astridv | (no subject)

From

x_varda_x

That was a very odd post indeed. How can one claim to be an SGA fan and dislike a main character? I've had this argument before with a whole load of Rodney haters - it's like headdesk over and over and over...

That was a very odd post indeed.

That's right, you came to LJ more recently, I think? Until a few months ago Jennifer-bashing posts in fandom-wide comms weren't the exception; it's gotten somewhat better at least, since people started to speak out against it. Be glad you missed the worst of it, the character hate on display was simply offputting.

How can one claim to be an SGA fan and dislike a main character?

Well... her two big problems are: a) she's not a guy b) she came between Rodney and John, who have been the main, all-domineering fanon pairing on LJ for years. The woman in this scenario tends to get hated on and bashed, no matter the fandom. Sometimes fandom sucks. *shrugs*

From http://x-varda-x.livejournal.com/

Yes, I only joined LJ in May this year. I think I would've been scared away if it really was once as bad as you say.

It seems that SGA fandom is 99% slash (mostly McShep) and that nice canon (or just any) het stuff falls by the wayside :(

For het, have you tried

lostcityfound? There's a pretty active Sheppard/Weir fandom; that's the only one of their hubs that I know of because I'm not really into that side of the fandom (it has other stuff too, not just Sheppard/Weir) but if you follow links to the authors' LJs, you can probably find other communities as well.

stargateficrec also has bunches of recs for different pairings.

Edited 2009-10-13 18:49 (UTC)

Nah, my main gripe with Keller is that SGA's writers frankly suck at handling female characters in general. In the last season they couldn't seem to reconcile Teyla's badassery with her motherhood and made her into a limp noodle. (She was beyond ineffective in that final episode with Michael.) Then it seemed that the writers wanted Keller on the "team" but didn't know how to accomplish doing it other than to give her Teyla's role.

So suddenly the doctor is the one stick-fighting Wraith, but when the warrior's child is threatened, she doesn't put down the freaking kid and fight, she just stands there and watches her teammate get pummeled by her worst enemy.

Keller bashing started before she even appeared on the show... hard to justify that with 'bad writing'. If memory serves me right, the Kill Keller comm saw the light of day pretty soon after the cast change was announced. This fandom was dead set on hating Jennifer Keller, many fans never gave her a chance to proof herself. And then, once she got written between fandom's main OTP, she was doomed and the most brilliant writing couldn't have changed that.

(copypasting from elsewhere to save time:) She's not always written consistently, true. I guess the result of several writers with different approaches. The difference is that with a male character, inconsistencies and flaws get lovingly fanwanked away or ignored, while with her character, they got immediately pounced upon and highlighted with neon marker, in lengthy meta, in a near evangelistic manner. And all the good aspects, everything they got right, they get completely ignored.(/snip)

And it's not just Keller; major bashing of female character can be found in nearly every fandom. And the standard argument is "the writers just can't write women". That's a weak, overly generalized statement, and if you see that in 20 different discussion in 20 different fandoms, it doesn't sound convincing. I would argue that oftentimes viewers are just more willing to focus on a female character's flaws while ignoring their strong points. (snip:) There's a general tendency to examine female characters immediately for weaknesses, latch onto any flaw in the writing (real or perceived), come to the inevitable conclusion that they make insufficient feminist role models, discard them, declare them free-for-all bashing fodder, and go back to squeeing over the pretty boys (who tend to get loved for the very same flaws and characteristics the girls get hated for). For example people picked apart Uhura in Trek XI soon as the movie ended, and decided she wasn't awesome enough (which in many cases I translated to "she's getting between Kirk/Spock"), all under the banner of "feminism". (/snip)

Instead of taking on the task of writing these characters in fanfic in a way that satisfies them, these women get at best ignored, at worst bashed. It's funny how some fans will argue that the female characters aren't well-written or fleshed out enough to be worthy of fic, only to go back to lovingly fleshing out the backstory for Parrish, a minor male character who was in one or two eps but has his own body of fic dedicated to him. The trend is that male characters get fleshed out while female characters get bashed.

I don't care if a ficcer only ever writes about two guys... until they start to justify and rationalize it by dissing all the other characters.

So suddenly the doctor is the one stick-fighting Wraith,

Yep, this would be the moment when I gave up on the fandom ever treating Keller fairly. For a year people had been griping how weak and useless in the field she was in Missing (nevermind the ending when she gets her act together). But when it turns out that she she realized that as well, and did the right thing by taking that lesson to heart and learing some basic fighting skills, people don't say, "Yay, character development, go Keller!" they say "booo, Mary Sue Keller!" What BS! She wasn't a whiz with the sticks, she was barely holding her ground, similar to Rodney who was also barely holding his ground with the handgun. Together they fought them off just long enough which seemed realistic enough to me.

When Rodney improves his fighting skills, the fandom is abrim with love and squee, when Keller does it... Ugh, I don't even know. I'm getting so sick of this double standard.

If you think Teyla as mother was turned into a limp noodle, we'll just have to agree to disagree. This thought is so completely opposite of my own opinion of Teyla's storyline, we're not gonna see eye to eye here, ever. I thought the writers handled Teyla's pregnancy and role as single working mother with stay-at-home husband better than I dared hope. The only complaint I have there was that she didn't get enough screentime. YMMV.

Granted, I wasn't in the fandom at the time, but I gather the original bashing, before Keller was ever in the show, was pure backlash. IIRC, some publicity was let loose early that Jewel Staite would be appearing as a doctor and a major addition to the cast. Fans put two and two together and came up with Carson being replaced.

I think fans would have been more willing to give her character a chance if the whole Carson thing had been handled better. His death didn't serve to forward the story. Instead, the writers were simply copying what they'd done on SG-1, because they wanted some cheap emotional impact but didn't have the guts to touch one of the "main" characters. So they offed the sympathetic doctor and replaced them with a younger, prettier model. And again, just like SG-1, they added a former Firefly actor to the cast in a blatant attempt to cash in on that series' popularity.

So the character was starting at a deficit, and the writing just wasn't there to support her overcoming it. Unlike when Mitchell replaced O'Neill, which could have gone just as poorly given O'Neill's popularity. But there was more done to flesh out Mitchell's character and back story in one episode than Keller's character received her entire first year.

When Rodney improves his fighting skills, the fandom is abrim with love and squee, when Keller does it... Ugh, I don't even know. I'm getting so sick of this double standard.

I have two thoughts on this topic. One, the inconsistent writing again. You can pretty much tell who wrote an episode judging by Rodney's wildly fluctuating proficiency with firearms. He goes from inept to moderately competent to laughably pathetic so rapidly that I just want to bang my head against the wall.

Two, I assume that as a long-standing member of Atlantis' premiere offworld team, Rodney has had extensive training and experience in combat situations. He should be more competent than he's often portrayed, and when he is portrayed as competent, fans cheer that it's about freaking time. Keller's leap in proficiency, in comparison, is disproportionately large given the time frame and her relatively limited field experience. There is a double standard at play, but not one entirely created by fans.

I thought the writers handled Teyla's pregnancy and role as single working mother with stay-at-home husband better than I dared hope.

I had no issues with that portion of her storyline. The thing that really bothered me (aside from her extreme under-utilization, where much of the cool "action" Teyla's character would have previously performed was handed off to Keller) was her bizarre inability to stand and fight. When I picture Teyla protecting Torren, I picture... I dunno, an enraged mother grizzly bear. I kept waiting for her to rip Michael's arms off and beat him senseless with them, or something. But she stood around that last episode of the arc and did a whole lot of nothing, while everyone else fought for her. It struck me as wildly out of character for her to let her fear rule her like that.

I think fans would have been more willing to give her character a chance if the whole Carson thing had been handled better. His death didn't serve to forward the story. Instead, the writers were simply copying what they'd done on SG-1, because they wanted some cheap emotional impact but didn't have the guts to touch one of the "main" characters. So they offed the sympathetic doctor and replaced them with a younger, prettier model. And again, just like SG-1, they added a former Firefly actor to the cast in a blatant attempt to cash in on that series' popularity.

I was in the fandom then, and I don't think it's this cut-and-dried. For one thing, what you've described above is exactly what they did in season five with Woolsey -- took off Carter (in a very slapshod and disrespectful way), and replaced her with a relatively well-known actor from a popular scifi show (Star Trek, in this case). And while people were a little nervous about how Woolsey would fit in, I don't remember anything directed at the character or Picardo that was like the hate that was targeted towards both Jewel and Amanda during the season 3/4 hiatus. The reaction to the news that Carter was coming over to SGA was pretty similar to the reaction to Jewel's casting announcement, and this was before it was announced that Torri was leaving -- IIRC, no one even knew for a while that Carter would be taking over from Elizabeth, and once it did become obvious, most people weren't nearly as worried about Elizabeth being replaced as they were about Carter outshining Rodney or coming between John and Rodney.

I don't remember the reaction to Jewel having much to do with Carson's death, at least not overtly; it's always possible that it was coloring viewers' reactions (and for some people, it almost certainly was) but it wasn't anything like, say, Daniel's death and the way people reacted to Jonas. I was in SG1 fandom at the time, and the "Our baby has been replaced!" sentiment was obvious. People hated Jonas because he wasn't Daniel. It was very above-board and clear. Having been through that with SG1, I didn't see the same thing nearly as much with SGA; most people targeted Jewel's youth and attractiveness as the primary reasons why they disliked her, with lots of sneering about "Doctor Barbie" and such. Granted, it's been three years so it's all filtered through hindsight now, and I also avoided a lot of the pre-season four discussion because I didn't want to be spoiled, so I may have an inaccurate impression of the picture overall.

Still, why didn't Woolsey get that kind of reaction? Why didn't fans react to Ronon by going wild with indignation over how Momoa was (rather blatantly, IMHO) cast to attract female viewers? Why do fans crucify Sam Carter for being an "unrealistic" genius and delight in Rodney's equally unrealistic genius? Why do fans think it's cute when John (in fic) drags Rodney out of the lab to eat or socialize, but when Keller does the same thing (in canon, once) they use it as an example of how she henpecks him?

I think it's perfectly fair to take the writers to task for failing to adequately develop or use their female characters. I may not always agree with the criticism (like with Teyla's pregnancy -- I'm pretty much on board with Astridv), but I have my own problems with the way the women have been handled in many cases. But what I don't get is what on God's green earth that has to do with how the characters are written in fic. A lot of writers seem to use the lapses in canon as an excuse for why they don't develop the female characters, or like them, or write them as anything other than homewrecking harpies. BULL. SHIT. Fanfic is all about taking canon and putting our own stamp on it -- queering the characters, explaining away plot holes and inconsistencies, developing anthropologically believable cultures where canon gave us Renfaire, building detailed life histories for the characters when all we were given was tantalizing crumbs. If people are capable of writing John and Rodney as queer despite their canonical attraction to women throughout all five seasons of the show, or writing Rodney as a confident gun-handler despite the scenes when he freaks out and fires blind, or writing an entire detailed history for Lorne when all we know about him in canon is that he paints, then they are perfectly capable of writing around the holes in Keller's development. "But canon did it!" is a ridiculous excuse when fandom is simultaneously giving us fic that deals with John's childhood, or Lorne/Zelenka epics, or AUs in which John and Rodney are Girl Scout cookies.

I assume that as a long-standing member of Atlantis' premiere offworld team, Rodney has had extensive training and experience in combat situations. He should be more competent than he's often portrayed, and when he is portrayed as competent, fans cheer that it's about freaking time. Keller's leap in proficiency, in comparison, is disproportionately large given the time frame and her relatively limited field experience.

Or maybe Rodney is too focused on his work (we know he's a workaholic) to take the time to practice, whereas Keller devoted herself to picking up fighting skills after "Missing". Maybe Rodney's apparent inconsistency in gun skill is due to lapses in his range practice, whereas Keller's been putting in more time in the gym. A year is an unrealistic time to pick up the basics of a completely made-up fighting technique? Really? Even if you practice every day?

The point is, everything that takes place in fanon and behind the scenes is made up in our heads. We have never once seen Rodney on the shooting range. We have never once seen John on the shooting range, except for that one time when Ronon was showing off his gun. The lives we make up for them in the interstices of canon are totally fanonical. Whether we write Rodney as a guy who works diligently on his target practice because he feels responsible for his teammates' lives offworld, or a guy who avoids the range unless John drags him there because he hates being bad at anything, or a guy who's decided that he can better protect his teammates by pouring his attention into getting better at the things he is good at rather than trying to become skilled at something he doesn't have any aptitude for, or a guy who really does have a knack for shooting and tries not to develop it because it scares him that he actually is talented at it ... all of this is entirely up to US, as fans and fan writers. A writer can make a case in fanfic for every single one of these options.

It is absurd to say that Keller is a less realistic character than Rodney because you have come up with an explanation for the inconsistencies in his characterization that you like, but don't have one for her. It's all total fanon, or fanwank, anyway. When Rodney does something that conflicts with the fannishly preferred view of him, fans explain it away by saying that it was OOC or trying to come up with an explanation that leaves his hero-ness intact. If Keller's use of fighting skills (in one scene, in one episode) conflicts with fandom's preferred view of her as a non-combatant, why don't they give her the same leeway that they do for Rodney when he backslides and acts like a sexist pig or a jerk or a coward? That is a double standard.

For me personally, I had no issues with Woolsey because he was an already established character with a semi-plausible back story for his presence in Atlantis. Considering how often the IOA-is-in-charge-here line was played, it made more sense for another IOA representative to take control of the base than it ever did for Carter to leave the SGC.

With Keller, viewers were slapped with the old tell, not show. The writers told us that Keller had in fact been an established and trusted character on Atlantis, but didn't even bother with the awkward retcon flashbacks that Mitchell was given. It sort of felt like that episode where the alien infiltrates the SGC, and everybody knows and likes him even though there's no record of his presence or history anywhere.

Carter was handled badly all around. The writers honestly didn't know what to do with her outside of the "team dynamic", and her taking over Weir's role as the tool for coaxing exposition out of McKay was just ridiculous. Probably the greatest example of this stupidity was when the wraith dialed a stargate to prevent anyone else from using it to leave a planet. Rodney actually explained the tactic to her, as if she hadn't seen the Goa'uld use it like a million times. She responded without a hint of sarcasm that it was indeed a good tactic, also as if entirely unfamiliar with it.

McKay really deserved a snarky smackdown in that context, and it would have been in character for her to give him one, and still allow for the writers to squeeze in their new-viewer gate mechanics 101 lesson. But the way it was handled was a complete insult to her brain. She sure as hell didn't need an explanation, considering that she's supposed to be smart enough to have figured it out on her own in about two tenths of a second.

I say supposed to be because this is a prime example where she should have demonstrated her intelligence, but since the writers only seem to know how to script one towering intellect at a time, and McKay was it in that scene (and god forbid anyone on SGA should ever outshine the resident genius), she was stuck playing the clueless foil.

Why do fans crucify Sam Carter for being an "unrealistic" genius and delight in Rodney's equally unrealistic genius?

I don't think the genius part is what bothers fans about Carter's character, but the idea that she is also beautiful, courageous, universally respected by her military and scientific peers, an extremely capable soldier, funny, emotionally stable and giving, and a generally nice and good-hearted person. And let's not forget that if the random alien of the day is going to fall in love with anyone, it's going to be her.

McKay, in comparison, becomes less realistic as a character when he backslides away from being a sexist pig and a jerk and a coward and an emotional idiot.

My point, though, isn't that the female characters on SGA are written flawlessly (lord knows they aren't). It's that the writing of the male characters is also full of holes -- as you brought up with the example of Rodney's gun skills above -- and that it's handled differently in the fandom. With the male characters, it's excused, ignored as OOC or fanwanked away; with the females, it's used as a reason for bashing, hating or ignoring them.

I mean, I don't really need to sit here and run down a list of all the times John and Rodney have been written inconsistently, unrealistically, unsympathetically or just plain badly in canon, right? Because you can pretty much pick your episode there, from the little stuff to the huge WTF stuff (like the fact that Rodney seems to be able to instantly pick up any discipline and solve any technical problem regardless of whether he's even seen the technology before).

You mentioned Carter being the usual go-to for random alien crushes on SG1. On SGA, it's John and Rodney, but I've rarely seen it brought up as a negative point against them. (People do occasionally bring up Sheppard's Kirking in a negative way, but it's usually to defend him against canon, not to use canon as a reason to dislike him.) Rodney's had two relationships in canon (Katie and Jennifer) plus an ongoing crush on Carter and occasional attractions to women-of-the-week like Noreena; Jennifer's had one light flirtation (Ronon) and one relationship (Rodney). And yet, guess which one gets called a slut in fandom.

If Carter's failure to put Rodney in his place in whichever ep that was (Seer?) is a point against her, then why is Keller's well-deserved smackdown of Rodney in Brainstorm also a point against her?

They can't win, these women characters. They act like the guys and are castigated for stepping out of their place. They defer to the male characters and are castigated for being overly passive. The fandom is willing to forgive the boys pretty much anything (from character inconsistency and general asshole-ishness right up to torture and genocide) but inconsistencies in the writing for the women, or examples of less-than-perfect behavior, are racked up and used against them.

For me personally, I had no issues with Woolsey because he was an already established character with a semi-plausible back story for his presence in Atlantis.

Exactly as Carter. Except one gets fervently hated, one doesn't. (There was not one, but two kill-Carter comms, so happy was the fandom to see her crossing over.)

Considering how often the IOA-is-in-charge-here line was played, it made more sense for another IOA representative to take control of the base than it ever did for Carter to leave the SGC.

That makes no sense. Why would the SGC not choose someone with military and scientific expertise to head a scientific expedition in a war zone? Don't get me wrong, I love Woolsey, adore Picardo, and while I would've preferred to see Carter remain in command , I was okay with Amanda leaving because I knew she left to film her own show. But he was less qualified for this position than her. His presence makes sense because, yeah, IOA likes to meddle... but hers made not any less sense.

I think she was underused, and that was a damned shame. And I wouldn't at all be surprised if that was at least partly because the writers were wary of overusing her for fear of annoying the very vocal fans who had ranted against her in places like the producer's blog and who had made it very clear that they didn't want her "to take over the show".

Probably the greatest example of this stupidity was when the wraith dialed a stargate to prevent anyone else from using it to leave a planet. Rodney actually explained the tactic to her, as if she hadn't seen the Goa'uld use it like a million times. She responded without a hint of sarcasm that it was indeed a good tactic, also as if entirely unfamiliar with it.

And that's the kind of sloppy writing that in male characters gets recognized for what is is - the writers dropping the ball - while with female characters those inclined to hate them will seriously base characterization and interpretation of the characters on moments like that.

One more thing, regarding the fandom's reaction to Carter/Amanda coming over to SGA -- this (including comments) is pretty typical of the fannish reaction ... and in that case, it's coming from people who couldn't stand Weir, either!

The reaction to Carter died away for the most part when she wasn't really in the forefront of the action (though there was a bit of furor about "Trio") and then was taken off the show. You can't really hate what you never see. I do feel as if a lot of the vehemence of fandom's ongoing hate affair with Keller, aside from coming in between a popular ship, had a lot to do with her actually getting storylines -- in which case, blaming it on the quality of the writing is a red herring. It's not how she's written; it's that she's being given things to do, and the fandom would rather see her retire quietly to the background like a good girl.

I think it was not so much that Keller was given things to do, and more that she was given far more focus than the otherwise comparable character she replaced. There was a dearth of the fan-beloved "team" episodes in the final season particularly, with Keller tagging along as the proverbial fifth wheel far more often that Carson ever had.

Also, I'm not sure I'd count being chased through the woods by yet another random threat as Keller being given things to do. That was bad writing, that so many of her large character-building and focal episodes resolved around the same tired idea. She's out of her element, we get it already. Or, argh, the Seed, where it would have been a perfect opportunity for her to flex her skills, but instead she spent most of the episode unconscious in need of rescue.

But when she *did* flex her skills (performing emergency field surgery in "Shrine", putting her newfound fighting skills to the test in "Tracker", finishing the Wraith retrovirus) she was accused of, basically, doing it wrong, for various values of "wrong" -- because she shouldn't have had those skills in the first place, because she was unrealistically skillful, because she wasn't skillful enough.

I ended up feeling like Keller couldn't win. If she stayed out of the spotlight so that the canon characters could save the day, she was accused of being a passive damsel in distress (as in Seed). If she got assertive and saved the day, she was accused of stealing the spotlight from the main characters. If she stood up to Rodney and told him off, she was accused of being bitchy and trying to run his life.

So, I'll put the question to you, I guess. How would you have written Keller in season five to make her a more appealing and likable character, on a par with the ones we already had? That's a serious question -- since her writing in canon was unappealing to you, how would you have reworked it to make her both a more appealing character and a more believable girlfriend for Rodney?

Hm, an interesting question.

I would have started by demoting her to the same level of supporting-cast attention that Carson originally had, before the whole returned from the dead clone nonsense. I would have made an effort to explain her history: how long had she been on Atlantis, how and when was she recruited to the SGC, what had she been doing prior to taking over as acting head of medicine, and for god's sake why had we never seen her before? I would have cast an actress who didn't appear to be in her mid-twenties and barely old enough to be out of medical school.

(Actually, I would have promoted Marie in Carson's place. Marie had a history on Atlantis. We saw her in action and knew she was experienced and at least halfway competent. It's the writers' fault that it was never quite made clear if she was a doctor or a nurse or a medical technician or what.)

I wouldn't have put Keller through the gate on missions as often, because historically the medics have been non-combatants on the series. Or, if I did decide to increase her time off-world, I would have explained the reason for the change in protocol.

I would have given her more scenes like the one where Carson makes the video inquiring about his mother's toenail fungus. That was an incredible amount of character insight smushed into an extremely small period of time. It was succinct and wonderful and Keller never received anything to my mind that stuck out nearly so well.

I wouldn't have dangled the Jennifer and Ronon angle in front of fans before dragging Rodney into half-assed romantic triangle. Most people liked the idea of Jennifer with Ronon, and there was enough groundwork that it could have developed into a believable match.

I would have struggled to come up with a damned good reason why any woman in her right mind would choose Rodney over Ronon. And it absolutely, positively couldn't have had anything to do with Rodney's winning personality, charm, or social grace, because he has none.

I would not have made Keller attracted to Rodney primarily when he was under the personality-altering influence of a parasite. I would not have set her in a fruitless contest of wills over Rodney's trip to the shrine against Rodney's entire team and Rodney's much-loved (by fans) sister. Nor would I have made constant reference to the developing romance when Rodney's previous girlfriend was mentioned every six months or so, because I would not want to have to explain why Jennifer was deserving of far more attention than Katie Brown, who was a young, beautiful and intelligent scientist in her own right.

I would have re-shot that kiss on the airplane until there was at least the suggestion of potential chemistry between the two actors.

I would not have portrayed Rodney and Jennifer's future relationship in Last Man as a pair of shell-shocked survivors clinging to each other for the expedient reason that all other alternatives are dead. That's just begging for fans to perceive the relationship as "wrong" from the start.