Strong female characters: this is how it's done.

[jinasphinx]

TL;DR version: If you're not already watching Elementary on CBS, you should probably start. Because feminism. Also, stuff about Star Trek: Into Darkness.

I've been wanting to write something about the display of women's bodies. Most recently, this has come up for me in media when we saw Star Trek: Into Darkness. As you know from the trailer, there is a cheesecake shot of Dr. Carol Marcus in her underwear, and you probably know that J.J. Abrams (director) and Damon Lindelof (writer) have taken some heat over it. (There's some great coverage of the issue -- no pun intended -- on The Mary Sue.) I also recently watched the season finale of Elementary, the CBS series about Sherlock Holmes. Up until then, I had preferred Sherlock, the BBC series. But Elementary is now the superior show, and I will try to tell you why without spoilers.

I will probably spoil Sherlock for you if you haven't already seen the 2012 episode, "A Scandal in Belgravia." I will try not to spoil Star Trek: Into Darkness. [ETA: Now, with a cut tag that actually works! Sticking to HTML mode editor from now on!]

Last year, PBS put on a panel interview in New York with the star and creators of the BBC series. And Steven Moffat, the showrunner, said that he had to make some changes to the Irene Adler character. He said that she was a great character, but in the original Victorian-era stories, her great achievement came down to "she moved house, with her new husband." (Not a verbatim quote.) And he felt that we needed a stronger character for the 21st century. Fair enough.

So he gave us a naked dominatrix.

Um.

Now, I did enjoy the scene where she appears naked in front of Holmes, because it so completely flummoxes him, and you can see him starting to doubt his observational abilities for a moment. But although she stumps him for a while, in the end the BBC's Irene Adler needs to be rescued by Holmes. Then I watched Elementary's finale, and their Irene Adler keeps her clothes on (mostly; there are a couple scenes where we see her naked back) while stumping Holmes. And although she is rescued by Holmes at the beginning of the episode, at the end she doesn't need rescuing by him or anyone else. We also have our female Watson continuing to kick butt, and I'll stop there, because I don't want to spoil it for anyone.

It is an amazing episode; I've liked the CBS show, but had always felt like it was mainly something to watch while waiting for more episodes of the BBC show. Up until now. Now I have a new suggested slogan for Elementary: "Strong female characters: this is how it's done."

I don't object to a little cheesecake when it makes sense in the story. For example, one of my favorite movies, The Long Kiss Goodnight, has a scene with Geena Davis in her underwear tied to a water wheel. And then there's a scene with her taking a shower later. Both of these scenes had a narrative purpose. In the first scene, the bad guys are torturing her, and the underwear adds to a sense of her character's vulnerability. In the shower scene, we see her scars from the fight she's been in, and the shower is also part of her transformation from Samantha into Charly. She showers, dyes her hair, and goes from a mild-mannered schoolteacher to a dangerous spy.

Anyway, at least the naked dominatrix scene in Sherlock served some narrative purpose. The thing about the Into Darkness scene is that it just felt weird. It was one of the very few scenes in the movie that snapped me out of my non-critical enjoyment of the flow of the movie. I get that J.J. Abrams says he was going for a funny moment in the midst of the action, but it didn't feel funny, just awkward. Like someone suddenly got a note saying "We need more cheesecake!" and so they spliced it in there. There's no narrative purpose for it.

Stepping aside from any particular feature or series, there's a layer of weirdness in commenting on women's bodies on display in TV and film in general. They're actors: their job is to be on display. They get hired because they look (and walk and talk) a certain way. (Plus I can imagine the actress, Alice Eve, saying "Dammit, I just ate nothing but spinach for months to look this way! You'd better take the shot!") And you do want people to watch your show if you're a TV writer -- these scenes are intended to titillate the viewers, but also, the point of every show is to entertain the viewers. I just don't want to remember "oh, right, they're actors" and "this show is trying for good ratings" while I'm watching.

I'd like to write more about the real world and bikinis for little girls, but this has gotten long enough (kudos to you if you made it here).

Comments

Thank you!

[walkitout]

That was fantastic! I haven't been watching _Elementary_, but
I will check it out now. The Irene Adler ep for the BBC version was a huge disappointment to me in so many ways -- and I was very displeased by how Adler was treated by the movies with Downey and company.

Also, Long Kiss Goodnight! I adore that movie. And I completely agree with you about how the not-fully-clothed scenes work to develop the narrative, particularly since the main theme of the movie is Samantha/Charly constantly being stripped of everything (not just her clothes! They're just a metaphor) and having to reconstruct her Self/World around her, and how her choices reflect decisions she is making about what is important to her. Male heroes of action films often go through a similar stripping, but with them, it's usually about getting very dirty, taking a lot of physical damage, and having the people they care about harmed/killed.

Re: Thank you!

[jinasphinx.livejournal.com]

Oh, good points about the stripping/rebuilding theme!

I have been working, now and then, on a humor piece about action heroes ending up in fights where they are partially or inappropriately clothed (e.g., barefoot John McLane in "Die Hard", towel-clad Slevin Kalevra in "Lucky Number Slevin", Frank Tupelo in PJs in "The Tourist").

Re: Thank you!

[tylik.livejournal.com]

Nice hat ;-)

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

I'd just like to see some gratuitist nudity with women who do not make the current smooth skinny hollywood idea of beauty...