Feminist chat about tv shows

[LagerthaEarlIngstad]

Sort of following on from the GOT thread which I read and agreed with a lot of but didn't comment on I wondered if it might be interesting to have a more general chat about tv shows?

I struggle to enjoy tv sometimes because I get so frustrated with the sexism and misogyny that's often lurking, I have to almost switch that bit of my head off like a kind of suspension of feminism along with the suspension of disbelief?!

I'm watching The Vikings at the moment which has lots of good female characters (my new username is my favourite one - lagertha is a Viking shield maiden, a female warrior, I used to be sandorclegane)
I enjoyed the Fall but I also felt it made the serial killer character intentionally 'sexy' and dwelt in a fetishistic way in the dead women and on women suffering.
I liked Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt but again male violence against women is used as a comedy plot in a way I'm not entirely comfortable with (why yes, I am a humourless feminist)
I suppose I wondered what other people were enjoying or not enjoying and if other people struggle with the same frustrating conflicted feelings?

I loved Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I'm not sure I saw the violence angle in the same way as you, although I felt the gay character was a bit stereotyped.

I'm enjoying Fringe at the moment - although it could possibly have done with more female characters (everyone has to play at least four versions of themselves, but outside the main four - two men, two women - a lot of the supporting characters are male). I also like Nashville, although too much emphasis on the love life of the main (female) character - she's running her own record label but a lot of air time is given over to who she might marry? Per-lease. But in general a lot of great characters, male and female.

I'll have to check Vikings out, I assume it was all testosterone and chopping people up with axes (er, like the real Vikings :) )

I have to say, I haven't watched Mad Men because I assumed it was basically a way of dressing up sexism to make it seem quaint (funny how we don't do this with racism? Not that we should, I hasten to add).

Vikings has a lot of violent chopping of people but there are a number of women who also fight and do the chopping... The female characters are reasonably complex and written like people rather than props. It's definitely worth a look.

I suppose with Kimmy I just felt a bit uneasy about what the premise is? I enjoyed it hugely, but it's that sense that sometimes I feel I can only enjoy stuff if I don't think too hard about it?!

Mad Men has never appealed.

Marvel's Agent Carter is pretty watchable but has never been on in the UK I don't think? It's about Agent Peggy Carter who has been in the field being heroic but now the war is over is being treated horrendously by her male colleagues who just expect her to fetch their sandwiches and stuff. It's about her coping with sexism in 1940s America basically (so you get all the period detail like with mad men) but she is a tough, bright secret agent type.

YY you have to just switch your brain off a bit and try to ignore it.

My problem is that I seem to really like US glossy crime detection type stuff BUT they are horrendous for the whole women are prey / lascivious treatment of scantily clad young female corpses / sexual violence which seems intended to titillate. One of my faves is called "women being horribly murdered" in this house but it is entertaining so, well.

I haven't tried GOT as I think I'd want to throw something if the levels of gratuitous female nudity talked about on here are anything to go by. Gratuitous nudity which is even handed I could probably get more on board with (Vikings?) but then 2 wrongs don't make a right etc but then at least it's sexist IYSWIM. + I'm more of a sci fi than a fantasy girl so not that interested anyway.

I watch a lot of cooking progs at the moment they are pretty harmless on the sexism front so that's good!

Oh shit how many of my brownies stype feminist badges do I have to hand in for just referring to myself as "girl"?

Agent Carter sounds like a similar premise to The Bletchley Circle, that always makes me gnash my teeth when these brilliant code-breakers are basically told to stop trying to solve crimes and concentrate on curling their hair and making tea.

The Blacklist is good, not many female characters, although the main character is. There is a bit of focus on her romantic relationships but this is more about massive plot points than just a 'ooh I wonder who she'll marry' kind of thing.

Cooking shows are interesting though aren't they - male cooks are often chefs cooking fancy high status stuff, women are often doing 'family food'. Most cooks/chefs on TV are male whilst most everyday cooking is still seen as women's work... Plus there's a whole genre of cooking shows where lingering shots on the female cooks face is part of the programme.

Yes, I mainly watch the competition ones eg masterchef uk and other countries, come dine with me, my kitchen rules which dnt' aggravate too much.

"How to" shows I don't really watch and people like that west country sexist man I have to switch him off!! Hairy bikers are good I was saying to DH they manage to do the "blokey" thing without being sexist dickwads, I really like them actually.

That baking one is good too actually. DH likes baking and sue perkins is always good value.

On the US glossy whodunnit, Bones is pretty good, although I haven't been keeping up with it I used to watch it regularly. Did catch it the other day and some of the main women seem to have shrunk rather alarmingly but aside from that, the women in it are main character and 2 main supports, all "proper" characters written as people not as women if that makes any sense at all.

i have noticed lately that the sort of US shows I like do seem to have more and more women written as people and not all having to be super young. Still need to be immaculately groomed and slender obv but the men look like they need to make a pretty extreme effort too. Now if only they could stop making every storyline "attractive young women get raped and murdered and let's watch that closely shall we" then I'd be pretty content

I love outlander(annoyed by excessive amount of rapeyness in the first few), I just watched the new episode just now. I like that it portrays a woman as a sexual subject rather than object. I'd never read the books but I'm up to book 4 now after watching the programme.

I've been enjoying Outlander and Vikings too. I think TV shows are much better in portraying women's characters than movies.

I had a silent gripe about the wedding scene in Outlander. In the book, the wedding scene was very female gaze as Claire admires Jamie in his full highland get up. In the TV show, it was male gaze with lingering shots on Claire. The show hasn't been too bad though in keeping Claire as the actor. She has good actiony stuff coming up.

Love the female "Navy Seal" squad in the latest Vikings.

Also "The Americans". Elizabeth is great.

The shift in gaze in Outlander in the wedding scene was supposedly so producer Ron Moore could insert a surprise love note to his wife Terry Dresbach, who is the costume designer on the series. It was a reference to something he said to her when they first got together. I didn't particularly like the shift either, but the wedding night scene was definitely very female gaze and beautifully done, I thought.

Can I mention the mind numbing tedium of daytime TV?

I imagine it's mostly watched by women (sahms, disabled women, elderly women etc).

It's soul destroying stuff. One day when off sick can be a bit of light relief but imagine if that was your 'company' day in day out?

Shows like loose women do seem to target women but why is the content so different from evening/weekend TV?

Where are the documentaries (apart from on special channels)?

Where are the current affairs programmes?

Do women at home really just care about the fashion segments on this morning?

i didn't realize that Seneca that's interesting.

On another note, my cynicism about Outlander not getting a mainstream broadcaster may be justified. It seems David Cameron met with a senior exec at Sony and Outlander / Indy Ref was on the agenda:

www.weourselves.com/cameron-met-with-sony-pictures-about-release-date-of-outlander/

The books are good at depicting rape as an act of violence/power rather than sex; I hope the TV does the same.

I will always recommend Orphan Black, which has three female main characters (plus female supporting characters), and has a lot of thought-provoking stuff about identity and free will (trying to be spoiler-free). One thing I like is that the three main characters all have very different lives, but are never shown criticising each other for their choices.

Agents of SHIELD usually passes the Bechdel test because it has several female characters in the main cast who interact with each other. Agent May and Bobbie Morse do seem to be stereotypical 'strong female characters' though.

America crime dramas tend to only have one main female character - I love Castle and Person of Interest, but they both fall into this category. Interestingly, the Mentalist didn't as the team leader and one of the agents were both female, but I found the show annoying in other ways and have stopped watching now.

It's hard to think of other examples - says a lot!

I love Orphan Black too. Loved Fringe, my favourite show ever. Orange is the New Black is good although you can start to feel like the lesbian sex scenes are there to titillate - but perhaps that's good for lesbians, not just men? I don't know. Fringe is American but the main cast consists of two women and three men, although one of the women is an "assistant", so I suppose really only one main female character.

I am enjoying Gilmore Girls at the moment, which is old and not particularly taxing but it's nice comfort TV, woman centred, and is just really sweet. There is some problematic stereotyping of an Asian family. I take this as a product of the time but it's slightly uncomfortable.

I am also watching Supernatural, which has problematic themes - a lot of use of sexist language, "bitch" etc, almost overwhelmingly male cast, female good characters tend to get killed off before too long, female baddies seem to have much more sexual torture scenes, unnecessary nudity etc than male ones, but those scenes are rare and it manages not to annoy me 99% of the time, I think because it's so male centric, it's easier to ignore the occasional problematic elements. And when women are shown on screen as sexual elements the male characters are always respectful, so that's nice for such a male dominated show.

I am quite fussy about what I watch these days. I got a bit into Modern Family but it started to annoy me - there are a lot of jokes centred around two characters' gayness and another character's foreignness which make it a bit cringeworthy, and on the feminist theme in particular I don't like the way Claire and Phil always worry about their daughter "getting a reputation", and if you're looking for subversion of gender roles, you won't find any here.

I enjoyed Parenthood a lot, although it had very occasional instances of grrr when, again, two fairly conservative parents are shown having an entirely different attitude to their daughter dating than their son and nephew. Overall it was a nice series and the relationships shown were healthy models of relationships, or openly stated as unhealthy, which is a big thumbs up for me.

Another old one - the original series' of Jonathan Creek are great. The later ones without Caroline Quentin aren't quite as good, and one had quite a shocking scene of violence against women which bothered me just because it was such a contrast to the previous series.

I like Community a lot, but there is a lot of sexism in there, mainly from the difference between the stereotypes of the male and female characters. The male characters are meant to be taken more seriously whereas the female characters are usually presented as a bit of a joke, especially the "feminist character". Though the general interactions are not usually problematic and I find it believable and fun to watch.

Jackie, when I was at home I used to watch Homes Under the Hammer and then scour iplayer for documentaries! I also used to watch House when they showed it on channel 5 at lunchtime, just when DS was napping.

Oh and I am still a Doctor Who fan, but disappointed that Moffat is writing because he writes women so appallingly, and men's relationships with women badly too. He was sort of bearable in Season 5 when he was still emulating Russell T Davies a bit but since then it's just gone downhill a bit which is a shame. I enjoyed Torchwood.

I enjoyed the first two series of the following (am only a couple of episodes into the 3rd one), the violence wasn't mainly sexual violence and there are lots of female characters both 'goodies' and 'baddies'.

I enjoyed American horror story (although I lost interest in freak show, which now I think about it is much more focussed on male characters I think?) especially the coven series, plenty female characters and delightfully daft. The first season was a bit ropey in terms of the husbands sense of entitlement to sex but I think that was supposed to make him seem a bit prickish anyway? I found it irritating though, but perhaps that was the point.

Flora That is very interesting about Outlander and the referendum. I am American, but with strong ties to Scotland, and my family and I followed the referendum debate closely, including the assertions that the delay in release of Outlander in the UK had nothing to do with the referendum.

I do think that as the series is progressing, they are making the Jacobite cause seem more like Scotland vs. England and glossing over the fact that many Scots supported the government.

Anyone watch the 100? it's got great female characters

Yes I was going to say The 100! Probably aimed at teens but hey. I like the way they've developed Octavias character.
I also second Orphan Black. Intresting to see one actress play a number of different female "types" if that make sense.

House was good for strong, smart women.