friends tell other friends when they're being sexist, racist, and immoral!!

[tielan]

An outspoken fan has revealed the shocking truth about John/Teyla over at JoeM's blog:

"It is well past time for SGA to stop trying to push Sheppard/Teyla. It's immoral, it's sexist, it's racist, it subverts everything that's been established about these characters"

Did you know this? Why didn't anyone tell me I was being immoral?

HOW CAN I POSSIBLY CONTINUE TO SHIP JOHN/TEYLA WHEN CLEARLY IT GOES AGAINST ALL THAT IS GOOD, DECENT, AND HOLY IN THE UNIVERSE???!?!?!

It may be time for a new LJ name...

ETA: I bet it's the same poster that posted this comment that I noted back in April! It sounds like her.

Comments

[beatrice_otter]

Well, I can see how someone could think it was sexist if you were squinting and overly sensitized to the skeevy side of office romances, i.e. where the boss preys on the female employees and/or the female employees either pine hopelessly over their male bosses who ignore them or use sex to manipulate said male bosses. If you're overly sensitized to that, then any sort of attraction between a man and a woman who work together is sexist one way or another. (The fact that in this case a) there's no predation or manipulation and b) there's no pining, despite the attraction seems to have escaped the idjit.) No clue how they got the "racist" and "immoral," though.

[tielan]

No clue how they got the "racist" and "immoral," though.

'Immoral' might be related to the fact that Teyla has a child by a man other than John - a man who's still alive. It means she wants to have sex with more than the one man in her life. That's immoral, isn't it??

Or, maybe she's just after John's child support payments since Kanaan proved to be such a no-hoper!

Yes, that must be it!

I'm not treating this stupidity with quite the gravity I probably should, am I?

The racist part worries me. The only interpretaion I can put on this is that "mixed-race relationships are inherently racist" - an argument that was brought up in a racewank back a couple of months ago by someone who was arguing about Joss Whedon's racism and sexism issues.

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

The racist part worries me. The only interpretaion I can put on this is that "mixed-race relationships are inherently racist" - an argument that was brought up in a racewank back a couple of months ago by someone who was arguing about Joss Whedon's racism and sexism issues.

It's been noted before that in television in general, there are very few examples of people of color being involved with each other, and a sense that in one way or another, it's always got to be about the white guy.

That said, this person's objections sounded to me like a way to obscure the fact that her real issue is that she ships John with someone else.

[tielan]

Has there ever been a major TV show where a black man has been involved with a white woman?

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

The example that comes to mind is "ER". The show's one black doctor was involved with the white British surgeon. He actually talked to the writers and they eventually hooked him up with a black woman; he didn't want to contribute to the sterotype that the ultimate prize for a successful black man is a white girlfriend or wife.

I'm not saying that I buy that argument--it would be pretty silly of me to say that--but I have heard it applied to SGA in particular. I've also had someone outside of SGA fandom who watches the show mention the "native princess" trope with the John and Teyla dynamic, and I think there's definitely some stuff going on there that can be legitimately viewed as more of the writers' skeevy race and gender issues.

I don't want to see John and Teyla in the show. I don't want to see John and Rodney, or Rodney and Keller, or anyone else, because no matter who the pairing is, the SGA writing team will fuck it up. These are the guys who think that date rape drugs and sexual harrassment are funny, and who don't understand why Torri would be pissed at the way she was treated. They can't even be consistent with their own canon. No--if I want John/Teyla, I'll read your fic, because I know it'll be done well and respectfully to both characters.

[tielan]

because no matter who the pairing is, the SGA writing team will fuck it up.

BINGO!

Thus, have you neatly and featly encapsulated my chiefest issues with any canonical John/Teyla.

[darkrosetiger.livejournal.com]

I watched the lead-up to the Avatar series finale over the weekend. I was struck by how much more realistic and mature the romance between various animated teenagers is written in Avatar when compared to the attempts at romance in SGA. The Ronon/Jennifer/Rodney thing in particular makes me cringe.

(On the other hand, your icon reminds me of how much I'm looking forward to reading your Big Bang fic.)