This is excellent. Absolutely excellent.
@drmaddkap I'm guessing you mean TNG?
I still suspect the number is going to be small. 😆
@Axomamma @drmaddkap well, _this_ feminist finds that to be a particularly hot take, but thank you for that.
The women in The Expanse are fully realized, fearless, and three dimensional, and some—notably Bobbie the Martian Marine and Naomi, who winds up leading the entire resistance movement—are among the most memorable women in fiction.
Yeah, they pass the Bechdel test, but that’s almost beside the point, given the thematic critiques of racism & sexism.
🙄
@megmuttonhead How does it even remotely pass the Bechdel test? Because they're talked about endlessly by men who just want to fuck them both?
Yeah, I'm sorry, that is utter bullshit.
@megmuttonhead "thematic critiques of racism & sexism"
You have to be kidding. It's not a "critique," it's a guidebook to how to be an absolute creep.
@Axomamma either we read entirely different book series, or one of us had difficulty with the text.
I’m sure you believe it was me; I’m afraid I disagree.
Having read the whole series several times, as opposed to listening once to an audiobook—nothing wrong with audiobooks, but they’re harder to reread and review—I think I’ll keep trusting my opinion as better informed than yours.
Other readers can judge for themselves.
@Axomamma Yes, Holden begins the series as—to put it bluntly—an asshole. Not only Naomi’s response to him but the ENTIRE SERIES is about a privileged white guy—Holden—fucking up, because he’s arrogant and clueless—and LEARNING BETTER.
Like, it’s not even subtle.
In the books. Which is one reason that, despite the excellent work of the actors, the TV show was so disappointing. (Of course a major TV show had to lose that part of the story. Alas.)
@Axomamma oh,dear. I’m afraid you didn’t read very carefully. I’m not going to write an essay explaining why, but I do not think any careful reader would draw the simplistic conclusions you have.
As in, the authors are fully aware of Holden’s problematic behaviors…and they challenge those behaviors in the text.
You seem to have believed the authors did not see Holden’s arrogance and privilege, but rather share it. And… no careful reader could believe that.
Have to read the Expanse books at some point.
I really enjoyed the first 3 seasons of TV series with a few caveats – Holden's white saviour attitude becomes a running joke at about the third time he does it.
Naomi is hopelessly miscast.
My favourite character of the show – Drummer – is I believe a composite of several characters from the books.
@klegdixal yeah, the TV show really did not get Holden. His white savior attitude absolutely exits in the books… but it is there as a _flaw_ and one he has to recover from.
It’s one of the things I loved about the books. I don’t know about anyone else, but I need to read characters who reflect the flaws I find in myself and my mostly-white-liberal spaces. We’re not cartoon racists, but DAMN we can do harm (as in the books, Holden is clearly shown to do).
@klegdixal and Drummer is indeed an amalgamation of at least two characters. Still kinda awesome, but I miss the originals.
I also was saddened by the changes to Avasarala’s character—and I really wish the TV show hadn’t villainized her so effectively. Not that her hands are clean in the books, but villainizing women in leadership is such a TV ploy. She’s far more morally complex in the books.
And she gets to be the one who first skewers Holden’s white saviorism, which is fun. 🙂
@klegdixal it’s the way she’s introduced to us in the TV show—if memory serves, which it may not—as she tortures a Belter captive. It’s a horrifying scene, and while it is not inconsistent with Avasarala’s realpolitik, by hitting us with it before we have any other real context for her character, it effectively villainizes her.
It’s a great performance by Shohreh Aghdashloo, but also pretty typical of how pop culture defines older women with power: evil queens and wicked fairies.
@klegdixal true. Though in Stark’s case, they make sure to show us the ethics behind that moment (at least in the books—my memory of the show is less precise).
Introducing Avasarala being brutal wasn’t alloyed that same way. And while it did serve to keep us from sentimentalizing her as a sweet little old lady and to show the grittiness of the politics, I think it also comforted those whose misogyny always shows powerful women as monsters—à la Hillary’s treatment by the press.
You get plenty of gagh talk in DS9.
@drmaddkap Is this just an excuse to re-watch all of Star Trek?
(Asking for a friend)
@drmaddkap yeah, and it’s not just Klingons.
If you internally translate human as symbolizing “white person” and non-human as “person of color,” it’s really painfully clear the extent to which our culture continues to center whiteness… even when we get more racial diversity with later Treks. (SNW is especially clear in that regard—and I suspect it is why it has received fewer toxic fan attacks.)
I mean, I’m a fan, but fiction reflects culture. And our culture is far from “IDIC.”
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