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hestia8 And it's not a numbered/reaction list! It is a reaction though. Rant. Whatever.
So tonight BBC One had the first episode of Ripper Street, and I was pretty excited because Matthew MacFadyen's in it and, well, it's Matthew MacFadyen, your argument is invalid (as I have mentioned before, seeing him in The Way We Live Now was the reason I decided to watch Spooks, and we all know how that turned out). Jerome Flynn's in it as well, which is excellent.
The show's set in the aftermath of the Ripper murders, so I wasn't under any illusions about the subject matter. And yes, of course, the episode starts with a murdered woman being discovered. Fine. The problem was that apart from one woman - Matthew MacFadyen's wife - I don't think there was another woman in the show with lines who wasn't a prostitute/madam. In the episode as a whole, the women were either a) dead, b) involved in the sex trade and/or c) assaulted/beaten up.
That's quite an achievement for episode one of a series. It really does make you wonder where they can go next.
(annoyingly, there was enough to engage me - even putting MM aside for a moment - so I will be sticking with the show for now)
Judging by twitter, a lot of the reaction to this seems to have been 'oh, this, again, really?'. I know I've written about this myself. I know one of the sour notes of Spooks series 7 - Lucas having to meet someone in a lapdancing club - still pisses me off, given how completely gratuitous and unnecessary it was. I know it's the biggest problem I've got with Luther, as much as I love the show. I know it just keeps happening, again and again.
Women in crime shows, by and large, get to be the victims. That's not the whole problem (more on this in a moment), but a large part of it is that even as they're being abused/raped/murdered, they're being sexualised. Even as we're supposed to be disgusted with the killer, we've got the same point of view as them. We're looking at the (usually) attractive, undressed woman too. It's an attempt at having your cake and eating it, and sometimes it just feels like all screenwriters are baking from the same recipe.
And even if they're not in danger at that precise moment, in some crime dramas there's a fairly good chance a woman in a scene who doesn't have any lines will be in her underwear or topless. That episode of Spooks I've mentioned is not the only time I've seen an unnecessary scene in a lap dancing club. It happened in Hustle, for God's sake. HUSTLE. I've seen it in so many crime dramas, and it's never been anything but a jarring reminder that this show is not made for me. If women are watching, fine, but men are the expected, hoped-for, targeted audience.
This leads on to bigger problems. Firstly, women are underrepresented in drama anyway, but when most of your women onscreen are victims and/or prostitutes, it makes for uncomfortable viewing (to say the least). Secondly, it seems like these tropes are a shortcut for writers to label something as gritty/dark/realistic without having to try very hard. It's easy to put a woman in danger onscreen. There are no women in danger tropes that I've only seen once. Honest. They've all been done and done and done.
Thirdly, in an odd sort of way it blocks female characters from being part of the action. You can have women onscreen and keep them passive if they're the victims, so your show looks roughly equal in numbers but your men are still the ones who get to run around and get all the action and solve all the crimes.
Of course, I'm talking about this, but I'm part of the problem. People who watch crime shows are part of the problem. There's clearly an audience for these shows. I cannot tell you how much I love Luther, and how often I have rewatched it, and how I've left off watching things I really need to catch up on so I can rewatch it again, but some of the violence against women in the show honestly makes me feel ill. It upsets me. And yet, somehow, I keep watching. I watched three series of The Fixer, hating the attitude the show had towards women the entire time (in retrospect, it was not worth it). In general, I eat up crime shows with a spoon. Make a British crime show, stick it on TV, and I will probably watch it (I can think of two exceptions right now). I know the genre has these problems, and sometimes I know going into a show that these problems are going to come up onscreen very soon, but I still keep watching. I know I'm not the only one.
Most of the time, I can accept these problems are going to come up. I really do watch a lot of crime shows, so I'm used to it by now. But that gets wearing. In fact, I suspect I wrote pretty much this rant a few years ago and said pretty much that I was tired of this stuff. And now here I am again, and nothing's changed, and I just watched another show where the women were disposable.
Basically, I'm sick and tired of having to wade through this stuff just to get to the decent crime show behind it.
To end on something of a positive, these are some (British) crime shows which - as far as I remember - mostly avoid sexualisation of victims and/or have female authority characters: Scott and Bailey, Vera, Silent Witness (although I think there have been some iffy bits in recent series), Lewis, Hunted iirc, Spooks for the most part (occasional lapses), Line of Duty, New Tricks, The Shadow Line. Let me know if I've missed any because tbh my memory is hopeless.
(NB ITV comes out of that list quite well, which I didn't expect)
So tonight BBC One had the first episode of Ripper Street, and I was pretty excited because Matthew MacFadyen's in it and, well, it's Matthew MacFadyen, your argument is invalid (as I have mentioned before, seeing him in The Way We Live Now was the reason I decided to watch Spooks, and we all know how that turned out). Jerome Flynn's in it as well, which is excellent.
The show's set in the aftermath of the Ripper murders, so I wasn't under any illusions about the subject matter. And yes, of course, the episode starts with a murdered woman being discovered. Fine. The problem was that apart from one woman - Matthew MacFadyen's wife - I don't think there was another woman in the show with lines who wasn't a prostitute/madam. In the episode as a whole, the women were either a) dead, b) involved in the sex trade and/or c) assaulted/beaten up.
That's quite an achievement for episode one of a series. It really does make you wonder where they can go next.
(annoyingly, there was enough to engage me - even putting MM aside for a moment - so I will be sticking with the show for now)
Judging by twitter, a lot of the reaction to this seems to have been 'oh, this, again, really?'. I know I've written about this myself. I know one of the sour notes of Spooks series 7 - Lucas having to meet someone in a lapdancing club - still pisses me off, given how completely gratuitous and unnecessary it was. I know it's the biggest problem I've got with Luther, as much as I love the show. I know it just keeps happening, again and again.
Women in crime shows, by and large, get to be the victims. That's not the whole problem (more on this in a moment), but a large part of it is that even as they're being abused/raped/murdered, they're being sexualised. Even as we're supposed to be disgusted with the killer, we've got the same point of view as them. We're looking at the (usually) attractive, undressed woman too. It's an attempt at having your cake and eating it, and sometimes it just feels like all screenwriters are baking from the same recipe.
And even if they're not in danger at that precise moment, in some crime dramas there's a fairly good chance a woman in a scene who doesn't have any lines will be in her underwear or topless. That episode of Spooks I've mentioned is not the only time I've seen an unnecessary scene in a lap dancing club. It happened in Hustle, for God's sake. HUSTLE. I've seen it in so many crime dramas, and it's never been anything but a jarring reminder that this show is not made for me. If women are watching, fine, but men are the expected, hoped-for, targeted audience.
This leads on to bigger problems. Firstly, women are underrepresented in drama anyway, but when most of your women onscreen are victims and/or prostitutes, it makes for uncomfortable viewing (to say the least). Secondly, it seems like these tropes are a shortcut for writers to label something as gritty/dark/realistic without having to try very hard. It's easy to put a woman in danger onscreen. There are no women in danger tropes that I've only seen once. Honest. They've all been done and done and done.
Thirdly, in an odd sort of way it blocks female characters from being part of the action. You can have women onscreen and keep them passive if they're the victims, so your show looks roughly equal in numbers but your men are still the ones who get to run around and get all the action and solve all the crimes.
Of course, I'm talking about this, but I'm part of the problem. People who watch crime shows are part of the problem. There's clearly an audience for these shows. I cannot tell you how much I love Luther, and how often I have rewatched it, and how I've left off watching things I really need to catch up on so I can rewatch it again, but some of the violence against women in the show honestly makes me feel ill. It upsets me. And yet, somehow, I keep watching. I watched three series of The Fixer, hating the attitude the show had towards women the entire time (in retrospect, it was not worth it). In general, I eat up crime shows with a spoon. Make a British crime show, stick it on TV, and I will probably watch it (I can think of two exceptions right now). I know the genre has these problems, and sometimes I know going into a show that these problems are going to come up onscreen very soon, but I still keep watching. I know I'm not the only one.
Most of the time, I can accept these problems are going to come up. I really do watch a lot of crime shows, so I'm used to it by now. But that gets wearing. In fact, I suspect I wrote pretty much this rant a few years ago and said pretty much that I was tired of this stuff. And now here I am again, and nothing's changed, and I just watched another show where the women were disposable.
Basically, I'm sick and tired of having to wade through this stuff just to get to the decent crime show behind it.
To end on something of a positive, these are some (British) crime shows which - as far as I remember - mostly avoid sexualisation of victims and/or have female authority characters: Scott and Bailey, Vera, Silent Witness (although I think there have been some iffy bits in recent series), Lewis, Hunted iirc, Spooks for the most part (occasional lapses), Line of Duty, New Tricks, The Shadow Line. Let me know if I've missed any because tbh my memory is hopeless.
(NB ITV comes out of that list quite well, which I didn't expect)
