on female characters "not being good enough" for main male characters

[tielan]

Thoughts by bookshop on "Why can't a woman be more like a man?":

Oh, and let us not leave out Gwen/Arthur, and Gwen/Morgana. Everyone loves Gwen/Morgana. I love Gwen/Morgana. But if we love Gwen so much, why aren't we happy to see her and Arthur so happy together in S2? Don't we love Gwen enough to enjoy her stepping into her role as main character? Or do we only love her enough to shunt her off to the side to be happy with Morgana, so we can all enjoy the lovely Merlin/Arthur slash.

I want to address the main-male, main-female, secondary-male "triangle" that tends to form a pattern in fandoms.

There are any number of people who defend their love of female-with-anyone-but-male. Which is fine...except that this happens a lot. And it almost always happens that the characters involved are the primary female and the main male. TPTB get them together, or show them attracted to each other, and all hell breaks loose in fandom.

So here's my question: Why is it that the primary female character(s) in any canon are never good enough for the main male character?

The female character is permitted, allowed, acceptable, so long as she doesn't fall for the main male character (whom fans have generally shipped with the secondary - read, geeky - male character).

Teyla is a lovely character and people love her...unless she's paired with John Sheppard. Then it's just bad writing, uninteresting, the dynamic just doesn't work.

Sam is a great, kickass career woman...as long as she's not 'chasing after' Jack O'Neill. The instant she shows any care about him, the character is a betrayal of everything she stands for.

Gwen is a sweetheart, a compass of the heart for Merlin and Arthur both, and an anchor for Morgana. But when she falls for Arthur (and more importantly, Arthur falls for her), she's a slag, a slut, a whore, a stupid bitch who doesn't know her place (or her mind).

Uhura? Is fantastic, an intelligent woman of colour in a world without race or gender biases (allegedly). But the instant she kisses Spock, she becomes reviled, abhorrent, discomforting.

Maybe you really don't like the dynamics between John/Teyla, Sam/Jack, Arthur/Gwen, Uhura/Spock and prefer John/Rodney, Jack/Daniel, Arthur/Merlin, and Kirk/Spock. But if preferring two main, white, male characters in a homosexual pairing always comes at the expense of the canonical male/female het pairing, then isn't that an issue? Doesn't that become a kind of erasure of female characters from the relevance of the story - all the story, both the personal and character-driven arcs of relationships, friendships, and romance, as well as the customary functional elimination of a female character in these shows?

This is a pattern for us (fandom 'us') - go to any fandom and take a look at the fanfic.

Perhaps we should start asking ourselves why - without the excuses and the "but I do like Teyla/Sam/Gwen/Uhura, just not with..."

It's not the individual examples that discomfort me - well, they do, but that's because I love these pairings and I want others to love them, too - it's the fact that these are patterns that get repeated in fandom after fandom, show after show. It's the fact that fandom doesn't do this once, they do it again, and again, and again, and again. And each time, the same excuses get recycled:

"She's just not strong enough to be paired with the male lead."

"She's just not interesting enough for me to care about her."

"She's just doesn't have chemistry with the male lead."

Maybe the individual character of this show isn't your type. Maybe the dynamic just isn't your thing. Maybe it's innocuous, innocent, and entirely unintended. Hooray! No need for this feminist guilt claptrap, break out the beer and lets go sit on the pier with our best buds and be manly men in a subtextual way (except for the part where 99% of us are women)!

Still. There's a pattern in fan behaviour that says a woman is good enough to be paired with anyone 'secondary', but only a male will do for the main male character.

And isn't that sexist?

eta: This post was initially focused on looking at fannish reactions to canonical male/female pairings, and then how that translates into fannish behaviour and attitudes. Also, if your OTP or preferred pairing isn't one of these, it's not a criticism of your pairing preferences, it's a look at why fandoms react in such a viciously negative manner to these specific types of m/f pairings.

Comments

[astridv]

In a way, isn't saying that anytime a female character develops a relationship with a male character she becomes "the love interest" a kind of reductionism itself?

Exactly. This a very male-centered view to begin with. The guy becomes the love interest at the same time, why is that overlooked? In SGA I'd say Keller was the one with the initiative, and both were equals, professionals and leaders of their departments. Why then is she 'just the love interest' and their relationship is declared gender-stereotypical?

Here's what I said a while back in reply to criticism that Uhura was a price to be pursued by Kirk and Spock:
But see, what makes Uhura the prize to pursue? You could just as easily say Spock is the prize to be pursued by Uhura... many fans would agree that Spock is quite a catch.

[tielan]

I did want to point out something about the guy being 'a love interest' for the woman, too, but missed it amidst all the comments.

[cosmicdancer.livejournal.com]

Because the men are usually allowed to have a plot separate from the romance. Actually Star Trek is a good example. In almost every scene of the new Star Trek that Uhura was in, there was some reference to the fact that a) Kirk was attracted to her b) she was in a relationship with Spock. Whereas Kirk and Spock got lots of screentime unrelated to their feelings for Uhura.

[astridv]

Except the women still do their jobs and are part of the ensemble like they were before, fight demons, fly starships, practice medicine or whatever it is they do, with the added relationship plot. They don't cease to be everything they were until then. But if fans were opposed to the relationship to begin with, it's like all they can see now is the relationship, the rest falls by the wayside.

Actually Star Trek is a good example. In almost every scene of the new Star Trek that Uhura was in, there was some reference to the fact that a) Kirk was attracted to her b) she was in a relationship with Spock. Whereas Kirk and Spock got lots of screentime unrelated to their feelings for Uhura.

I'll just point to taraljc's meta about Uhura, she said it better than I could. So here's the thing: I am very zen about Uhura in nuTrek. (and Uhura, McCoy, and Fannish Double Standards

Kirk and Spock got the most screentime period. They were the main characters, everybody else was supporting. (I think Uhura was doing best of the supporting, though I hope they'll expand her role in the next movie and add more women.)

It's been said before and I think it's true - we're having a feedback loop here. As long as the audience loves their white boys at the expense at everything else and echoes that signal back to Hollywood we're likele to get more of the same storylines and structures because the producers want to make a product that sells. So if we need more screentime and more prominent storylines for women, at least fandom shouldn't ignore, bash, or vilify those we have.

All the complaining about Uhura's role in the movie does come across like fandom doesn't care about female characters. It comes across like that to me and I'm in fandom. I wonder what it sounds like on TPTB's end. There are so many fans who are dissatisfied because her role was increased in comparison to TOS. And the relationship is given as one of the main excuses for the dislike.

If we want to see the character explored more, in ways that don't have to do with her relationship, the first thing to do would seem to write that. If slash fans have no problem honing on on slashy subtext, why do so many fans have a problem with seeing the potential in the female characters. I love the kind of fic that gives female characters a chance to shine for themselves but it is harder to find than fic about the boys. Why isn't that kind of fic more popular?

(eh, I think I went off on a bit of a tangent again. Happens all the time with this topic.)

[cosmicdancer.livejournal.com]

I like your Uhura meta. I personally wasn't completely satisfied with the coverage of her character (because, come on, how cool is space linguistics, and wouldn't it be awesome if we got to see her being a brilliant scientist?) but I like what you said about the costumes, and also about Amanda. I don't agree with the comparison to McCoy though, because key for me was that when we do see McCoy, he is being a doctor*. He's not just Jim's friend, he's also someone with skills and flaws and an independent role. But Uhura is...better. Better than TOS Uhura. Better than other women's roles I've seen in sci-fi.

And I thought her relationship with Spock was a) interesting character-wise and b) smoking hot, so no complaints there, I just wish she had a larger role.

*I saw the second meta post, about this, and I still think we never get concrete proof that Uhura is good at her job; we at least know that McCoy has a certain amount of knowledge and skills in the allergic reactions scene.

I love the kind of fic that gives female characters a chance to shine for themselves but it is harder to find than fic about the boys. Why isn't that kind of fic more popular?

And I can't but agree with you 100% there! I do wonder.

[cosmicdancer.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry, and I meant to reply to this as well:
"But see, what makes Uhura the prize to pursue? You could just as easily say Spock is the prize to be pursued by Uhura... many fans would agree that Spock is quite a catch."

Because Kirk and Spock compete over her. Because part of their rivalry is about which one of them gets the girl. I do think Kirk gains more respect for her when he sees how mature she is about being in a relationship with her professor (and that she doesn't have a submissive role in said relationship), and I think that's a start.