HIGHLA-L Digest - 17 Aug 2004 to 18 Aug 2004 (#2004-153)
Automatic digest processor (LISTSERV@lists.psu.edu)
Wed, 18 Aug 2004 22:00:23 -0400
There are 12 messages totalling 549 lines in this issue.
Topics of the day:
1. Double Jeopardy and Mary Sue (9)
2. Mary Sue, Slash, Whatever (3)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 17 Aug 2004 17:22:52 -1000
From: MacWestie <mac.westie@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: Double Jeopardy and Mary Sue
MacGeorge--
>>>I see the classic Mary Sue as a temporary character who is female,
perky, great hair, beautiful figure, smart, brave, funny (blah, blah,
blah), and who sees The Hero through very lust-colored glasses.>>>
Huh? Lord knows I'm no fanfic devotee, but I always though a Mary Sue was a
thinly-veiled version of the authoress--a character who awesomely managed to
save the day & get the guy. That's clearly not poor Renee.
MacGeorge--
>>>my point is that I think she was consciously written as though from
the point of view of the "average" female viewer *as the writers
believe that viewer sees herself*.>>>
Why do you thnk _that_? Was there anything in the DVD commentary to support
that idea? I've never read anything to that effect, from TPTB. I didn't
see Renee as average in fact or by design.
Wendy--
>>>Wendy(I'm sure Mary Sue and Slash are part of the same syndrome.)(Better
any other male, no matter how unlikely, boffs the Hero than any female get
close to him.)>>>
Exactly.
Marina--
> I mean, no one accuses
> men who like to watch f/f action of being weird or needy or perverted.
Raising a hand. That's exactly what it is. And, interesting choice of
words for you.
Wendy--
>>>I'd find a strong sexy beautiful intelligent woman who *didn't* want to
get into Duncan's pants to be a lot more unbelievable)(Unless she was
Canadian)>>>
Did we see ANY Canadian women on HL:TS? There must have been a few....
Nina
mac.westie@verizon.net
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 06:55:32 +0200
From: T'Mar <tmar@sifl.iid.co.za>
Subject: Re: Double Jeopardy and Mary Sue
>Marina--
>> I mean, no one accuses
>> men who like to watch f/f action of being weird or needy or perverted.
Nina:
>Raising a hand. That's exactly what it is. And, interesting choice of
>words for you.
Actually, I was quoting an article on slash. So you think men who like
the idea of women together *are* needy and perverted?
\\ "You've heard it said that living well is ||>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> //
// the best revenge? Au contraire - living || R I C H I E >> \\
\\ forever is the best revenge." - Lacroix ||>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> //
//==============tmar@sifl.iid.co.za============|| \\
\\=============Chief Flag Waver and Defender of Richie============//
"Why does everybody have to be an elf in fanfic, anyway? Like these
people don't have enough problems." - McSwain (The Fanfic Symposium)
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 10:25:19 -0400
From: Wendy Tillis <immortals_incorporated@cox.net>
Subject: Re: Double Jeopardy and Mary Sue
MacG says:
>But she wasn't a character. She was a caracature. She was incompetent,
>easily flustered and rattled, indecisive and had poor impulse control.
>This, in a criminal investigator?
Okay...gotcha.
You expected her to act like a real criminal investigator and found her incompetent and a caricature when she didn't. I expected her to act like a HL criminal investigator and just assumed she was competent because that's what she was suppose to be. No policeman or woman, no INTERPOL agent, no FBI agent ever shown on HL was competent in a real world sense. They all manage to miss obvious clues ..they all seem unable to conduct a simple interrogation...they all get flustered either by Duncan's charm, his cleverness, his ability to hide the truth - which is to say they all do whatever half-ass thing required by the plot. If the police in the HL world were actually competent, the secret of immortality would be in all the newspapers of the world. If they were decent investigators, multiple Immortals would be in jail as serial killers. If they were adept at seeing and following clues, Duncan wouldn't be the Hero, he'd be in prison. So...I long-ago stopped expecting any law enf!
orcement character to act in a competent manner. I take them at face value. We are told that Renee is a CID/FBI agent, I accept her as just that. To use her "incompetence" against her...to say that it makes her a "fan insertion" character isn't really fair unless you believe that all the other stupid policemen we've seen are also "fan insertion" characters.
As for her being flustered around MacLeod, I say...it's about time <G>. Out of all the women Duncan comes into contact with in 6 years, Renee is about the only one who gets seriously flustered. Does that make her a fan insertion character....or did the writers finally realize that at least some women find Duncan "flustering"? This is a drop-dead gorgeous man. Not only is he drop-dead gorgeous but he's charming, funny, warm, caring, intelligent, he can cook, etc. Most women *would* be flustered around him, especially if he spent as much time around them as he does Renee (you can't ignore the time they were together in "Unholy Alliance" when judging her reaction in DJ) . Is her reaction a "fan's" reaction or is it a realistic portrayal of a women around a really sexy guy? I have seen very professional women - ones that can do their jobs very very well - get flustered over a handsome man. They try to hide it, which often causes them to act worse than if they just admitted !
they were interested. (And let's not forget that intelligent sexy men get flustered around gorgeous women but it's acceptable for men to show their "appreciation" so they are less likely to stumble all over themselves trying *not* to show their appreciation)
I guess what I'm saying, at least in part, is that the fact that Renee acts like a "fan" - that is to say like a RL woman confronting a RL gorgeous man - doesn't turn her into a Mary Sue, or an avatar, or a fan insertion in my book. I wouldn't have wanted to watch women fawn all over Duncan all the time but I think it was reasonable to show at least one woman who found him distracting over the course of 118 episodes. Or...is that your point? That you would prefer characters that *don't* react like real people? I don't get it. A female character who acts too "real"..who gets flustered ...is unacceptable because she is obviously being used to show a "fan's" reaction. If, OTOH, the female character is cool, collected, sophisticated and shows no sign of being rattled by DMOTCM, someone would be complaining that she was a Mary Sue - the fan's ideal of how she would like to react around Duncan.
I whole-heartedly agree that Renee was a poor excuse for a *real life* CID agent. I'll agree that her reactions around Duncan were more reality than fiction. I'll even agree that I'd find Renee annoying in RL. I would continue to disagree that any of that relegates her to the status of a MS or a "fan insertion".
Wendy(I kind of miss LeBrun)(Talk about incompetent!)
Immortals Inc.
immortals_incorporated@cox.net
"Weasels for Eternity"
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 11:01:28 -0400
From: kageorge <kageorge@erols.com>
Subject: Re: Double Jeopardy and Mary Sue
Wendy Tillis wrote:
>MacG says:
>
>
>>But she wasn't a character. She was a caracature. She was incompetent,
>>easily flustered and rattled, indecisive and had poor impulse control.
>>This, in a criminal investigator?
>>
>>
>
>Okay...gotcha.
>
>You expected her to act like a real criminal investigator and found her incompetent and a caricature when she didn't. I expected her to act like a HL criminal investigator and just assumed she was competent because that's what she was suppose to be. No policeman or woman, no INTERPOL agent, no FBI agent ever shown on HL was competent in a real world sense. They all manage to miss obvious clues ..they all seem unable to conduct a simple interrogation...they all get flustered either by Duncan's charm, his cleverness, his ability to hide the truth - which is to say they all do whatever half-ass thing required by the plot. If the police in the HL world were actually competent, the secret of immortality would be in all the newspapers of the world. If they were decent investigators, multiple Immortals would be in jail as serial killers. If they were adept at seeing and following clues, Duncan wouldn't be the Hero, he'd be in prison. So...I long-ago stopped expecting any law en!
f!
> orcement character to act in a competent manner. I take them at face value. We are told that Renee is a CID/FBI agent, I accept her as just that. To use her "incompetence" against her...to say that it makes her a "fan insertion" character isn't really fair unless you believe that all the other stupid policemen we've seen are also "fan insertion" characters.
>
>
And I agree that HL (and just about every other investigator shown in
episodic television) is a bumbling incompetent who regularly skirts both
accepted procedure and sometimes the law in conducting their
investigations (I stopped watching The Sentinal because they were worse
than most shows about that, and I couldn't sustain much suspension of
disbelief). However, I would assert there are degrees of believability,
and Renee - from the moment she appears - surpasses all of them, and the
combination of (as I noted above) incompetence, emotional instability
and demonstrably poor impulse control pushed her well past character,
into caracture, even by the standards of HL or any other television program.
>As for her being flustered around MacLeod, I say...it's about time <G>. Out of all the women Duncan comes into contact with in 6 years, Renee is about the only one who gets seriously flustered. Does that make her a fan insertion character....or did the writers finally realize that at least some women find Duncan "flustering"? This is a drop-dead gorgeous man. Not only is he drop-dead gorgeous but he's charming, funny, warm, caring, intelligent, he can cook, etc. Most women *would* be flustered around him, especially if he spent as much time around them as he does Renee (you can't ignore the time they were together in "Unholy Alliance" when judging her reaction in DJ) . Is her reaction a "fan's" reaction or is it a realistic portrayal of a women around a really sexy guy? I have seen very professional women - ones that can do their jobs very very well - get flustered over a handsome man. They try to hide it, which often causes them to act worse than if they just admitted!
!
> they were interested. (And let's not forget that intelligent sexy men get flustered around gorgeous women but it's acceptable for men to show their "appreciation" so they are less likely to stumble all over themselves trying *not* to show their appreciation)
>
>
And here is where I just flat out disagree. Few of the truly
thoughtful, well-educated, competent women I've been around are so inept
at maintaining a composed facade that they become blithering idiots
around an attractive man - even a super-attractive male with all kinds
of other attributes. Yes, we all occassionally become tongue-tied in
the presence of someone we greatly admire, but in professional dealings,
any reasonably intelligent woman should be able to keep her cool,
*especiallly* someone alleged to be trained to deal with high-stress
situations. It is the combination of extreem unbelievability in her
so-called profession, plus her fannish dithering that combines to be so
*not* true to life as to convince me that she was the writers' version
of a fannish avatar - and a decidedly unflattering one, at that. While
they have certainly written some less-than-believable characters, they
usually at least made an effort to flesh out and humanize any character
with substantial interaction with Duncan. Renee seemed over-the-top
incompetent and over-the-top dithering to a degree that it de-humanized
her, instead. Perhaps it was a subconscious choice on their part, but
in my opinion, that is the origin of the character. It struck me that
way the first time I saw the show, and that impression remains to this day.
>I whole-heartedly agree that Renee was a poor excuse for a *real life* CID agent. I'll agree that her reactions around Duncan were more reality than fiction. I'll even agree that I'd find Renee annoying in RL. I would continue to disagree that any of that relegates her to the status of a MS or a "fan insertion".
>
>
Certainly no one is required, or even necessarily expected, to agree
with me on this or any other topic. <g>
MacG
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 16:19:34 +0100
From: "a.j.mosby" <a.j.mosby@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: Double Jeopardy and Mary Sue
I think the case is often not whether a writer has created a character they
based somewhat on themselves (all writers do that to some extent - and not
always obviously) It seems to be more the quality and depth of the character
they create.
Is he/she there simply to fawn over the character (and it's possible to have
a fawn-y character that isn't Mary-Sue'ish I guess, if there's a point to be
made about such attitude ). If the story seems to be more about how fawny
they are with no rhyme or reason or comment on such, it seems pretty wasted
as an idea and fairly sloppy writing.
I've always thought of a Mary-Sue as something that, despite itelf, simply
screams out from the page: 'I've put myself in the story'. It's the written
equivalent to the movie cameo. For instance there are times when director's
slip into their own movies quite successfully. Sometimes it's quite clever,
other times it lifts you out of the experience becuase they're doing
everythign but waving to the camera.
I'm fine with any novel/show where we get to see the 'hero' through eyes
other than our own, so inventing new characters is a perfectly valid idea to
do so. It's just the quality of the voice that seems to determine whether we
see it as opportunistic or valid. In the cases shown, I just wasn't that
interesetd in what the character brought to the story.
John
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 13:36:47 -0400
From: Wendy Tillis <immortals_incorporated@cox.net>
Subject: Re: Mary Sue, Slash, Whatever
Marina wrote:
> And you may be onto something viz.
>slash and Mary Sue. Any female character you bring in that the
>protagonist might fall for is accused of being a Mary Sue.
Of course. I'm onto something <g> (Or was that "on something"?)
> I tend not
>to even bother reading stories about OFCs. Bleagh
I have to admit I think that is kind of....sad. The Series, after all, was about (in part) a man who over the course of 6 years proved he loved women. A lot. So why eschew all fanfic that attempts to continue that story? It would be like saying you didn't read any HL fanfic where Duncan fought and beheaded anyone. Are you saying that no fanfic writer can create an OFC that is well written and, well, original? Or, in the end, does your appreciation of fanfic really come down to an appreciation of m/m sex? Using Methos and Duncan, for example, in these stories is just a way of having a good "visual" since you know exactly what they look like.
>Is it because no one accuses slash writers of doing Mary Sues? Who
>knows?
And yet *so* much slash is Mary Sue-ish in the extreme. The characters may be called Methos or Joe or Duncan or Richie but the "voice" is obviously a "female" voice - which is really the author's voice.
>I tend to go for the simple explanation:
>if one naked man is hot, two are doubly hot! I mean, no one accuses
>men who like to watch f/f action of being weird or needy or perverted.
>There's your double standard right there!
Hmmmm..I know we've discussed this before. Does a man who watches f/f action get turned on by the f/f or because he is imagining a f/m/f scenario with himself as the star? Does a woman who watches m/m action imagine herself in a m/f/m scenario? Or does the woman imagine herself in the place of one of the two guys? I seriously doubt that most men who watch f/f ever fantasize about themselves *as* one of the two women - they see themselves *with* the two women.
For myself, I would agree that if one man is hot, two are doubly hot *until* they start buggering each other. When I read about Duncan bedding Methos (or Sam /Frodo or Fraser/Ray etc) I never think "Wow, wouldn't I like to be right there with them". I generally think "Well, if that's what turns them on, I'm outta here".
As always, your kink may vary.
Wendy(LOTR slash is just plain wrong no matter what.)
Immortals Inc.
immortals_incorporated@cox.net
"Weasels for Eternity"
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 10:03:31 -1000
From: MacWestie <mac.westie@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: Double Jeopardy and Mary Sue
> >Marina--
> >> I mean, no one accuses
> >> men who like to watch f/f action of being weird or needy or perverted.
> Nina:
> >Raising a hand. That's exactly what it is. And, interesting choice of
> >words for you.
Marina--
> Actually, I was quoting an article on slash.
Still--the truth will out.
>So you think men who like
> the idea of women together *are* needy and perverted?
Don't forget weird. And don't water it down to "like the idea of." We were
talking about men getting off watching women together.
Wendy (to Marina)--
>>>I have to admit I think that is kind of....sad. The Series, after all,
was about (in part) a man who over the course of 6 years proved he loved
women. A lot. So why eschew all fanfic that attempts to continue that story?
It would be like saying you didn't read any HL fanfic where Duncan fought
and beheaded anyone. Are you saying that no fanfic writer can create an OFC
that is well written and, well, original? Or, in the end, does your
appreciation of fanfic really come down to an appreciation of m/m sex?
Using Methos and Duncan, for example, in these stories is just a way of
having a good "visual" since you know exactly what they look like.>>>
Yes--oddly enough, they look exactly like PW & AP. Which must make them &
their loved ones SO proud whenever they happen to stumble onto slash online.
Slash seems to function (for its devoted readers as well as its writers) as
a stand-in for actual relationships, intimacy, & sexual relations. People
who wouldn't _dream_ of going to porn sites regularly download slash. I
suppose it is the ultimate in "safe sex" but it can't be emotionally
healthy. Personally, I think slash casts an unpleasant pall on the HL
fandom right up there w/ that red fog, the BKCs, & the HL Store.
Nina
mac.westie@verizon.net
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 17:20:51 -0400
From: Sandy Fields <diamonique@comcast.net>
Subject: Re: Double Jeopardy and Mary Sue
At 11:22 PM 8/17/2004, MacWestie wrote:
>Did we see ANY Canadian women on HL:TS? There must have been a few....
Felicia seemed rather.. um... butch to me. <eg>
-- Sandy
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 16:35:47 -0500
From: Taarna <taarna@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: Double Jeopardy and Mary Sue
> At 11:22 PM 8/17/2004, MacWestie wrote:
> >Did we see ANY Canadian women on HL:TS? There must have been a few....
>
> Felicia seemed rather.. um... butch to me. <eg>
>
> -- Sandy
I remember the first time I saw that episode, I was sure that was a man in
drag!
Beth
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 23:52:16 +0200
From: T'Mar <tmar@sifl.iid.co.za>
Subject: Re: Mary Sue, Slash, Whatever
Wendy wrote:
>Of course. I'm onto something <g> (Or was that "on something"?)
Probably a bit of both. Like most of us. :)
>I have to admit I think that is kind of....sad. The Series, after all,
>was about (in part) a man who over the course of 6 years proved he loved
>women. A lot. So why eschew all fanfic that attempts to continue that story?
Okay, I'm trying to be serious here so hear me out. I dislike fanfic with
OFCs - and I *have* read enough to know - because quite often the fanfic
ends up being more about the OFC than the characters from the show. I do
not *care* about some OFC, I want to read about Duncan, Richie, Methos
and Joe. (Not all together, geez - I mean as characters.) I guess it's
like a one-shot guest star. So Duncan whacks him in the end, so what?
>Are you saying that no fanfic writer can create an OFC that is well written
>and, well, original?
They are just very rare. Stories that feature OFCs usually turn into sappy
romances or long, drawn-out courtship rituals. If someone could get an
OFC into a story that also featured Duncan and the gang acting like, well,
Duncan and the gang, then I might like it. But I don't want the OFC to
dominate the story, which they almost always do.
>Or, in the end, does your appreciation of fanfic really come down to
>an appreciation of m/m sex? Using Methos and Duncan, for example, in
>these stories is just a way of having a good "visual" since you know
>exactly what they look like.
Said it before, will say it again: I don't care about the sex per se.
I enjoy the way that slash takes the characters in a new direction.
A writer who can slash characters and still have them be recognizable
as the characters from the TV series is, IMNSHO, a good writer. Many
people would disagree and say that by virtue of it being slash, they're
not recognizable, yadda yadda. I say, *whatever*. It's fanfic. It might
be good, it might be enjoyable. It will never win the Nobel Prize for
literature, so who gives a damn? I enjoy discussing it, but some people
get so upset about it that it that I wonder if they realize *they* look
like the slash-obsessed ones.
>And yet *so* much slash is Mary Sue-ish in the extreme. The characters
>may be called Methos or Joe or Duncan or Richie but the "voice" is
>obviously a "female" voice - which is really the author's voice.
I don't think so, at least not in HL fanfic. But in things like Sentinel -
oh, yeah.
>Hmmmm..I know we've discussed this before. Does a man who watches f/f
>action get turned on by the f/f or because he is imagining a f/m/f
>scenario with himself as the star?
Hmmm... a Duncan and Methos sandwich... I could imagine myself in there...
>Does a woman who watches m/m action imagine herself in a m/f/m scenario?
>Or does the woman imagine herself in the place of one of the two guys?
I don't. Maybe I'm a voyeur (and Nina already thinks I'm mentally unstable,
so why not admit to being a voyeur) but I like to watch. Read. Whatever.
>For myself, I would agree that if one man is hot, two are doubly hot
>*until* they start buggering each other.
That's when I think it just starts being hot.
>(LOTR slash is just plain wrong no matter what.)
Well... yeah.
Nina wrote:
>Slash seems to function (for its devoted readers as well as its writers)
>as a stand-in for actual relationships, intimacy, & sexual relations.
Most slash writers and readers I know are happily married women. Okay,
their husbands don't get why they like slash, but that's not unusual.
I've never heard of a couple getting divorced because the wife liked
slash.
>People who wouldn't _dream_ of going to porn sites regularly download
>slash.
Not me. I'll happily admit to going to porn sites. What difference does
it make? I'm an adult; I can watch/read/write porn if I like. And I'm
not going to argue that slash isn't porn. It's a slightly different
flavour of porn. So what? It's like writers who write slash but
continually have the characters say, "But I'm not gay, I just love
him." Honey, if two guys are doing it in graphic detail and loving
every second, ten to one they're not straight. So when they say,
"It's erotica, not porn," I'm like, if you wrote in graphic detail
whose genitalia went where, it's porn. But so what? It's insignificant
compared to some of the issues we have to deal with these days.
>Personally, I think slash casts an unpleasant pall on the HL
>fandom right up there w/ that red fog, the BKCs, & the HL Store.
Every fandom I've ever been in, with one exception, has had some
unpleasantness. Whether it's been people fighting over slash, stabbing
each other in the back to get near a celebrity, sending nasties in the
mail to fans who liked the wrong character, *whatever*. People who
join fandom thinking they've just met a thousand like-minded souls
who will become their "list family" and "best friends" are living in
cloud-cuckoo land.
- Marina.
\\"You can spend precious time marching in your prefect lines,//
// but I don't hear that drum; I'm looking for something else.\\
\\ And if you don't like what you see, you don't have to look //
// at me." - Melissa Etheridge ||=====tmar@sifl.iid.co.za=====\\
\\==========Chief Flag Waver and Defender of Richie===========//
"You know, Kent, it's always been my policy to back my reporters one
thousand percent. I mean, if you went up there and opened those
windows and told me that you could fly, I'd back you up. I'd miss
you, but I'd back you up." - Perry White; Lois & Clark.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 23:53:34 +0200
From: T'Mar <tmar@sifl.iid.co.za>
Subject: Re: Double Jeopardy and Mary Sue
>>Did we see ANY Canadian women on HL:TS? There must have been a few....
>Felicia seemed rather.. um... butch to me. <eg>
But she did boink Richie.
Um, never mind. <g>
- Marina.
\\"You can spend precious time marching in your prefect lines,//
// but I don't hear that drum; I'm looking for something else.\\
\\ And if you don't like what you see, you don't have to look //
// at me." - Melissa Etheridge ||=====tmar@sifl.iid.co.za=====\\
\\==========Chief Flag Waver and Defender of Richie===========//
"You know, Kent, it's always been my policy to back my reporters one
thousand percent. I mean, if you went up there and opened those
windows and told me that you could fly, I'd back you up. I'd miss
you, but I'd back you up." - Perry White; Lois & Clark.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 14:24:33 -1000
From: MacWestie <mac.westie@verizon.net>
Subject: Re: Mary Sue, Slash, Whatever
me before--
>Did we see ANY Canadian women on HL:TS? There must have been a few....
Sandy--
>Felicia seemed rather.. um... butch to me. <eg>
True. Poor Richie....
Wendy--
> >Or, in the end, does your appreciation of fanfic really come down to
> >an appreciation of m/m sex?
Marina--
> Said it before, will say it again: I don't care about the sex per se.
Well, you can keep saying it all you like, & you may actually believe it,
but I don't buy it. Slash is ALL about the sex. Unlike most other fanfic,
slash isn't even really about the underlying fictional universe or the
familiar characters; instead, it uses the most controversial possible way to
change that universe & reverse those characters--by flipping their
well-established sexual orientations. D/M stories are not about
Highlander--they are about m/m sex. As for those folks who habitually read
or write slash & ONLY slash--oh, yeah--it's about the sex.
> And I'm
> not going to argue that slash isn't porn.
So, you admit slash is porn, but you insist you don't read slash for the
sex.... Isn't that like the guys saying they read Playboy for the
articles--not the naked pics?
Nina
mac.westie@verizon.net
------------------------------
End of HIGHLA-L Digest - 17 Aug 2004 to 18 Aug 2004 (#2004-153)
***************************************************************