From Ask Ausiello ...
Aug. 13th, 2008 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The italics are mine.
Question: As much as the female fans of Supernatural seem to hate the idea, I think that Bella and Ruby added a nice dynamic last season. Will the show's writers ever stand up to the fans and give at least one of the brothers and ongoing love interest? -- Jeff
Ausiello: Not if they value their life. And based on Eric Kripke's response to this question, I'm guessing they do. "The most dangerous job in Hollywood is to be the recurring female lead on Supernatural," Kripke laughs. "No, the formula in terms of romance that really has proven to work best for us is a girl in every port. Not that there’s not ongoing characters. But there are going to be recurring female characters threaded in and out of the story, and they will affect the storylines. But just to have them in sort of passive love interest roles is something that hasn’t really worked."
Oh, faaaaaabulous. I'm part of THAT fandom.
*headdesk*
(Not that I didn't know, but ... you know, past Kripke's lips, it sounds even worse.)
Question: As much as the female fans of Supernatural seem to hate the idea, I think that Bella and Ruby added a nice dynamic last season. Will the show's writers ever stand up to the fans and give at least one of the brothers and ongoing love interest? -- Jeff
Ausiello: Not if they value their life. And based on Eric Kripke's response to this question, I'm guessing they do. "The most dangerous job in Hollywood is to be the recurring female lead on Supernatural," Kripke laughs. "No, the formula in terms of romance that really has proven to work best for us is a girl in every port. Not that there’s not ongoing characters. But there are going to be recurring female characters threaded in and out of the story, and they will affect the storylines. But just to have them in sort of passive love interest roles is something that hasn’t really worked."
Oh, faaaaaabulous. I'm part of THAT fandom.
*headdesk*
(Not that I didn't know, but ... you know, past Kripke's lips, it sounds even worse.)
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Date: 2008-08-13 05:48 pm (UTC)Oh hey, Kripke? Plz to reference the following, and realize that I am making appropriate gestures in your direction, you utter, utter, ass.
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Date: 2008-08-13 05:51 pm (UTC)I mean, I know the show is bad for me, like eating Cheetos for breakfast every morning, but at least it doesn't make my blood boil.
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Date: 2008-08-13 05:55 pm (UTC)I get rage blackouts way too easily these days, and that makes me sad.
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Date: 2008-08-13 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-13 05:51 pm (UTC)Because I can sort-of understand the total lack of awareness if we *are*. If we're as large as I suspect, however...dayum.
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Date: 2008-08-13 05:53 pm (UTC)I just want them to write them better, personally.
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Date: 2008-08-13 06:03 pm (UTC)I mean, I do think that Kripke thinks that with Dean and Sam's lifestyle is too mobile to not have the 'girl in every port' thing, and I get that. But my impression of fandom is that there are far, far more many viewers who don't want females involved than just a vocal minority. Not just from my flist, either, but from the way that Kripke has talked about it.
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Date: 2008-08-13 06:07 pm (UTC)And yet we've got an almost catastrophic rise in misogyny going on, and an attitude permeating the writing that this is a boys club show - no girls allowed.
I do not get it.
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Date: 2008-08-13 06:41 pm (UTC)I think part of it has to do with a large part of fandom acting like complete and utter asshats to the point where the writers are mucking about with the shows just to make the vocal people shut the hell up.
95% of the shows fans seem to be female, wouldn't you think they'd want females on the show too? Good gravy, people.
The male characters on the show should be able to have some kind of relationship, romantic or not, with female characters without that incredibly shrill and loud part of fandom going batshit.
Meh.
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Date: 2008-08-13 06:44 pm (UTC)...
...
...
... oh, God, why is it that lately I've only been getting new story ideas for original novels when I get frustrated at something in fandom?!
*headdesk*
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Date: 2008-08-13 06:56 pm (UTC)WOW, grow a BACKBONE, dude. Give us not what we WANT but what we NEED and don't know we need.
That's what a writer DOES. ACK.
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Date: 2008-08-13 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-13 07:24 pm (UTC)how he plans on bumping her off.no subject
Date: 2008-08-13 07:30 pm (UTC)Anyway, my THEORY is that she's Ruby, but I don't actually know that for certain.
In other news, I know a straight male SPN fan. WE FOUND ONE! But he's not even an observer of fandom like I am.
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Date: 2008-08-13 08:06 pm (UTC)I want Ellen and Missouri and Sarah back, first of all. ((and okay, it doesn't exactly fall into this post's topic but while I'm at it I want John back, too))
And I want new female characters-- not just Lilith or demons inhabiting females, but female human characters. Ones who end up falling on the side of good or bad; vindictive or sarcastic or sweet. Heck, while I'm being greedy, give me some of each.
Because it's a show about them traveling and so they'll be meeting new people, but it's also a show about how close the two of them are and them kindof making a family of sorts when everything else is so unstable and for them to have no women at all in said family because the writers aren't up to trying or because a segment of fandom will have a panic attack just takes something away from the show itself. Because only having meaningful interactions and friendships with men doesn't strike me as realistic.
Hmph.
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Date: 2008-08-13 08:23 pm (UTC)Unfortunately, Kripke & Company have virtually NO IDEA how to introduce a character who is intended from the outset to recur. Jo had a lot of unrealized potential but was doomed from the start by mishandled characterization (per Alona Tal, she was told Jo was "the female Dean") and a horrible "meet cute" intro.
Bela was interesting in "Bad Day at Black Rock" but went swiftly downhill once she started showing up every episode or two to make the guys look like bumbling idiots.
I liked Ruby as a character--although she had possibly the worst intro in TV history--because she was connected to the mythology and thus had a reason to show up on a regular basis. I hope Ruby pops back up again this season, no matter who plays her.
Ellen has been the biggest success so far, I think, possibly because 1. the producers think she's too old (ha!) for a love interest, so they didn't try to manufacture opportunities to put her together with one of the boys, and 2. the actress is quite good, so she made an excellent impression with everything they gave her.
It's quite telling--not of the producers' attitudes toward women, but of the writing staff's ability to write female characters--that the most successful recurring character by far is Bobby, who was NOT intended to be a recurring character. They do much better with "organic" characters than with pre-fabricated ones.
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Date: 2008-08-13 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-13 08:29 pm (UTC)Jo definitely had a ton of unrealized potential and was not written consistently.
Ruby's intro was SO Mary Sue-ish, but she swiftly became interesting with the demon reveal. And she did have a lot of reasons to show back up.
Ellen was AWESOME and I am so sad that she hasn't shown up anymore.
The only thing I disagree about is Bela - I think she had amazing potential as well and mostly got shafted by the writer's strike. Her story could have unfolded in a more gradual and organic manner if the season hadn't been shortened.
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Date: 2008-08-13 10:12 pm (UTC)SPN isn't a really awesome show. I watch it because it makes awesome fanfiction (which isn't to say it isn't enjoyable but I probably wouldn't watch it if I didn't have fanfiction to make up for its limitations). But lately I've been listening to and seeing a lot of fanfic writers withdrawing because of crazy fandom. It makes me want to tell that loud group to shut the fuck up so I can have my fiction back. Is that very selfish? Oh well.
Yeah, I don't want a "love interest for the boys." I agree that I watch the show, and read the fic for SamandDean. But I do want to see female characters that aren't stereotypes, and I don't agree that just because they have "failed" at writing women in the past means they should just not bother. That doesn't seem like a good way to handle it.
And I don't agree that they failed at writing women. With the exception of Bela, because, yes, she turned them into bumbling idiots which I found frustrating.
Also, I don't follow fandom and gossip about the show very well, yet I've seen several comments, like the one on Ausiello, that indicate that there is a substantial group, that is clearly less vocal and vitriolic, that does enjoy female characters and how they've been portrayed. So, why isn't Kripke listening to them? It's so frustrating to see how "female character" is never discussed as anything but "love interest," as though people are incapable of comprehending another purpose for her. So, you can't get anyone to seriously consider the idea without immediately being driving to the worst case scenario.
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Date: 2008-08-13 10:49 pm (UTC)You know, people say this, but the show has a history of making them morons when the plot needs them to not know something, even before Bela showed up, so I really don't buy it as an argument, not from fans and not from Kripke.
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Date: 2008-08-13 10:47 pm (UTC)I am still exceptionally angry about how Bela played out, and how Kripke blamed the character rather than his own writing staff for not handling her properly.
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Date: 2008-08-14 01:41 am (UTC)God. I'm like you: the post-apocalyptic thing that I'm doing for NaWriMo this year? The emotastic POV dude turns out not to be the prophecy child after all, the snarky chick side character with her shit together is, just because I hate that formula so much.
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Date: 2008-08-14 01:54 am (UTC)I so need to get a paid account again, so that I can have some Wendy Watson icons, too.
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Date: 2008-08-14 02:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-17 12:50 am (UTC)