--- Mistral mistral@centurytel.net wrote:
There are, IMO, two things going on in this ep. One is to set up the 'Orac' plot, which can be discounted because it could have been easily folded into the next episode. The other, and far more important, is to characterize Avon - he is more human by the end of the ep; he is the character in this story that changes and grows. He has been humbled by a new awareness of the responsibility inherent in leadership and power. (He's annoyed that Blake has noticed that he's learned it, but he's learned it nonetheless. And yes, he does seem to keep trying to unlearn it; but I don't think he ever quite succeeds.) That final exchange with Blake is where, for me, Avon became a sympathetic, three-dimensional character.
The point is, he doesn't learn it. He still wants the power of being leader without having to consider the consequences, and once he achieves this, he shows no signs of wanting to let go. He is not daunted by the experience of responsibility, and in fact on several occasions, contray to what you suggest above, shows a total lack of concern for the people he encounters or for that matter for the crew he is supposed to be leading. Sounds like he learned a lot from the Meegat experience.
I can indeed see where this ep might be interpreted as misogynist if the point were to set up Avon as some sort of �bermensch; but rather than aggrandizing him, in fact, it does the reverse. It is Avon, _not_ Meegat, that the episode mocks.
Avon may be mocked, but Meegat is objectified.
To deal with a few specific concerns:
[1] Jenna as damsel in distress - I honestly don't see this one. Everybody in the cast gets caught by the enemy, one time or another, _and has to be rescued by the others_. Jenna is not portrayed as some sort of helpless shrinking violet. She makes a real stab at escaping; the reason she can't isn't because she's female, but because she's outnumbered. Suggestions to the contrary strike me as more sexist than the actual portrayal. _If_ the women come in for significantly more than their share of getting captured, that might be a problem with the series as a whole, but isn't apropos to a discussion of a specific episode.
Well to be honest, it wasn't me that raised the "Jenna is captured" issue. Personally I think it's a bit tedious that it had to be Jenna that is captured,and then rescued, by the men, but then you needed something for Blake to get really upset about, and Jenna was seen to be more than just a friend to Blake.
Seriously, I think Blake's 7 in general treated women pretty well, and gave us some memorable female charaters. That however still doesn't excuse this episode, in the same way that it doesn't excuse Power.
[2] The rocket is rocket-shaped - well, duh. And barring wings, so are airplanes and birds. If basic aerodynamics are sexist, take it up with the universe. On top of that, two words: stock footage. [And if anyone wants to complain about phallic symbolism where it might actually do some good - joystick manufacturers. I'm desperate to find a joystick small enough to fit my hands.] Plus, as Neil says, it's also a womb.
Well, duh, it's only a bloody rocket because the author bloody specifies it as such. Stock footage has nothing to do with it, they could have used model work, you know. I think a point's being missed here. OK, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but given that what we have here isn't just a spaceship taking off, it's a man firing off his rocket in order to provide a woman with children... I think I'd better stop there :-).
[For that matter, with the whole penetrating the void thing, maybe space exploration is in itself sexist and aggressively masculine,
Oh yeah... it's one small step for a man, all right :-).
and we
should stay happy and ignorant right here on Mother Earth. Hm. NASA's rockets are sort of whitish, and space is sort of blackish; maybe space exploration is racist too, whaddya think?]
That's taking it to extremes :-). Actually, come to think of it, though-- space exploration in and of itself isn't racist, yeah, but when did NASA send up a black or Asian astronaut?
[3] Meegat is female - well, if one wants to see entrusting a vitally important job - the saving of an entire race - to a woman as misogynist, then I guess there's no way to prevent one from seeing what one wishes to.
But the job isn't entrusted to her, it's entrusted to *Avon*!
There's also no indication
that all of those who held the position were female.
Beside the point. The point is, the author made that particular character female.
[4] Meegat can't launch the rocket - her entire race can't launch the rocket, so construing this as sexist is _ludicrous_.
Fair enough. But, the point is, the author has set up a scenario where all the men in her society are inadequate, so she has to wait for some stranger to come along and fire off her rocket for her.
Again, too, remember that this is all what the *author* is saying. Meegat's society doesn't exist outside of his mind, and other people's later rationalisations have nothing to do with it.
[5] Meegat is helpless - no, she's not; she's unsophisticated, which is something else entirely. She provides Avon and the others with the safety of her bunker,
oo-er!
[6] Meegat is subservient - she thinks they're the saviours of her race, her people have waited generations for this event and she's the only one privileged to witness it; of course she's subservient. She's practically overcome with ecstasy (not terror). She is _not_ a 21st-century human woman with a 21st-century mindset. Go have a face-to-face conversation with God, and see if you do as well. [Honesty forces me to point out that it's Vila and Gan who bring up the idea of God; Meegat never suggests such a thing.]
Hang on, if Meegat never suggests such a thing, how come *you're* assuming she thinks he's God?
[7] She picked Avon - perceptive of her. How long would you have to be in a room with those three to decide which was the dominant male? Not long, I'll wager.
And so she naturally has to prostrate herself in front of the dominant male? Sounds like you're recognising that there's a sexual(/sexist?) element to all this, even while you're denying it.
[8] Launching a rocket falls in Jenna's expertise - I hardly think that being able to pilot the space shuttle qualifies one to run mission control.
We're talking about operating computers
here; far more Avon's field than Jenna's
OK, perhaps being a pilot doesn't make you an expert on launching rockets-- but pulling off a computer embezzling scheme hardly makes you a rocket scientist (in the literal sense of the word! :-)) either.
And the final scene
makes it quite clear that Meegat's incorrect impressions were cleared up before they left.
Erm, which scene was this then?
Personally, I admire Avon's gentle and respectful treatment of Meegat.
No comment.
[10] Avon didn't take Meegat and/or her people to safety on another planet - there is no indication that Meegat and her people (who presumably include both genders, so again this doesn't carry any inherent misogyny) wanted or asked to go. Meegat's people wanted the rocket launched; they _got what they asked for_.
But we *don't* know how her people felt. All we deal with is one bloody character. Let's say aliens come to this planet and the first political figure they make contact with, who they then take as spokesperson for the entire species, is the Pope. He's not going to be representing *my* feelings, for a start.
blame Avon for not relocating them can only be based in a desire to blame Avon; it has nothing to do with the reality of the script. If they wanted to go and were not taken, it would be Blake's fault, or the entire crew's; but if they did not want to go, it would be far worse IMO to force them to leave their homes.
But the point is, the issue is never confronted. Nobody says, "Meegat, would you or your people like to go?" And Avon is the person in direct contact, and who she looks up to, and who, as some people have pointed out, now has the *responsibility* for this woman and her race on his shoulders? Really responsible, that, not even asking if they want to be saved.
As for Blake, he never even met her. How do you know that, had Blake been in that situation, he wouldn't have extended the offer?
For that matter, there is no indication that relocating them would hold any advantage for them over staying where they were.
Yeah, but were they given the choice?
Anyway, without all these complex and elaborate rationalisations, the story stands: A woman needs a man to fire off her rocket and fertilise her race. A man comes along, fulfils this need, then smegs off, leaving her on a radiation-soaked planet without even asking if she, or anyone else she knows for that matter, wants his number. And then he has the gall to go on about the responsibility of leadership afterwards. Really sensitive, Avon.
WEndy
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