Not too long ago, I finally watched the final season of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. After a rather disappointing sixth season, I was glad to see that the final season was much better. However, there is one issue that bothered me about this season, and that's the relationship between Kenedy and Willow.
The problem I had with it was that it never really felt like a reeal dynamic relationship, flowing from who the characters are. I know I am drawing up double standards when I ask such a thing of a relationship in Buffy, but don't necessarily ask the same thing of a relationship in another show, but I feel it's justified. After all, all other relationships in Buffy did flow from the characters. Shows that perform better in a specific aspect, should be held to a higher standard in that aspect. Shows that perform better in many aspects, should be held to a higher standard in all of those aspects.
I had my suspicions that she was shoe-horned in to cement the fact that Willow was gay, even without Tara, when I saw the relationship on the screen. I've never thought that she was 100% gay, considering her meaningful relationship with Oz and her feelings towards Xander in the early seasons. Still, the very choice to keep her interested in girls wasn't the problem, really. It was more the way it was done (adding in this relationship basically just for that purpose) and why it was done.
At least, what Joss Whedon said was the reason for this. I believe it was in an interview with a gay magazine that he said about her having a relationship with a man post-Tara "We do that now, and we will be burned alive. And possibly justifiably.
We can't have Willow say, 'Oh, cured now, I can go back to cock!' Willow
is not going to be straddling that particular fence. She will just be
gay." I have a lot of respect for this man and his works, but this just really annoys me. I suppose it's the lack of understanding about gay-ness, though.
I am straight myself. What I take that to mean is that so far, I haven't been truly attracted to another male. However, I am rather open-minded and I know quite a number of gay people. In that, I have found that the number of words we have comes up short. We have a "white" (gay), a "black" (straight) and perhaps a single shade of grey (bi). The reality, though, has a near infinite number of shades of grey (more than 50 anyway).
There's probably a lot of people who consider themselves straight, but do in fact feel somewhat attracted to the same sex, but don't act on that for various reasons (such as, the attraction being rather minor, being told that such attractions are bad, or even just not realizing such attractions can be of a romantic nature). The same is probably true when you take gay as the base-line. However, in those cases the gay people generally did more exploring of their sexual orientation and they are already facing much more social stigma, which I think leads to such feelings less often being repressed.
In fact, I know two lesbian girls who have each been in a relationship with a single guy (well, each with a different guy, but neither with more than one guy). And I'm not talking before they came out or realized their sexual orientation, but after. One of the two has even gotten together with the same guy a couple of times after their relationship (when neither was in a relationship). I really wouldn't say it makes either of them "not lesbian", I'd say it makes them able to think outside the lack of terms we have for the issue.
That's sort of what I felt Willow was like. I didn't know where exactly she fell in the range from "straight but into Tara" to "interested mainly in girls, but into some guys as well", but I did feel she was somewhere in that range. She fell in love and developed this relationship with Tara even before she realized that she could fall for girls. That's why I feel that after Tara's death she could have dated guys again. Of course, it wouldn't have been diving straight into bed with the first guy she met, but rather a path of finding out what her exact orientation was, and then maybe dating a guy again. I've also felt that that guy could have been Xander, but that, I suppose, was primarily wishful thinking.
Of course, in the show there were plenty of references to Willow being gay prior to her relationship with Kennedy. These ranged from Faith (while in Buffy's body) stating that "Willow's not driving stick anymore" to Willow trying to turn a guy into a woman after she's fallen in love with him because of a spell. However, most of these examples weren't by Willow herself and when they were, they generally were at a time when it didn't really matter, as she was with Tara. For those reasons, I've thought of those things as the characters thinking in the black and white terms of gay and straight. However, in the end, it was in fact the writers who thought in those terms. After all, how can one ever justify a straight relationship again after having had a gay one?
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Zwarte Piet is geen Racisme
I generally don't write in Dutch - I think this might be the first time - but today the topic just requires me to do so. If I were to write this in English, I would be struggling with either poor translations or dutch terms all the time. And besides, it's about a Dutch cultural thing anyway, if you're not Dutch it probably won't be clear unless I add a bunch of explanation and even if I did, there's a good chance you still don't care.
Gister las ik een artikel van de beweging "Zwarte Piet is racisme". Ik kwam de beweging via Facebook tegen. Ik wist dat deze discussie een paar jaar geleden was gevoerd, maar ik had niet het idee dat dit nog steeds iets was. Daarnaast had de context weinig te maken met deze naam. Om dan toch maar eens te kijken of dit nou serieus was ben ik toen maar eens op zoek gegaan naar de website die hierbij hoorde.
De website was niet bepaald duidelijk en het artikel dat het meest in het oog sprong was er één over een gedeelte van deze actie die de harde kern van de beweging dan weer te commercieel vond. Vervolgens was er ook een artikel over iemand die een stuk schreef hoe beledigend zwarte piet wel niet was.
Ik vind het idee dat zwarte piet racisme zou zijn echt onzin. Klinkklare onzin. Het probleem is dat ik nog geen enkele sluitende reden heb gehoord waarom dit dan wel niet zo zou zijn. Mocht iemand mij een goede reden weten te vertellen dan zal ik mijn mening bijstellen. Tot die tijd, vind ik het onzin.
Een betoog over dit onderwerp begint eigenlijk altijd bij de geschiedenis. Immers, de Zwarte Pieten moeten toch echt ooit gewoon als slaven zijn begonnen. Dit mag dan zo zijn, maar dit heeft erg weinig te maken met het huidige feest en de huidige karakters die met de Pieten worden neergezet. Racisme gaat niet over de oorsprong van een traditie, maar is iets dat zich in het heden afspeelt en wat voor een effect het nu heeft.
De andere kant is juist dat Zwarte Piet een zeer positief gevoel opwekt. Een enkeling zal misschien bang worden van het feit dat deze mannen zomaar je huis binnen kunnen komen, maar over het algemeen zijn kinderen blij met deze brengers van cadeaus en snoepgoed. Daarnaast worden de Pieten meestal (onder andere door de media) als knullig neergezet, maar ik denk echt niet dat kinderen hierin een Zwarte Piet door de war zullen halen met een ander persoon met donkere huidskleur.
Het verhaal ging verder over hoe iemand Zwarte Piet was genoemd en dat erg vervelend vond. Dit hielp mij om te begrijpen waar dit hele idee vandaan komt, maar ik ben wel van mening dat iemand die dit als reden ziet waarom Zwarte Piet niet (alleen) meer zwart mag zijn niet heeft begrepen waar het probleem in deze situatie lag.
Er zijn twee mogelijkheden. De eerste is dat dit met opzet was en dus bedoeld was om de persoon in kwestie te kwetsen. Als hier het woord Zwarte Piet niet had bestaan, dan was hier wel een ander woord gebruikt, en dan was het waarschijnlijk een kwetsender woord geweest, aangezien de meeste kwetsende woorden niet zijn verbonden met het beeld van snoep en cadeaus. Het probleem is hier niet Zwarte Piet, maar racisme. Zwarte Piet is een vervangbaar stuk gereedschap dat wordt gebruikt, maar met het weghalen van dit gereedschap wordt er niks aan het probleem gedaan.
De andere mogelijkheid is dat het niet kwetsend was bedoeld, maar wel zo is overgekomen. Zwarte Piet gaf hier misschien een mogelijkheid tot deze situatie en het was hier niet voorgevallen als hij een andere kleur had gehad, maar uiteindelijk is dit gewoon een situatie die soms voorkomt en niet inherent met Zwarte Piet te maken heeft. Soms gebruikt iemand een term voor iemand anders die niet vervelend is bedoeld, maar die de ander wel vervelend vindt. Het echte probleem hier is de communicatie. Als deze persoon communiceert dat hij of zij het vervelend vindt om zo genoemd te worden, dan zal de ander daarmee ophouden (of terugkomen bij het eerste geval, waarbij we al hebben gezien dat Zwarte Piet niet het kwaad is). Dat deze persoon eenmaal Zwarte Piet is genoemd is vervelend, maar zulke dingen gebeuren nou eenmaal.
Het enige wat nog enigszins overblijft is het beeld van slavernij dat mensen krijgen wanneer ze de intocht of andere beelden van het Sinterklaasfeest zien. Echter, ik denk eigenlijk niet dat er nou daadwerkelijk zoveel Nederlanders zijn die dit idee hierbij krijgen. Het grootste deel van de Nederlanders is immers met dit feest opgegroeid. Voor de mensen die hier op latere leeftijd zijn komen wonen is het misschien even wennen de eerste keer, maar daarna zullen ze zich toch over dit gevoel heen moeten kunnen zetten. Mensen die dat niet kunnen zullen het erg lastig krijgen in het leven aangezien ze wel vaker dingen zullen tegenkomen die ze niet fijn of zelfs kwetsend vinden. Daarnaast vind ik ook dat mensen die naar Nederland verhuizen zich wel enigszins aan de Nederlandse cultuur mogen aanpassen. Tot slot zien buitenlanders dit feest vaak als racistisch, maar dat is niet echt aan de orde, want mensen die het feest niet vieren hebben er ook simpelweg niks mee te maken.
Eigenlijk heb ik zelf maar een enkel argument om Zwarte Piet niet te laten veranderen. Dat is dat het een traditie is. Het zou jammer zijn van de vele liedjes (en van de kinderen die hierdoor hun geloof in Sinterklaas verliezen, maar dat is een compleet ander verhaal en niet een reden om dit niet te veranderen) en het zou simpelweg een enorm geforceerde verandering in een volksfeest van het hele land zijn.
Ik zal meteen toegeven dat de reden tegen de verandering niet de sterkste reden ooit is. Maar, aangezien ik nog geen enkele reden heb gehoord waarom dit racisme is en daarmee waarom Zwarte Pieten niet zouden mogen, is het meer dan genoeg om mijn mening te winnen. En overigens, je moet niet gaan veranderen simpelweg om het veranderen.
Gister las ik een artikel van de beweging "Zwarte Piet is racisme". Ik kwam de beweging via Facebook tegen. Ik wist dat deze discussie een paar jaar geleden was gevoerd, maar ik had niet het idee dat dit nog steeds iets was. Daarnaast had de context weinig te maken met deze naam. Om dan toch maar eens te kijken of dit nou serieus was ben ik toen maar eens op zoek gegaan naar de website die hierbij hoorde.
De website was niet bepaald duidelijk en het artikel dat het meest in het oog sprong was er één over een gedeelte van deze actie die de harde kern van de beweging dan weer te commercieel vond. Vervolgens was er ook een artikel over iemand die een stuk schreef hoe beledigend zwarte piet wel niet was.
Ik vind het idee dat zwarte piet racisme zou zijn echt onzin. Klinkklare onzin. Het probleem is dat ik nog geen enkele sluitende reden heb gehoord waarom dit dan wel niet zo zou zijn. Mocht iemand mij een goede reden weten te vertellen dan zal ik mijn mening bijstellen. Tot die tijd, vind ik het onzin.
Een betoog over dit onderwerp begint eigenlijk altijd bij de geschiedenis. Immers, de Zwarte Pieten moeten toch echt ooit gewoon als slaven zijn begonnen. Dit mag dan zo zijn, maar dit heeft erg weinig te maken met het huidige feest en de huidige karakters die met de Pieten worden neergezet. Racisme gaat niet over de oorsprong van een traditie, maar is iets dat zich in het heden afspeelt en wat voor een effect het nu heeft.
De andere kant is juist dat Zwarte Piet een zeer positief gevoel opwekt. Een enkeling zal misschien bang worden van het feit dat deze mannen zomaar je huis binnen kunnen komen, maar over het algemeen zijn kinderen blij met deze brengers van cadeaus en snoepgoed. Daarnaast worden de Pieten meestal (onder andere door de media) als knullig neergezet, maar ik denk echt niet dat kinderen hierin een Zwarte Piet door de war zullen halen met een ander persoon met donkere huidskleur.
Het verhaal ging verder over hoe iemand Zwarte Piet was genoemd en dat erg vervelend vond. Dit hielp mij om te begrijpen waar dit hele idee vandaan komt, maar ik ben wel van mening dat iemand die dit als reden ziet waarom Zwarte Piet niet (alleen) meer zwart mag zijn niet heeft begrepen waar het probleem in deze situatie lag.
Er zijn twee mogelijkheden. De eerste is dat dit met opzet was en dus bedoeld was om de persoon in kwestie te kwetsen. Als hier het woord Zwarte Piet niet had bestaan, dan was hier wel een ander woord gebruikt, en dan was het waarschijnlijk een kwetsender woord geweest, aangezien de meeste kwetsende woorden niet zijn verbonden met het beeld van snoep en cadeaus. Het probleem is hier niet Zwarte Piet, maar racisme. Zwarte Piet is een vervangbaar stuk gereedschap dat wordt gebruikt, maar met het weghalen van dit gereedschap wordt er niks aan het probleem gedaan.
De andere mogelijkheid is dat het niet kwetsend was bedoeld, maar wel zo is overgekomen. Zwarte Piet gaf hier misschien een mogelijkheid tot deze situatie en het was hier niet voorgevallen als hij een andere kleur had gehad, maar uiteindelijk is dit gewoon een situatie die soms voorkomt en niet inherent met Zwarte Piet te maken heeft. Soms gebruikt iemand een term voor iemand anders die niet vervelend is bedoeld, maar die de ander wel vervelend vindt. Het echte probleem hier is de communicatie. Als deze persoon communiceert dat hij of zij het vervelend vindt om zo genoemd te worden, dan zal de ander daarmee ophouden (of terugkomen bij het eerste geval, waarbij we al hebben gezien dat Zwarte Piet niet het kwaad is). Dat deze persoon eenmaal Zwarte Piet is genoemd is vervelend, maar zulke dingen gebeuren nou eenmaal.
Het enige wat nog enigszins overblijft is het beeld van slavernij dat mensen krijgen wanneer ze de intocht of andere beelden van het Sinterklaasfeest zien. Echter, ik denk eigenlijk niet dat er nou daadwerkelijk zoveel Nederlanders zijn die dit idee hierbij krijgen. Het grootste deel van de Nederlanders is immers met dit feest opgegroeid. Voor de mensen die hier op latere leeftijd zijn komen wonen is het misschien even wennen de eerste keer, maar daarna zullen ze zich toch over dit gevoel heen moeten kunnen zetten. Mensen die dat niet kunnen zullen het erg lastig krijgen in het leven aangezien ze wel vaker dingen zullen tegenkomen die ze niet fijn of zelfs kwetsend vinden. Daarnaast vind ik ook dat mensen die naar Nederland verhuizen zich wel enigszins aan de Nederlandse cultuur mogen aanpassen. Tot slot zien buitenlanders dit feest vaak als racistisch, maar dat is niet echt aan de orde, want mensen die het feest niet vieren hebben er ook simpelweg niks mee te maken.
Eigenlijk heb ik zelf maar een enkel argument om Zwarte Piet niet te laten veranderen. Dat is dat het een traditie is. Het zou jammer zijn van de vele liedjes (en van de kinderen die hierdoor hun geloof in Sinterklaas verliezen, maar dat is een compleet ander verhaal en niet een reden om dit niet te veranderen) en het zou simpelweg een enorm geforceerde verandering in een volksfeest van het hele land zijn.
Ik zal meteen toegeven dat de reden tegen de verandering niet de sterkste reden ooit is. Maar, aangezien ik nog geen enkele reden heb gehoord waarom dit racisme is en daarmee waarom Zwarte Pieten niet zouden mogen, is het meer dan genoeg om mijn mening te winnen. En overigens, je moet niet gaan veranderen simpelweg om het veranderen.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Babylon S5: The Claudia Christian Story
Long time no see! I haven't posted in a while but today I felt like
writing a blog post. This time I'll write about the series I have
recently watched: Babylon 5.
In fact, I am going to give my view on the departure of Claudia Christian from the series. It's an interesting story because JMS (the show's creator) has always been active on the internet, even though the internet was in its infancy when he was making this series.
Because of this, different parties gave their side of the story, which has conveniently been archived here: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/misc/cc-leave.html. It clearly wasn't an amicable break, but the question just what happened still remains. Today, I'm going to tell what I think happened. It's been quite some time, but I've just watched the series and just want to write down my thoughts about this all.
Before I begin, though, I want to say that if anyone involved ends up reading this (and I'd be honored) I don't want them to feel offended, I'm just doing my personal speculation here and I don't by any means think I'm right. With that out of the way, let's just get started.
In the end, what I think happened was a case of miscommunication. JMS believed it wasn't, but I think he was looking in the wrong place. He was looking at the communication between Claudia and himself (and the other cast members). I think the main miscommunication was in a different place, and because people weren't aware of that, things that seemed like they had to be very clear involved some miscommunication.
One of the things that caught my eye on that page is how JMS's first post doesn't mention the fewer episodes debacle, as it was not an issue to him. Then, Christian tells about wanting to do fewer episodes and only after that Straczynski talks about the whole issue. It is later yet that he digs up another piece of information: her wanting to get paid for the episodes she didn't do.
The first thing to note here is that JMS was offended by Christian not finding his promise enough to go on; I don't believe JMS is a kind person when he's offended. The second part is that Christian's agent got a negative on doing less episodes (she was very adamant about not doing such calls herself). I am assuming that both are telling the truth, and under that assumption, it seems it wasn't Christian but her agent who made the demand for her to be paid for episodes she wasn't in. It's sour to single someone out like that, but it seems the logical thing if the people posting in the newsgroups were telling the truth.
Of course, long before that there was already was the fact they were going to cable (TNT) and the actors were on the short end of the smaller budget that entailed. I think this was what caused Christian not to extend the contract option earlier on. It also seeded the first of the ill will on her part. Clearly, Straczynski wasn't aware of just how much the actors were giving up until halfway through the specific thread.
Then there's another point that jumps out: JMS says the deadline was very clear, whereas Christian claimed not to be aware of it at all. One of the reasons JMS believed it was completely clear was because he told her so himself at a convention. I'd speculate, though, that she didn't make much of this because she felt that a deadline is something her agent should be contacted about, so she didn't think of it as an official deadline, but as just a line drawn by JMS. She stepped on his toes yet again, and the goodwill was being sucked out of the situation very fast. Straczynski counters by saying that her agent was contacted well in time. Again, if I assume both are speaking the truth, I can only assume that her agent didn't do his job and didn't let her know about this.
Then, Jeff Conaway visited Claudia the Monday after the deadline. Because the deadline had now passed, he was probably very clear about the fact that this was a deadline set by the studio. However, since Christian hadn't heard of it from her agent and hadn't understood that from Straczynski, this was the first time she was really aware of this deadline. That's why she mentioned this as the only time she had been told about the deadline.
There was one more important thing that I can't skip over: Christian doing other work. I don't this is a direct cause for all the trouble that led to her not being in the last season of Babylon 5, but I think it has several tangents with it all the same. From what she wrote, I think Christian was approached for other roles, she hadn't been actively looking for them. It may have been a part of the reason why she didn't give the earlier contract extension. It probably was also the reason why she was looking for a way not to do all episodes. Finally, this was probably also what the rumor mill turned into "her looking around for other work", which was an important thing in the relationships between the different people involved getting strained.
In the end, I think the situation was just not a simple one and there were some problems cropping up, but the one who really dropped the ball was Christian's agent, though. However, I'm just an uninformed kid doing guesswork and making assumptions.
The note I want to end on, is a more positive one. It's the character that filled the void left behind by the lack of Ivanova: Captain Lochley. While one may say this was a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, I personally agree with JMS, she was a different character, had her own story rather than taking over Ivanova's and fit the role to fill quite well. The hard thing here is that in both one-on-one replacements he did, the position in the military structure was a very large of what defined the character, meaning that they would automatically become quite similar.
Anyway, as I was going to say, in a way it is ironic that Christian's replacement only did a few episodes after her departure had at least something to do with her wanting to do less episodes. However, I actually think it was a really good move to have Lochley in so few episodes. Because of this, it didn't feel like she was shoehorned in or that we were being told to care about her, but instead as a natural progression of the situation. As a hole left in the military structure being filled by the folks back home, which wasn't a main cast member, so didn't get the center stage.
3/1/2016: I cleaned up some spelling mistakes and improved some sentences to be clearer, as this was rather poorly written.
In fact, I am going to give my view on the departure of Claudia Christian from the series. It's an interesting story because JMS (the show's creator) has always been active on the internet, even though the internet was in its infancy when he was making this series.
Because of this, different parties gave their side of the story, which has conveniently been archived here: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/misc/cc-leave.html. It clearly wasn't an amicable break, but the question just what happened still remains. Today, I'm going to tell what I think happened. It's been quite some time, but I've just watched the series and just want to write down my thoughts about this all.
Before I begin, though, I want to say that if anyone involved ends up reading this (and I'd be honored) I don't want them to feel offended, I'm just doing my personal speculation here and I don't by any means think I'm right. With that out of the way, let's just get started.
In the end, what I think happened was a case of miscommunication. JMS believed it wasn't, but I think he was looking in the wrong place. He was looking at the communication between Claudia and himself (and the other cast members). I think the main miscommunication was in a different place, and because people weren't aware of that, things that seemed like they had to be very clear involved some miscommunication.
One of the things that caught my eye on that page is how JMS's first post doesn't mention the fewer episodes debacle, as it was not an issue to him. Then, Christian tells about wanting to do fewer episodes and only after that Straczynski talks about the whole issue. It is later yet that he digs up another piece of information: her wanting to get paid for the episodes she didn't do.
The first thing to note here is that JMS was offended by Christian not finding his promise enough to go on; I don't believe JMS is a kind person when he's offended. The second part is that Christian's agent got a negative on doing less episodes (she was very adamant about not doing such calls herself). I am assuming that both are telling the truth, and under that assumption, it seems it wasn't Christian but her agent who made the demand for her to be paid for episodes she wasn't in. It's sour to single someone out like that, but it seems the logical thing if the people posting in the newsgroups were telling the truth.
Of course, long before that there was already was the fact they were going to cable (TNT) and the actors were on the short end of the smaller budget that entailed. I think this was what caused Christian not to extend the contract option earlier on. It also seeded the first of the ill will on her part. Clearly, Straczynski wasn't aware of just how much the actors were giving up until halfway through the specific thread.
Then there's another point that jumps out: JMS says the deadline was very clear, whereas Christian claimed not to be aware of it at all. One of the reasons JMS believed it was completely clear was because he told her so himself at a convention. I'd speculate, though, that she didn't make much of this because she felt that a deadline is something her agent should be contacted about, so she didn't think of it as an official deadline, but as just a line drawn by JMS. She stepped on his toes yet again, and the goodwill was being sucked out of the situation very fast. Straczynski counters by saying that her agent was contacted well in time. Again, if I assume both are speaking the truth, I can only assume that her agent didn't do his job and didn't let her know about this.
Then, Jeff Conaway visited Claudia the Monday after the deadline. Because the deadline had now passed, he was probably very clear about the fact that this was a deadline set by the studio. However, since Christian hadn't heard of it from her agent and hadn't understood that from Straczynski, this was the first time she was really aware of this deadline. That's why she mentioned this as the only time she had been told about the deadline.
There was one more important thing that I can't skip over: Christian doing other work. I don't this is a direct cause for all the trouble that led to her not being in the last season of Babylon 5, but I think it has several tangents with it all the same. From what she wrote, I think Christian was approached for other roles, she hadn't been actively looking for them. It may have been a part of the reason why she didn't give the earlier contract extension. It probably was also the reason why she was looking for a way not to do all episodes. Finally, this was probably also what the rumor mill turned into "her looking around for other work", which was an important thing in the relationships between the different people involved getting strained.
In the end, I think the situation was just not a simple one and there were some problems cropping up, but the one who really dropped the ball was Christian's agent, though. However, I'm just an uninformed kid doing guesswork and making assumptions.
The note I want to end on, is a more positive one. It's the character that filled the void left behind by the lack of Ivanova: Captain Lochley. While one may say this was a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, I personally agree with JMS, she was a different character, had her own story rather than taking over Ivanova's and fit the role to fill quite well. The hard thing here is that in both one-on-one replacements he did, the position in the military structure was a very large of what defined the character, meaning that they would automatically become quite similar.
Anyway, as I was going to say, in a way it is ironic that Christian's replacement only did a few episodes after her departure had at least something to do with her wanting to do less episodes. However, I actually think it was a really good move to have Lochley in so few episodes. Because of this, it didn't feel like she was shoehorned in or that we were being told to care about her, but instead as a natural progression of the situation. As a hole left in the military structure being filled by the folks back home, which wasn't a main cast member, so didn't get the center stage.
3/1/2016: I cleaned up some spelling mistakes and improved some sentences to be clearer, as this was rather poorly written.