Otter's Rock

So, if you're in the Stargate fandom you've probably heard about the massive amounts of fail (multiple different kinds, no less!) inherent in the casting sides for an episode of Stargate: Universe, and the defense from Gateworld, and all that. sheafrotherdon has an excellent rebuttal to Gateworld's defense of the fail, and cereta has an older post on living in a systematically misogynistic society and why don't "nice" men take a stand which then links to khalinche's post on the levels of harassment your average woman experiences on a daily basis, and why men don't really get it. And someone in the comments mentioned the Vagina Monologues, which I've never seen.

And I've been thinking. I love Stargate, but not the fail, and it seems like the fail has been growing over time, and the way they consistently play issues of rape and torture and such for titilation/humor or in other ways abuse white male privilege.

And lo, at 2 o'clock in the morning, an idea has formed for a story I will never write but which would be Made of Awesome if someone else would do it:

Teal'c is sensitive to power issues as they relate to the whole Jaffa/slave thing, but not so much (which is to say, not at all) as they relate to male/female relationships. He's very secure in his male privilege, and uses it, particularly with Jaffa women. He has great respect for Sam, treats her like an equal as a warrior, true, but look at how he treated the Jaffa women he was with. It's not that he's a bad guy, he just responds as his culture has taught him and doesn't really seem to think about the issue that much. And then in the episode Family Ties, Teal'c gets given tickets to The Vagina Monologues.

I want to know what Teal'c's reaction was. I want it to be done seriously, not played for laughs. I want to know how he related that to his experiences of Jaffa life and working with Sam for ten years. I want to explore Jaffa culture and Teal'c's perspective on it beyond the 'Jaffa revenge thing.' I want to see him talk about it with Sam, and with Ishta, and maybe his daughter-in-law Kar'yn. I don't want him to turn into an enlightened feminist Western male, but I do want him to understand.

This entry was originally posted at http://beatrice-otter.dreamwidth.org/145801.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

For privileged people out there.  When issues of race come up again.  (and again, and again, and again, and again ...)

In which it's not my job to educate you

We Have Feelings Too or The Cost OF Being A POC in Race Discussions

and, for satire,

The Art of Defending Racism This entry was originally posted at http://beatrice-otter.dreamwidth.org/144734.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

So, I didn't post anything about/during Racefail '09 because I'm pretty much generic whitebread middle-class American and had nothing to say on the subject that other people weren't saying far more eloquently and didn't want to add to the signal/noise ratio. Also because I'm lazy and don't like conflict.

But you know what? Racism and productive/constructive ways to deal with it and (as much as possible) prevent it are ordinary, everyday situations that should be thought about constantly, not just whenever it happens to blow up. That way, hopefully, we can make things better instead of worse. I still don't have much to say on the subject that others haven't said better, but I do have a rec: Go read the Spock/Uhura Racefail Prevention Post. It's concise, it's positive, and it's got good advice for how to talk and think about issues of race particularly in the fannish realm but also in general.  With links you can follow which lead to lots of other places where racism in life and in fandom are discussed in helpful ways.

For those of you who don't know, in the new Star Trek movie Spock and Uhura (a character of color) have a romantic relationship. This has led to a whole lot of fiction and fan attention for Uhura and to the creation of a community dedicated to the pairing. Within two months of its creation, spock_uhura has had at least one major incident of racefail.  The mods then publicly apologized on behalf of the community to the person who'd gotten attacked, put together a post on how to prevent such things from happening again (and then on how to respond appropriately when they inevitably do), and generally serve as an example of how to be responsible human beings.

I swear.  If the anti-racism training they'd given us in school had been even 1/4 as sane and reasonable and reality-based as the stuff you can learn through fandom ...</user> This entry was originally posted at http://beatrice-otter.dreamwidth.org/134942.html. Please comment there using OpenID.