jolly good read!

I just want to bump this thread. It's very good.

Viewing from a more feminist perspective has increased my appreciation for some films/series though. With historical dramas (inc many classic book adaptations) it's about better understanding how women lived in the past. A while ago we watched a couple of Jane Austens; DH for some reason hadn't really twigged before about how women had to marry for money, entails etc, it was good to see him having that revelation.

We've just finished watching Gentleman Jack, and recently Vida and Halt and Catch Fire. All interesting in different ways, all easily and frequently pass the Bechedel test.

The latest one to annoy me was Brassic (the second series). I thought it had been quite a male heavy, but diverse, entertaining, touching and quirky programme. Second series they decide to open a strip club and use it a background location at every opportunity. Semi naked women dancing when there aren't even anyone else there but staff. That is so not how it works.