From: Penberriss Wendy S. penberriss@yahoo.com
--- Neil Faulkner N.Faulkner@tesco.net wrote:
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?
So the poor girl's got a vibrator and doesn't know how to use it? This is getting kinkier by the minute...
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.
That does not answer my point that the script demands that the button-pushing role must be filled by a man because it was conceived and written for one of two male characters. It is not "Who shall I have to push this button?" but "What shall I have this man do?"
And I really can't see any obvious sexual symbolism in pushing a button. Going around prodding women strikes me as an excellent way of getting one's faced slapped (or indeed beaten to a senseless pulp, since most of the women I know could do that with both hands tied behind their backs. Even Una could do it, or at least make a mess of my kneecaps.)
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).
Okay, let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the rocket is a PO. So what? Where does its symbolic importance lie? What are these implications that a careful writer should be thinking about? And how the hell is a representation of the standard means for the intromission of sperm in itself misogynistic?
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... :-).
I might agree with you if you suggested it's a metaphor for the episode being a bunch of wank.
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.
I've often wondered: if virgins are innocent, what are non-virgins guilty of? (This is known as a non-sequiteur, a cunning ploy to conceal the fact that I can't think of anything to answer your last point.)
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.
I agree with you on that point. If we assume that Avon offering to take her up to the Liberator is sufficiently plot-significant to warrant inclusion (whether she accepts or not), its omission counts as sufficient evidence that no such offer was made.
The costume department would just have been picking up on the script.
Probably, but not definitely.
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...
A healthy attitude I can't argue with.
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?
Yup. Very.
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.
You might not be (because they scupper your theories, perhaps?), but I am, because I don't think we should take Deliverance solely in isolation, but consider it within the wider context of other Nation eps and indeed the series as a whole.
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?
Having been both dismissed and hated at various times, I know which I prefer. People who dismiss you don't have it in for you, people who hate you do. Which would you rather be up against?
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?
Because some people confine their focus of attention to the regular characters (or just a selection of them, maybe even just one) and define the significance of any action or interaction with reference to those characters and *nothing else*.
They know who they are.
Neil