Focus on the Family

[Note:  I am attempting to upload this from an airport and editing on my iPad, so I apologize for the more straightfoward treatment of the material this week. I’ve done my best to connect the various posts and have added some additional thoughts at the conclusion. -CT]

 

This week, our class continued to explore ideas of gender in the world of Caprica. Focusing primarily on the women, students began to contemplate the ways in which sexuality and gender intersect. Although I study this particular overlap extensively in respect to Horror, our class evidenced some interesting ideas in this arena and I will leave it to them to carry on the discussion.

Unruly Women

All men want the same thing. A docile, passive woman who will do what the man says, agree with him, and love him unconditionally no matter what he does. According to Foucault, a woman who can be gazed upon without returning the gaze. Or so the story goes. Media representations of women typically reinforce these images and stereotypes. This is not necessarily the case in this episode of Caprica.

The scene is brightly lit. The sun is shining through the windows, hitting the kitchen at the perfect angle. Coffee is brewing. Amanda looks at Daniel, full of love and admiration. But Daniel cannot return the feeling. You can see in his eyes the sense of helplessness and disgust. This is not the Amanda he knows. But what is different? She has Amanda’s memories and can fool the viewer. The difference is that Holo-band Amanda is not a real woman. She is not the real Amanda that Daniel knows. She may be perfect, everything that a man could ever want in a woman. She offers to sexually please Daniel to reduce his stress level and she forgives him for an atrocious act that he committed But she does not have the aspects of Amanda’s personality that make her most desirable to Daniel. The real Amanda lies, would never forgive Daniel, and is much more spiteful and angry. Yet this is what Daniel wants. This is why Daniel goes back to his computer to continue to tweak the program. Daniel wants the aspects of her personality that are “unwomanly”.

–Stephen Makino

What If Clarice Were A Male Character?

In this week’s episode, Clarice further illustrates her extremist lived religion, stating “Apotheosis will bring the twelve worlds under the one true God, and it’s my destiny to make that happen, and I will.”

I think its interesting to analyze Clarice’s depiction in relation to Roseanne in the article, “Roseanne: Unruly Woman As Domestic Goddess.” As the article states, much of the criticism Roseanne garnered was most likely because she was a woman. I thought that there was definitely an interesting parallel that could be made between Roseanne’s behavior and Clarice’s behavior. As previously stated, most viewers would most likely characterize Clarice as an extremist. After reading the article, however, I tried to think of Clarice if she had been cast as a male. If she had been a male character, I think her views would be viewed less as extremism, and more as bold and revolutionary (although the character would still be depicted negatively). I am basically making the argument that since she is a woman, her behaviors seem all the more shocking than if she were a man. I am not sure if anyone understands where I am coming from, but this aspect of gender depiction in the media seems to be an unfortunate reality.

-Max Wallace

The Agony and the Ecstasy

To this day, I still remember the first time that I rejected Gender Studies as a valid area of concern:  in college, a friend had joined the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance and I had declined an invitation to attend. I was, at the time, sympathetic toward women but still too caught up in notions of second wave feminism to identify with a cause in any formal way (well, that and the challenge to the already fragile male ego made joining such an organization an impossibility for me at the time). I am not proud of this moment, but not particularly ashamed either—it was what it was.

How ironic, then, that issues of gender have become one of my primary focuses in media:  the representation, construction, configuration, positioning, and subversion of gender is what often excites me about the texts that I study. Primarily rooted in Horror and Science Fiction, I look at archetypes ranging from the Final Girl and New Male (Clover, 1992), to the sympathetic/noble male and predatory lesbian vampires of the 1970s, to the extreme sexualities of the future.