--- Neil Faulkner N.Faulkner@tesco.net wrote:
No, actually. Firstly, if it's anyone's rocket, it's hers, not his.
No, it's not hers, it's one she's looking after.
It's definitely not Avon's, though.
Yes, but it's him who activates it, isn't it?
Anyway, even if it is hers, it obviously takes a
man
to push the right buttons.
It takes *someone* to push the right buttons. And since the episode seems to have been devised to get initially Blake - then later changed to Avon - to confront the responsibilities of godlike status, that someone is going to have to be a man.
If it was Blake in the original, then the bit about responsibilities and learning leadership skills would be less of an issue, cause he's already the leader. This only becomes a major point when it's somebody who's challenging Blake's leadership role.
If we've already agreed that the rocket is a
metaphor,
Which we haven't. I'm still unconvinced. I can see how it might be taken as a metaphor, but that doesn't mean it was intended as one (consciously or otherwise).
Well, I can't convince you :-). All I can do is restate that, if you have a phallic object being activated to perpetuate the race, then a careful writer would be thinking about the implications (although your point that the script was rushed is fair enough).
Depends on how you read it. Perpetuation of the species is via the brood units on the rocket, not through Meegat (who is effectively placed in the position of non-contributive onlooker). If we're going to use sexual metaphors, it might be more accurate to say that she just stands there and watches Avon have one off the wrist.
Fair enough :). But it doesn't totally read. If he just did that, there would be no benefit to her species, would there? Perhaps it's a metaphor for artificial insemination, or sperm donation... :-).
She waits, virginal, dressed in diaphanous robes,
for
this bloke to come along and fulfil her. What part
of
this *isn't* a sexual metaphor?
For someone who (rightly, IMO) criticises people for inventing details unsupported by the canon, I'm not sure how you can assert that Meegat is virginal.
I meant that, standing there in those robes acting all innocent, she's got Judaeo-Christian symbolism for "virginal" written all over her. Her actual state of virginity is a moot point.
And earlier you complained about Avon
robbing her of her reason for existing, and now suddenly he is fulfilling her.
I'm not sure I said that. I said he did what she wanted him to do, but then left her to die. I haven't challenged any of the people who say "But it was what she wanted, wasn't it?" (although the number of times *that* phrase has been used to defend sexual misbehaviour...), I've just said it was a bit irresponsible of him not to look her up later. AND THERE'S NO EVIDENCE TO PROVE THAT HE DID. Full stop.
That she waits for deliverance can be attributed to Terry Nation, who wrote the script. The diaphanous robes came from the costume department. Costume designer for this episode was apparently ... Rupert Jarvis (a man). Well, well, well.
The costume department would just have been picking up on the script.
I think it's clear by now that the subliminal message of the text is so subliminal that most people haven't even noticed
it
before (though as Una points out, that might only make it more
insidious).
I agree, and especially with Una's point-- but why *is* it that people miss out on this subliminal message? Perhaps because these messages are so accepted in our culture that we don't question
them.
I would agree with that actually, which is why arguments like yours can be so valuable. However, the subliminal message here is almost certainly subliminal within the writer's mind too. Nation is not on a soapbox, he's just cranking out a script to meet the deadline. This doesn't exculpate the sexism in Deliverance, but it does clear Nation of deliberately promoting a sexist agenda (suggesting that he was doing so might well have alarmed him, FWIG he was a generally well-meaning bloke. Unfortunately we're no longer in a position to be able to ask him).
Sorry to quote all that back, but I think it was relevant :-). And I agree with your argument. Nation was not deliberately promoting a sexist agenda-- but the fact that the sexist message was invidious in the mind of a nice, well-meaning bloke like Terry Nation, suggests we should all perhaps think a bit about our opinions...
Isn't it devaluing a fairly insidious form of prejudice to dismiss it as simply "silly"?
Ridicule can actually be a pretty effective tactic. I've seen it shut up racists, sexists and homophobes.
Ridicule, yes, but not outright dismissal. Is homophobia silly then?
her..." Give me a break. Why must some people
justify
Avon's every action, and whitewash his nastier
side?
I often wonder about that. And why Blake gets villified solely on his more questionable actions, with his better points being ignored.
Well said! I agree totally!
Yes, but I'm not talking about those stories. I'm talking about Deliverance. You can't justify
Avon's
actions in one story by referring to his/the
crew's
action in others, some of which are aslo
incidentally
by completely different authors.
No, I restricted my list to episodes accredited to Nation.
Sorry-- wasn't paying attention :-). But we're still not talking about those stories.
I didn't say that she was abandoned *because* she
was
female. Just that she was abandoned in a way which strikes me as particularly misogynist.
I think it's your assertions of misogyny that I find particularly difficult to accomodate. Misogyny is a *hatred* of women. Deliverance, as a script, is dimissive of Meegat, and disrespectful to Meegat, but dismissiveness and disrespect do not amount to hatred. In fact, they suggest a lack of consideration, whereas hatred requires a hefty wodge of consideration. It takes effort to hate, more effort than Nation expended on this miserable script.
OK, fair enough point. But as Una says, isn't that a bit worse in some ways than out and out hatred?
The least he could have done, is to insert a line to the effect of "So Meegat and her people decided to stay, then?" They did something similar
in
Children of Auron after all, quickly wrapping up
what
had happened to the survivors.
Which all points to Deliverance being a rushed effort, too rushed to consider the implications of its own subtext.
Fair enough. But what I'd like to know then, is why a story with a rushed script, a cliched story and a number of gaping plot holes, keeps making people's top ten lists?
Wendy.
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