Partly

tvrealm had a challenge where we were to explore TV Tropes either by show or by trope. They foolishly allowed meta, so I am doing that! Since Supernatural is tending to occupy my wheelhouse lately, I'm meta-ing about tropes found on the show.

Aliens in Cardiff

Looking for a place to set the disaster of the week/alien invasion/supervillain's base/origin of the bad guys etc? . . . Have the center of the plot be in an actual place, but some relatively harmless semi-known non-exotic location which makes you ask "Why THERE, of all places?" Or in the case of Supernatural, have it take place in some completely unknown non-exotic location... for example, Gleason, WI.

( Are you sure that's a real place? )

tvrealm has a prompt where you are supposed to claim 10 words and do something off of them. "Meta" was one of the choices, so I'm going with that. This post's prompt: Wacko.

One of the more interesting tropes in Supernatural is the thought that Dean and Sam are insane -- their behaviors, their attitudes and their relationships are all dysfunctional, their actions deranged. Quite honestly if they would live in our world, that assessment would be right, but I’m always drawn back to R. D. Laing’s statement.

“Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.” - R. D. Laing

It’s not paranoia if everyone is really out to get you. Co-dependency is necessary when both of the brothers have to survive in order for, well, the world to survive. And you really can’t call it “delusions of grandeur” when they actually have killed gods and stopped the apocalypse. Dean’s willingness to sacrifice himself could be considered a psychological problem -- if he wouldn’t always have a way that his sacrifice wasn’t the only way to make the situation work out for the best. Sure, Sam sees Lucifer everywhere, but quite honestly, that is probably the least psychologically damaged thing that could have come from being in locked in the cage.

The problem with establishing a psychological “norm” is that you can’t apply it to people who don’t live in our “normal” world. It’s the reason why our psychological diagnoses don’t always travel well to other cultures. Its why people who have lived outside our “norm” for any length of time have such a hard time readjusting when they return. Ask any combat vet -- and I’m not even talking about PTSD, I’m just talking about adjusting to the noise and chaos of our everyday life.

Sure if Dean and Sam were just siblings who grew up in average-world America their behavior would definitely be insane. But they didn’t, they grew up in completely bat-shit crazy America -- their “insanity” is perfectly sane.

tvrealm has a prompt where you are supposed to claim 10 words and do something off of them. "Meta" was one of the choices, so I'm going with that. This post's prompt: Like A Boss.

I’ve talked occasionally about how I don’t often identify with the female characters in shows. Lately, however, I’ve come to realize that has been changing. There are a lot of female characters out there that I have come to love. For me to love a female character they just need one thing: agency.

Agency: the capacity of an agent (a person or other entity) to act. “Agency” has become a fairly common term as of late and it’s a concept that is extremely powerful. Notice it doesn’t have anything to do with success or power nor does it have anything to do with the type of acts. Just the ability (or potential ability) to do something. What it basically boils down to is that the character has some choice and control, even if it’s just over their own reactions.

The male characters I like are full of agency -- even when they are on the losing end, when they are caught and captive, they still are strong and active. It doesn’t matter if they are held at gun point or tied to a chair or are being coerced into doing something they don’t want to, they still have agency. Agency is almost a requirement when writing a male protagonist.

It’s something that was not usually given to female protagonists. When women are caught they are usually immediately reduced to helplessness. They are terrified and weak and vulnerable, weepy and pliable -- every misogynistic cliche that’s out there. And if the writers didn’t want to present a female protagonist in that light, it usually meant that the character wasn’t even put into that type of situation. Lack of agency was sort of a given when it came to women. In fact, agency was often seen as not feminine -- if a female character was given agency, that would have to be countered by making sure that she somehow compensated for that deficiency by being properly feminine in other areas. Even then though, it was best not to make them too capable and to make sure they had the proper male counterpart keep them from being too self-sufficient.

Fortunately, that’s changing.

Right now, Kate Beckett is my favorite example of a female character who has great agency. Even when she is at her most vulnerable, she still has the capacity to act. She’s allowed to be scared and overwhelmed and not in control, but she’s never powerless. The choices she makes aren’t always the smartest or healthiest, she has issues and problems that come from some of her actions, but she gets to act. It makes her a strong character, even when she makes mistakes.

She’s even given agency when it comes to her emotions. The lack of agency that female characters are given in general is nothing when compared to the lack of agency that they are given when dealing with emotional issues. Television thrives on the fact that most women lose all agency once they fall in love. It’s not that Beckett isn’t passionate -- she is. It’s that you know she always is choosing how she’s going to act on those passions.

I have to admit that it’s that form of agency that really appeals to me -- it’s the agency that allows a woman to be emotional without being controlled by those emotions.

tvrealm has a prompt where you are supposed to claim 10 words and do something off of them. "Meta" was one of the choices, so I'm going with that. This post's prompt: Monsters.

I don’t like horror as a genre. I do watch a few shows that fall under "horror" -- Supernatural and The Walking Dead are the two most obvious -- but as I’m not a big fan of gore or shock horror usually falls flat for me. I also think that I look at “monsters” and their place/use in literature differently than most do.

Take, for example, the Walkers in The Walking Dead. I get that the concept of Walkers/zombies -- hordes of mindless, decaying corpses that methodically track you down to kill you -- is creepy, even horrifying. But once you really start thinking about it, it fails the “pragmatic” monster test. They are, after all, decaying corpses, it won’t take long until they are nothing more than rotting goo on the streets. And since cremation stops the dead from becoming Walkers, get some pyres going and make the world a safer place. Unless you toss in some sort of supernatural element and have the Undead not decay or have them heal themselves, they are a limited time threat. And if The Walking Dead would be just a zombie flick, I wouldn’t watch it.

The same is true with Supernatural. If all Supernatural did was toss creepy creatures and blood and gore at me, I wouldn’t watch it. Granted, Supernatural has an advantage in that it has a greater variety of monsters and can create and dispose of them before their obvious practical faults can distract me. Plus it’s, well, supernatural, meaning that it can magic wand and make everything work (at least for a bit). But even different flavors of monsters are still basically the same and wouldn’t hold my attention for very long.

See to me, people are always the most interesting monsters. There is so much more story dynamic and thematic potential that comes from using people as your monsters. I would say that the show I watch that has the most monsters on it is Criminal Minds. What makes them really terrifying is that they are just people and usually people that you could meet and know and like and never realize that they are monsters. More than that, they can also be people whom you can identify with, who you empathize with but who are still monsters.

For me, the point of a monster in fiction isn’t to be an outside force that prompts people to act, but rather the psychological and moral battles that take place within a person. In The Walking Dead it’s the fact that people may become monster before they die and become Walkers. In Supernatural it’s the battle of the hunters to stay human. The tragedy isn’t that someone gets infected or taken over and are monsters, it’s that little-by-little its possible (for all the right reasons) for someone to become monstrous.

tvrealm has a prompt where you are supposed to claim 10 words and do something off of them. "Meta" was one of the choices, so I'm going with that. This post's prompt: Guns.

I know a little about guns. I grew up (and still live) in a small town in North-Central Wisconsin, where hunting and guns are a part of life. I’ve shot pistols and rifles, at both paper and live targets. I know how to clean any number of guns, even how to reload shells. I fully understand the power, the sound and the feel of them.

Now I know that most shows and movies tend to play fast and loose with the capabilities and effects of guns. Mostly for drama. A real .22 shot, even with a .22 rifle, barely sounds like a shot at all. Now something substantial, like a .270 or a .308 (both rifles), those are real noise makers, with substantial kickback that will leave a hell of a bruise or even knock you on your ass if you don’t properly support the gun. As for shotguns, they are filled with, well, shot, small- to medium-sized BBs that spread out from the barrel when fired. The shorter the barrel and the more buckshot in the cartridge the wider the spread and the more damage that can be caused. And, believe it or not, guns don't have unlimited ammo. All of this? Routinely ignored or tweaked by writers to make the everything more dramatic for an audience that usually doesn’t know the difference.

There are some shows that do a fine job with guns (most of the time, at least): Supernatural, Person of Interest, Bones, 24, Burn Notice... Shows that deal with people who know guns often have technical experts who keep guns fairly accurate. That’s always nice to see. For example in the latest episode of Supernatural Bobby says that he would be able to use his 30-30 (an actual hunting rifle), when we see him later he is carrying a bolt-action rifle -- consistent with a 30-30. This actually made me very happy.

Supernatural actually does it really well. The number of people on the show who know guns and know how to handle guns is very realistic. As is the fact that not everyone who knows guns turn out to be psycho’s waiting to kill innocents. They handle the guns well and with a keen eye to the safe handling of the guns. In Person of Interest, Reese pointed out the stupidity of holding a gun sideways and shooting it. 24 usually had the pistols lock back when out of ammo rather having the hammer hit an empty chamber. Burn Notice is especially awesome when it comes to guns -- Michael’s voice-overs often explain the real way guns work and how it’s different than the myths we believe. These shows have writers that usually write intelligent (or at least researched) interactions with guns.

My gun-geekiness aside, I don’t usually get upset if they have a prop or effect wrong. It’s television after all and if the general viewing public won’t believe the shot using the accurate props, well, I get why they would change it. It is just television after all.

It still surprises me, however, when writers get basic facts wrong about the people who own guns and about the laws that surround them. Two easily researcheditems. In the episode of Criminal Minds called “The Tribe”, Morgan states that a group of ~200 people have over 400 guns between them. This is said in a way to imply that this is an unheard of and (probably) nefarious number of guns. Ah... not it’s not. A gun is not a one-size-fits-all tool. Most of the people I know who own guns own several different guns. You wouldn’t take a .22 to hunt dear and you certainly wouldn’t shoot a rabbit with a .308. And a lot of people who own guns own pistols in addition to rifles. And shotguns, as I said before, are a different animal altogether. Quite honestly, if you would have a group of ~200 gun-owning people, I would expect there to be a hell of a lot more guns than 400.

And for that matter, where did Morgan get that information from? Because New Mexico (like Wisconsin and a lot of other states) doesn’t have a gun registry. There is no record of who owns guns or how many guns any person owns. Yes, there are background checks when you go to purchase a gun (and a waiting period for the purchasing of a handgun), but that’s it. And if I would receive a gun as a gift (which is acceptable), I don’t get a background check, just the person buying the gun gets the background check. And that’s only if it’s bought through a store. If I buy it out of the want ads or off a garage sale, there is no background check. And, yes, I can do that.

I know, I know. It’s TV. It’s not real. I get that. I just really enjoy it when the shows take the time to get it right.

tvrealm has a prompt where you are supposed to claim 10 words and do something off of them. "Meta" was one of the choices, so I'm going with that. This post's prompt: HBIC

HBIC? I don't think so..."

Perhaps it’s the generation I come from -- that being the generation who is over 40 and actively remembers the years when casual sexism was so accepted that someone who didn’t participate in it was seen as abnormal -- but I don’t think that the word “bitch” will ever be co-opted into being a positive term. When the word is most often used, even by women, it is as a condemnation of petty and mean behavior, someone who is a capricious bully who belittles or insults others for personal satisfaction or a play for power.

The label of “Head Bitch in Charge” isn’t one that I would ever claim or use to describe any of the female characters that I love (and that includes the wonderful pic of Zoe in my icon). And quite honestly, I’m not sure that the phrase would ever be voluntarily used. I mean, I can’t see Kate Beckett, Theresa Lisbon or any of the myriad of strong, professional women on TV walking up to someone and introducing themselves as the HBIC. In fact, I would bet that any of the people who work for or with them would die before describing those women in that fashion.

Now if someone was was being an asshat and used the term “bitch” to describe them (or for that matter any woman in a position of authority) I could see any of those women reply that they were the HBIC -- because it’s a way of turning the insult into a power statement. You get to defuse the insult and point out that the asshat is an asshat by using his (or her) words against him (or her).

Think about it. When you hear the world “bitch” what is your first thought? Is it someone who is competent and strong and fair? Someone who is an inspiring and loved leader? No. More than likely it was an image of someone who could be on a show like “Real Housewives” or “Bridezilla”. I’m not ever going to voluntarily label myself or anyone I respect (fictional or not) as a “bitch”. Simply because there are so few (if any) positive connotations that pop to mind when a person hears the word.

There’s a desire to do a “Yankee Doodle” on insulting words -- to take them and claim them and thereby remove any power they may hold. But that only works if those words are never again used as an insult or in a derogatory manner. Or if when they are used that way, people point out that they shouldn’t be. Now the world “gay” may actually accomplish this. I’ve seen less and less usage of the word as a negative (as in “that’s gay”), and when it is used that way I see more and more people jumping in to put a stop to it.

I don’t ever see the word “bitch” doing this. Too many people who would use the word "bitch" as positive term will still turn around and use “bitch” to describe whiny, petty behavior. Plus the history of words (where is it actually defined as a negative) that working against it. There’s a possibility that “Bitch” with a capital “B” might be able to obtain some semblance of that -- what with “Bitch Media” and other feminist outlets using the word as a banner statement.

In the end, though, I would be insulted if anyone who knew me would describe me as a “bitch”, especially in casual conversation. A great deal of a word’s power comes from how the listener defines the word -- very little rests in how the speaker defines it. If the listener has to take a moment to discern whether or not there was an insult intended, the message is lost.