From: una@q-research.connectfree.co.uk
Neil wrote:
I think the difference between the two is that Deliverance, whilst
betraying
the sexist mindset of its author, is not actively promoting a
misogynistic
agenda, whereas Power is.
Ah - but is that more insidious?
Quite possibly, actually. I don't think I'd have considered the putative issues in Deliverance if Wendy hadn't raised them. In Power, OTOH, they're so glaringly obvious you couldn't ignore them if you tried.
One reference Wendy made I found quite interesting: 'Yes but in the end the author didn't chose Jenna, he chose Avon to perform the act. And not necessarily Avon either. In the original draft it was Blake.'
I didn't know that. It sheds some light on the evolution of the script. Bearing in mind that Nation was groaning under his rather rash comitment to write all 13 episodes of the first season, he was probably by this stage struggling for plots. With a vague idea about a story dealing with the responsibilities of power, he concocts a scenario in which Blake is hailed as a god. And then has the (rather neat) idea of putting Avon in that position. I don't know what the time pressures were, but probably pretty tight by this stage (the later scripts were coming in woefully under time, with Boucher having to pad them out to length), which might explain a lot about Deliverance - having got the basic idea, Nation dashed it off in a hurry without paying too much attention to the plot holes (which I still consider the weakest element in this episode) or the subtextual baggage.
No doubt Wendy will at this point leap up and accuse me of apologising for Nation. I'm not - I'm just trying to find an explanation. This is a very shoddy bit of scripting which, as I said in an earlier post, betrays the sexist mindset of its author. (The same author who later gave us Kasabi, but admittedly also wimpy Veron and a couple of slinky Hi-Tek bounty hunters.)
Wendy's argument seems to hinge on the phallic nature of the rocket. I still don't buy it. The use of stock footage as a budget control measure is backed up elsewhere in the series (eg the night-time runway sequence in Redemption) and also in Dr Who's Genesis of the Daleks (more or less contemporaneous with early B7) when they might even have used exactly the same bit of footage (I don't have a video so I can't check).
'what we have here isn't just a spaceship taking off, it's a man firing off his rocket in order to provide a woman with children'
No, actually. Firstly, if it's anyone's rocket, it's hers, not his. Secondly, he's not providing her with children, he's sending them away (okay, okay, so he's sending them somewhere where they can live and grow and all that shit). And they are not hers anyway. A fine nuance of interpretation, maybe, but the accusations of misogyny are resting on some pretty fine nuances themselves.
Wendy again: 'But what it is saying about the characters isn't particlarly plesant and the subliminal message the episode is giving out is very dark indeed.'
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). OTOH, most people seem to agree that the whole Meegat arrangement is 'silly'. Which as an indictment of sexism is pretty accurate - sexism *is* silly, and those who endorse it only stand to make fools of themselves.
As for the characters being unpleasant, I'm all for it. I don't want them to be nicey-nice squeaky clean heroes, I want them to show that they have it in them to be complete bastards from time to time. If that entails them being sexist (or racist, ageist, or speciesist - and Avon makes a speciesist remark in Project Avalon) then fine. Let them be so. We all have our prejudices, so should they.
Wendy (quoted yet again in a post ostensibly replying to Una): 'The mortality rate following the Liberator is pritty phenominal. As for people left behind to a terrible fate ,it has happened before,look at every other single prisoner who came to Cygnus Alpha on the London, for example.'
Quite. So why not add Meegat to the list?
Having said that, Meegat's fate is a serious omission from the script. It might have been written in and then cut for timing reasons, though I suspect this is unlikely. More probable is that Meegat is simply dumped - by Nation - after she has fulfilled her useful role within the story. Which might appear to support Wendy's case were it not for: the prisoners on Cygnus Alpha (male) ; the Decimas (alien) ; Avalon's rebels (all male, as far as was seen) ; and the slaves on Spaceworld (again, all male as far as we know. In this instance, of course, Liberator couldn't afford to hang around and ask). A distinct male bias there, though it might be noted that they are groups of unnamed people, not named individuals with a prior major role in the relevant episode. The closest to a second Meegat in a Nation episode is Veron in Pressure Point, who is given the choice and elects to stay (in the middle of the Forbidden Zone).
On that evidence, you could probably tilt it either way you want to say that abandoning Meegat on the grounds of her being female is or is not a significant consideration. I personally think it more likely she disappeared because she had done her part as a supporting character, regardless of gender. Still sloppy writing, though.
I think what this thread has really highlighted is the difficulty of separating the subtext of an episode (which seems to be Wendy's primary concern) from the scripted specificities of the episode itself. Some people have confined themselves to a strictly internal position, others have considered external factors related to the episode's mode of production, and some have gone beyond to the ideological landscape in which the script was developed. I'm not sure it's possible to talk about any one of those without considering the impact of the others.
Damn good thread, though.
Neil