indecision: (Default)
I want to write an essay of sorts on how the Farscape episode "My Thee Crichtons" can be interpreted as a feminist retelling of the Star Trek (TOS) episode "The Enemy Within", with an excursion on the coding of John Crichton as (for want of a better word) 'the female', in contrast to Aeryn's hard edges and proclivity for blowing shit up.

(Here I would possibly link to an essay titled "Cold War Masculinity In The Early Work Of Kate Wilhelm" from Justine Larbalestier's anthology of feminist SF stories Daughters of Earth and maybe include some words about, heh heh, penetration from this essay and try to refrain from going on about (mind)rape and PTSD and so forth.)

Thing is, I would have to watch "The Enemy Within" again to confirm that Kirk's darker self is as masculine-coded as I remember and that this aspect of his personality is ultimately portrayed as essential to his command abilities, with his softer self (the 'female' part) being an afterthought to leadership skills. I might be making this up, I can't remember much of what happened other than Spock's awful smirk at the end, when he asks Yeoman Rand if she didn't enjoy it a little bit when the Captain's double was lying on top of her and pulling rank, har har rape sal;jslkdl;kdfdkf- FUCK YOU SPOCK

:-|

So, like I said, I'd have to rewatch that. But then Farscape comes along and celebrates empathy and self-sacrifice over cold logic and violence and is ridiculous and lovely and has muppets and teaches us about the values of family, oh so many essays waiting to be written about the notion of "family" in the Farscape verse. Only I can't write essays. But if I could I would write something alone these lines.
indecision: (Default)
things that surprise:

the unbelievable hotness of ben browder as john chricton in farscape. to the point where it's distracting - characters are talking and co-journaller and i are going "gnnnh his ARMS" or "gnnnh his ASS" or "gnnnh HIM". we're neither one of us quite sure what it is, besides the fact that ben browder has a sick body. possibly it's because so many tv shows have male leads that are extremely pretty but clearly never bother to actually build muscle?

but ANYWAY, we are enjoying season one so far, barring a few episodes. Jeremiah Chricton i'm looking at YOU. (when you think about the fact that they had to put a casting call out for people of brownish shades in order to film an episode about a primitive tribal race of ALIENS who were held back by some misguided Hynerian Emperor only to be rescued by your all-American blue eyed white boy and saw nothing, NOTHING wrong with that, it kind of makes your head want to go sploodey.) but also the first thirteen episodes were lovely, and after that, i am kind of bugged that suddenly it is all about John Saving The Day. which is just - he talks a lot, and he's the human face that we all automatically relate to, no matter how useless everyone calls him, but when they keep calling him useless and the writers keep having him save the day instead of having him constantly be made to answer for his numerous (offscreen i'm sure?) screw-ups, it gets tiring. i'm pretty sure i enjoyed it more when it was an ensemble cast and other people had conversations that didn't revolve around him.

note that all of the above is entirely forgivable simply because he is so hot and his body is entirely sick and either the casting was really good or ben browder made a really good decision to play chricton as low-key as he possibly could, considering, even when he's going insane, so it doesn't become too over the top when surrounded by such intense craziness, and just. there's a lot of good to outweigh the bad, is what i'm saying. and oh man if i recall correctly there are no more episodes like jeremiah chricton yes? okay i'm going to say yes.

no, yes. i remember. this show, i love this show.

and in conclusion: MOAR SLIME, PLZ.

cm

April 2010

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