I am actually posting to my journal aren't you impressed?

[erda]

I just finished reading Octavia Butler's short story, "The Evening and the Morning and the Night." Why have I not read more of her stuff? I read one of her books a few years ago -I think it was "Parable of the Sower"- and enjoyed it immensely, but it was just at the time I was getting heavily into online fandom, and I wasn't reading many books. Butler has a way of taking some not very highly valued quality associated with femininity and raising it up to superpower status. How much do I love that? Lots. I'm a sucker for destiny and secret abilities and world saving and all that, and she brings it for women in a way no one else I've ever read does, not just copying off male writers, but making something new and fresh.

I've started watching Carnivale, now that everyone else has seen it. I'm about halfway through season one, and having very mixed feelings about it.



It's great to see something well acted. I don't know if it's just that everyone on the show is extremely talented, or if it's the directing, but I'm not used to seeing something so well done for a tv show. These people are mesmerizing, and the story line is full of destiny, the battle between good and evil, weird occult stuff, subtext and mystery, all things I love.

But...

maybe you can't make a show with Biblical themes without being sexist, IDK. I do know that I get impatient when the view is skewed so very, very white male. Color me not impressed when all the women are, omg... it is all about the wimmins sexuality and how scary and evil it is. I don't even know how to express how deeply, disturbingly sexist this is. I was okay with it until we found out that Sophie's little roll in the hay with random townie was her first sexual experience. WHAT?? She is clearly being positioned as the naive little almost virgin that the men have to protect from sexual sullying. Aargh!

Also the mother whore is so controlling and powerful, using her power to enslave her good-natured husband, who just wants to take his beloved daughter and escape their sordid life. And I about rolled my eyes out of my head when the snake charmer openly referenced the sexual subtext in the Garden of Eden myth. Um, yeah, w/e, not exactly original ideas there.

The writer is showing his id too much, and his id is the kind of ugly, twisted male id I don't want to explore. Still the show is so interesting, and the mystery so compelling, I'll probably keep watching.

It's not like I have anything not sexist to watch.

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

There are definitely some of these issues in the series, though my biggest complaint about it comes with other characters you haven't mentioned. However, there will be a different perspective coming on some of the characters, particularly in S2.

[erda]

I just pulled out a couple of examples of the kind of sexism that permeates this show, as they are legion. The whole Iris storyline makes me gnash my teeth. My main impression of the show as a whole is that every aspect of life is tied up with sexuality, which is always ugly and disturbing. Still, I'm intrigued and I can't imagine I will stop watching. You've made me even more curious now.