More SGA...
Jul. 6th, 2009 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ivyficI'm sorry for all the spamming on SGA, but I'm just watching this stuff now, and fandom finished discussing this stuff last fall. And I need to vent!
I just watched "Brain Storm," and now I'm trying to figure out why I dislike Keller so much, especially since I know certain (male) friends of mine love her. She's got two strikes against her coming in: she replaced Beckett, who was killed in an asinine way, and she's introduced as a romantic interest for one half of my OTP. So I know it's easy to dismiss my dislike as oh, silly slasher, getting upset when the male leads don’t get together, but that's not it. SG1 won me over to Vala by the end, and by rights I should have disliked her for her interest in Daniel.
I think for Keller it comes down to this: She is defined by her desirability to men. She is shown initially as being wimpy, homesick, and scared, which didn't win her any points with me from the start. I mean, I know we make jokes about Atlantis being second string, but how did this person get to be head of medicine at an intergalactic station?
As the show progressed, she grew a backbone, yes. But the only interpersonal interactions we see her have, with a few exceptions, are with Rodney and Ronon, two guys interested in her. Why don't we see her developing a friendship with Teyla? Or Carter? Or John, even? Or anyone who isn't trying to get into her pants? She became that character, the one introduced in the middle of a series' run, who everyone wants to sleep with.
(In a truly amusing bit of the behind-the-scenes stuff, Martin Gero said that he thinks the show is "too heterosexual" (oh, honey—have you seen your show?), so they wanted to introduce a lesbian. Who would also have the hots for Keller. He correctly concluded, though, that this would be absurd, to have everyone, male and female, hitting on Keller all the time. I would also like to point out how not surprised I am that he wanted a side of girl-on-girl action to go with his blow-up doll girlfriend character. YOUR ID IS SHOWING.)
She's not a Mary Sue, though. A Mary Sue is an author insertion. In this case, the Mary Sue is Rodney, a character Gero openly admits he sees as himself. But she is wish fulfillment. She's a nerd's bimbo. She acts like Rodney's fantasy, come to life, and I have a hard time looking at their relationship outside of those terms. She just doesn't feel like an actual person to me, who actually sees something in Rodney; she feels like an idealized girlfriend who exists (literally) to be his perfect girlfriend. And in that way, I don't see what Rodney is seeing in her, either. Watch "Brain Storm"—Keller is making all the moves. Rodney's just aquiescing.
The fact that from her introduction there has been anvilicious foreshadowing that she is Rodney's ONE TRUE LOVE does not help.
The love triangle seems to exist solely so that Keller will chose Rodney over a Ronon. It's not an organic development. Everything about Keller's interactions with both Rodney and Ronon rings false to me. Ronon is just a stand-in for all the jocks in Martin Gero's past who got the girl, so that this fantasy girl can not only choose Rodney, but make him "win" over the jocks. This is not only a disservice to Keller, but to Ronon, whose interactions with Rodney this season are all about Keller, rather than being about the years of history between them. He's turned into a dumb brute for the benefit of this storyline. "Brain Storm" has even more of this—Rodney explicitly says he wants Keller to go so he can show up his peers. She exists to bolster his self-esteem, and that's it.
I think they could sell me on a romance between Rodney and somebody. But instead they forced a soap opera style drama on me and a character who exists solely to further the artificial conflict. So I just really don't like her. And I promise it's not because I'm a slasher.
ETA: Just got to a scene in "Infected" where Keller is telling Rodney how intimidated she is by his awesomeness. Of course she says this. This is what the writer would like to think all good girlfriends should say. *gag me, gag me, gag me*
I just watched "Brain Storm," and now I'm trying to figure out why I dislike Keller so much, especially since I know certain (male) friends of mine love her. She's got two strikes against her coming in: she replaced Beckett, who was killed in an asinine way, and she's introduced as a romantic interest for one half of my OTP. So I know it's easy to dismiss my dislike as oh, silly slasher, getting upset when the male leads don’t get together, but that's not it. SG1 won me over to Vala by the end, and by rights I should have disliked her for her interest in Daniel.
I think for Keller it comes down to this: She is defined by her desirability to men. She is shown initially as being wimpy, homesick, and scared, which didn't win her any points with me from the start. I mean, I know we make jokes about Atlantis being second string, but how did this person get to be head of medicine at an intergalactic station?
As the show progressed, she grew a backbone, yes. But the only interpersonal interactions we see her have, with a few exceptions, are with Rodney and Ronon, two guys interested in her. Why don't we see her developing a friendship with Teyla? Or Carter? Or John, even? Or anyone who isn't trying to get into her pants? She became that character, the one introduced in the middle of a series' run, who everyone wants to sleep with.
(In a truly amusing bit of the behind-the-scenes stuff, Martin Gero said that he thinks the show is "too heterosexual" (oh, honey—have you seen your show?), so they wanted to introduce a lesbian. Who would also have the hots for Keller. He correctly concluded, though, that this would be absurd, to have everyone, male and female, hitting on Keller all the time. I would also like to point out how not surprised I am that he wanted a side of girl-on-girl action to go with his blow-up doll girlfriend character. YOUR ID IS SHOWING.)
She's not a Mary Sue, though. A Mary Sue is an author insertion. In this case, the Mary Sue is Rodney, a character Gero openly admits he sees as himself. But she is wish fulfillment. She's a nerd's bimbo. She acts like Rodney's fantasy, come to life, and I have a hard time looking at their relationship outside of those terms. She just doesn't feel like an actual person to me, who actually sees something in Rodney; she feels like an idealized girlfriend who exists (literally) to be his perfect girlfriend. And in that way, I don't see what Rodney is seeing in her, either. Watch "Brain Storm"—Keller is making all the moves. Rodney's just aquiescing.
The fact that from her introduction there has been anvilicious foreshadowing that she is Rodney's ONE TRUE LOVE does not help.
The love triangle seems to exist solely so that Keller will chose Rodney over a Ronon. It's not an organic development. Everything about Keller's interactions with both Rodney and Ronon rings false to me. Ronon is just a stand-in for all the jocks in Martin Gero's past who got the girl, so that this fantasy girl can not only choose Rodney, but make him "win" over the jocks. This is not only a disservice to Keller, but to Ronon, whose interactions with Rodney this season are all about Keller, rather than being about the years of history between them. He's turned into a dumb brute for the benefit of this storyline. "Brain Storm" has even more of this—Rodney explicitly says he wants Keller to go so he can show up his peers. She exists to bolster his self-esteem, and that's it.
I think they could sell me on a romance between Rodney and somebody. But instead they forced a soap opera style drama on me and a character who exists solely to further the artificial conflict. So I just really don't like her. And I promise it's not because I'm a slasher.
ETA: Just got to a scene in "Infected" where Keller is telling Rodney how intimidated she is by his awesomeness. Of course she says this. This is what the writer would like to think all good girlfriends should say. *gag me, gag me, gag me*
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no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 12:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 12:37 am (UTC)Rodney is in a happier place because he was handed the perfect girlfriend, who loves him for all of his annoying petty behavior. He's not in a happier place because he grew as a person.
The thing is, early Rodney stories, on SG1 and in season one, he really does grow and change. He's always a whiner, but you can see that he has stopped being as self-centered as he comes off as. But on the show, they arrested his development, because they found it too much fun to keep going back to the same selfish, petty, cowardly Rodney jokes. In this, fandom has been a lot more charitable to the character, and most stories show him as having reached some sort of comfort level with being a hero and putting others before himself. But instead of allowing him to go on that natural arc--what should have been the arc for his character, given the heroic stuff he's been doing--they gave him a girlfriend and called it a day. And that just...burns me.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 12:30 am (UTC)Me? I'm a slasher, but at first I thought Keller/Ronon was kinda sweet. I didn't think it would last too long, since he'd realize she wasn't Melena and he was using her, but it was a nice way for Ronon to ease back into having a normal kinda life.
The Rodney/Keller thing from Last Man, well....eh. It was gonna be erased out of existence the second John showed back up in his own time, so who cared? And I never saw any of season five beyond Search and Rescue, for which I am now eternally grateful, considering my niece would call me as soon as it was over to scream, cry and wonder why she let me talk her into watching the show in the first place.
And aside from Heightmeyer's death and the cave with Rodney, you never saw Keller with Carter again. Aside from the episode where the Athosians disappeared, you never saw her around Teyla either.
Oh, and please don't mention the lesbian. For the love of gods, that clusterf*** should never be mentioned again, and the producers should've been shot immediately for it. *has mouth zipped by Danielclone and is dragged out by him and Camclone*
no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 12:53 am (UTC)Rodney/Keller in "Last Man" was egregious. That was the writers' way of telling us they're MEANT TO BE without...showing us the development of their relationship at all. Because we know they married in an alternate timeline, the writers then assumed they didn't have to show why the two of them even liked each other in this timeline. Way to shove your preferences down our throats.
I liked Ronon/Keller as well. I was all behind that. And yes, it's clearly because of Ronon's wife, but whether it panned out longterm or not, it would be a chance to really explore Ronon's character, have him deal with the scars left by running, maybe make him face the person he no longer is.
Instead, by forcing it into a love triangle which we knew Rodney was going to win, it did the opposite. It made Ronon into a dumb oaf, showing off for her in stupid macho ways. And it made the relationship between Rodney and Ronon (there's a whole ep with the two of them) just about one-upsmanship. What about their history? What about Ronon hugging Rodney in the ascension episode? Where did that friendship go? Answer--it was subsumed by the writers' need to get Rodney laid and, in so doing, prove that he was better than Ronon. ARGH.
I am also miffed that they didn't let Keller be friends with Teyla and Carter. What a missed opportunity. And it's not even that they don't put character stuff that is un-plot related in the show. They do--when it's John and Rodney. Not when it's the chicks, apparently. Bechdel test FAIL.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 07:48 pm (UTC)After spending almost an hour looking up "anvilicious" and failing to find a definition online, I give up. Please give me a definition???
no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 08:21 pm (UTC)Also, FYI, this post is mostly in response to a certain long-haired malibuvian, who, as soon as I started airing my problems with last season of SGA got this look of scorn on his face and said well, you're in fandom, that's only 1% of the viewers. As if finding people online who agree with my opinion of Keller invalidates it. Pbththththth.
no subject
Date: 2009-07-07 08:59 pm (UTC)