From: Jacqueline Thijsen inquisitioner@wish.net
By that rationale a murderer becomes just another witness after the
crime's
been comitted. Try pulling that one in court.
Easy, m'lud. If said murder causes someone else to get a heart attack, which is a direct result that the murderer couldn't have foreseen, he
isn't
considered guilty of causing that heart attack (well, at least not in Holland, I've no idea how other judicial systems feel about this.) In the same way one can say that if Terry Nation rushed to deliver a sloppy
script
that he didn't intentionally put any sexism or whatever in, then you can't blame him for it if *you* happen to see that sexism in it. Terry's not responsible for your interpretation of his story. Only for the sloppiness of the script.
I think I was the one to point out that the sexism was not intentional (unlike Ben Steed's scripts), and I don't think he deserves to be put in the dock for it. (As at least one other person said, he was only a man of his times writing a script for those times. I'm not so sure myself, I think he was several decades behind the real world, and my suggestions of colonial nostalgia, though phrased somewhat flippantly, are IMO perfectly valid.)
I will say again, though, that this is not a case of the sexism (or any other less than savoury attitude) being there only if you happen to see it. It is there, full stop. Not seeing it doesn't make it go away, it only means you don't see it. If you don't see it, that can only be because either you can't (you don't recognise the cues) or you choose not to (for whatever reason).
Do the jokes in a parody disappear simply because you aren't familiar with the original?
Nope, I'm too busy admiring the characters. I like admiring the
characters.
Looking at societal implications is boooooring.
Is it? Why? Since you presumably have some idea why the characters are more interesting or engaging than something that impacts on your every thought and word and deed, perhaps you might care to enlighten me.
Anyway, to get back to the topic at hand, I have the same approach to TV shows. If too much about them bugs me, I stop watching. If I like the
show,
I sit back and enjoy the fun. Watching TV is relax time, not getting wound up time. So I concentrate on what I like, such as fun character
interaction
and good looks. Thinking about what the series says about society and getting worked up about it makes me tired and leads to headaches. I guess
I
was being somewhat flippant with the "booooring" bit, but that's what I
was
trying to say with it.
So you censor out the elements you don't like in order to enjoy the ones that appeal to you? Well, I can understand that, because I do it myself, in a way, albeit with manifest limitations of the process of production (dodgy special effects, bloopers, anomalies of continuity). But what I do is reconstruct such elements. If the pursuit ships wobble as they line up to attack, I see it, and then mentally reconstruct the scene so they don't wobble. I know why they were wobbling - limitations of budget and technique - and also that they are not supposed to. In the same way, teleport bracelets aren't supposed to hop from wrist to wrist, members of the public aren't supposed to be standing in the background etc. These are things that lie outside the intended reality of the narrative.
What you seem to be doing is rather different - you notice (consciously or otherwise) ideological elements that you don't like, and then (consciously or otherwise) dismiss them as unimportant or suppress their existence altogether, even though they lie *within* the narrative's intended reality (whether they are consciously put there by the writer or not). Meegat is *intended* to throw herself at Avon's feet, and Jenna is *intended* to be captured by hairy savages (who are likewise intended to be both hairy and savage).
Don't you think it is possible to enjoy a text whilst simultaneously being aware of its ideological limitations? I've been very critical of Tolkien a number of times on the Lyst, but I can still enjoy LotR. Last year I read a Frederick Forsyth thriller which had a number of very scathing (and rather ludicrous) comments to make on the peace movement, which I once belonged to, but that didn't stop me enjoying a thumping good read.
And you still haven't answered my question: Why the *characters*?
Neil