WisCon 42 Panel Writeups: "Positive Representations of Masculinity"

[justira]

When I was at Wiscon 42 I took over 13,000 words of notes. That is not a typo. Thirteen thousand. And since I took so many notes, I thought I would write up the panels I attended as well as the four panels I was actually on. Let's go!

I attended:

• Redemption And Revenge: Antiheroines And Villainesses Taking Control (panel description | writeup)
• Where The F Is All The F/F In Media? (panel description | writeup — soon!)
• "Get Out" and Black Horror (panel description | writeup)
• Contextual Queerness In Science Fiction And Fantasy (panel description | writeup — soon!)
• Best Superpowers For Banging: 2 Super 2 Banging (panel description | writeup — soon!)
• Positive Representations of Masculinity (panel description | writeup)
• Future Of Fiction Formats (panel description | writeup — soon!)

I was a panelist on:

• The Good Place: Holy Forking Shirtballs (panel description | writeup — soon!)
• Sex and the Sim City: Romance and Sex in Video Games (panel description | writeup — soon!)
• Beyond S/He (panel description | writeup — soon!)
• Exploring the Platonic (panel description | writeup — soon!)

This was one of the panels where I kept track of speakers, but unless something is in quotation marks everything here is paraphrased/summarized. When I attribute lines to the audience, they may be combinations of different speakers — I didn't keep explicit notes on that aspect. All errors and misrepresentations are my own. For this writeup, I'm going to intersperse my own post-facto commentary between blocks of the panelists' discussion.

Positive Representations Of Masculinity
The animated TV show Steven Universe and the blacksmithing reality game show Forged in Fire present and celebrate visions of masculinity that emphasize skill, artistry, resourcefulness, calm, and taking care of others. What other recent works explore masculinity in ways that inspire us?
Panelists: M: Jim Leinweber. Seth Frost, Charles Payseur, Nicasio Reed, Samuel Steinbock-Pratt, Brontë Christopher Wieland
#PositiveMasculinity

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One of the panelists opened the panel by saying it was about "guys being dudes in the best way." Excellent.

The panel proper began with discussion of Steven Universe, which was straight from the panel description and definitely one of the works I was hoping to hear commentary on, especially as the show had come up in several other places/times throughout my experience of the con (including an impromptu panel about the dark side of the show, like its many race issues -- I'll write that one up later).

Sam: I really love Steven Universe. Steven's a round soft boy who's sweet and kind but strong, and learns strength from female-coded mentors.

Brontë: They never really call attention to it, it's never a struggle, but he doesn't have to learn how to learn from these femme-coded people. It's just his life, those are just his role models. There's no "where is the masculine influence?" Greg is a different story.

Seth: Steven loves his dad and wants to sing along with his dad's songs. Greg's a loser who has his own heroism. Not superpowers, but just being a decent guy, and I love watching decent people, decent men.

Nico: There's a lot there about strength from moms. Contrast with Blade, with a tragic mother dying bloody, a male hero driven to revenge, pseudo-Freudian bullshit. All very violent and dehumanizing of the woman, no sense of their personality or strength beyond to give birth to a strong man. As a man, Steven is in the minority on his show. It revolves around women and woman-coded people, whom he gets to admire and learn from.

The point about the show not making a fuss over Steven not having a lot of masculine role models/influences was especially good. The idea of a woman's worth through birthing a strong man reminds me of the counternarrative presented by a tshirt my partner bought himself that says "I'm strong because a strong woman raised me."

The next topic the moderator introduced was also from the panel description: Forged in Fire. I had never heard of this show but it is intensely relevant to my household's interests as I love blacksmithing, my partner wants to be a blacksmith, and the show apparently has nice dudes in it.

Sam: "I have not seen this show, but based on the description and conversations about it, it sounds like Great British Bake Off, so I want to talk about that. I really love Bake Off, and a lot of the reason is because the men approach baking with skill, artistry, resourcefulness, and calm [the virtues listed in the panel description], and help each other out, taking care of each other even though it's a competition."

Seth: You do occasionally get toxic masculinity on GBBO, but the overall ethos is: "do you need an extra pair of hands?"

Charles: "You don't often see men approach a skill from a place of love and joy." They enjoy what they're doing, they're not undercutting each other. There's less sense of competition or it being about winning.

Seth: One of the women on Bake Off said, "You can't be THE best, but you can do YOUR best."

Charles: On Forged in Fire they build each other up, and everyone wins in some way (even though only one really wins.)

Nico: My experience of GBBO is mostly through a Rivers of London fanfic. I love supportive reality shows. Ultimate Beastmaster is this ridonculous show in the vein of American Ninja Warrior, where they're competing to throw their poor mortal bodies against impossible obstacles, but it's so supportive in a Bake Off way. It's all these muscle-bound latex-wearing dudes. I went in expecting toxicity but it's a really supportive show, not just within teams but across teams. They're so proud of each other. And Terry Crews was an announcer! Also So You Think You Can Dance has a spirit of artistry and skill, though not always calm. People who didn't engage in taking care of each other were penalized.

Seth: I'm following the hashtag and already someone is talking about hockey, where whenever they score a goal everyone does a group hug. It's guys celebrating together in a way I don't see in other sports.

Nico: "Rugby is made of big group hugs. I don't understand it but that thing where they mash their beautiful bodies together and become one quivering pile and then just lay in it."

Sam: You're describing it like the Batman villain human knot [from the Superpowers for Banging panel]. Back to Bake Off: It's very common for male contestants to be stay at home dads, and it's also common to see gay men presented exactly the same way as men in relationships with women. They just want to make good cakes. American Ninja Warrior has pretty good representation of masculinity, even if only American, and also comes down to the announcers, who are so excited to see these feats.

I didn't think to say this during the panel itself, but I've seen the "helping hand" ethos more and more on reality tv lately. I've been watching a lot of Face Off, which is a makeup/special effects artist competition show, and once of the great sellings points of that show for me is how often the competitors help each other. On that show there's often an element of "this person's idea for the makeup is so good and it would be a shame if they didn't manage to realize their vision because of [impediment of the hour]." It's great to see this approach spreading through more and more competition shows. It's not just a question of what kinds of contestants are on these shows, but deliberate editing decisions about choosing to play up cooperation rather than conflict. Face Off started out playing up the conflict a lot more in early seasons, but as the show went on they chose more and more to highlight the collaborative aspects and the artistry. I think this is a really important trend in terms of what producers and editors predict or perceive audiences reacting well to, and it's a trend we can and should reward.

Nico: What we've been circling around is the idea of joy and being able to express that. Often joy is expressed through competition, violence, physical intimidation. I don't even know what language my cis male coworkers are speaking sometimes, where it's like, bro! dude! bro! "I've only recently had access to cis male spaces and growing up in that sounds scary."

Charles: Vulnerability is important. There's a level of cynicism that can be self-protective: If you don't care about anything then no one can take anything from you. In positive role models, having these genuine moments of joy, happiness, love can be freeing even with looming threats. It's easy to be the guy that shits on everything, and that approach can be penalized.

Seth: On Veronica Mars, Keith Mars is a positive example, with this interesting family dynamic with his daughter. They do clash sometimes, but also support each other.

Nico: Oh man, Logan. My main interaction was in online fandom, and I was so turned off by Logan and afraid for Veronica. He's this teenage son of very rich abusive people, and enacted that cycle very quickly. He ran a homeless people fighting ring and later became a romantic interest for the main character. And fandom loved him! It was such a moment for me cause I've seen this guy and my friends date this guy over and over. The show couldn't see this about him, or didn't care to interrogate it. Keith and dads are a thing I want to talk about a lot. Like Benjamin Sisko.

Brontë: Something I was gonna bring up later was about Adventure Time but also applies to Keith and Veronica: they're very open with each other, and the greatest moments of tension come from hiding things from each other. It's very prominent in portrayals of male friendships, keeping secrets and hiding feelings is the norm. Jake and Finn keeping secrets from each other is when it blows up. It's important to see that portrayed.

Mod: What about Logan and redemption?

Seth: I don't like that. I don't like Steven Universe's Lars, never want to. On Stargate with Colonel O'Neill, there's this masculine thing of sacrificing yourself and it being a good day to die, but he says dying sucks.

Charles: Star Trek. The representations evolving from the beginning and reaching forward through time. Sisko is a man very willing to talk feelings, especially with his son, including about sex in this mentoring, information transferring way. When you get The Talk from your dad it's like urr, err. Seeing that information actually passed on is very useful and powerful, rather than finding out in the worst circumstances. That sort of thing gets outsourced, like you find out from media and the internet, young men finding out about themselves with these toxic models. It's like, "Watch football and somehow you'll learn about sex." Which is pretty accurate, really: it lasts hours on tv but takes ten minutes in real time, and you have to pause every ten seconds. It's also really common for mentors to pass down knowledge and then immediately die.

Nico: Aside from Sisko and Picard, people sell Kirk kind of short. The mythology of Kirk is much more misogynist than the real Kirk. On Star Trek: Discovery the ethos they carry through is diplomacy and centering talking and restorative justice. Sisko was important for me in how to define masculinity. Black masculinity especially is presented in such a limiting way. Black Lightning is centering a great representation of a Black father. Being a superhero, raising a kid, raising a space station -- it did have a baby one time! White masculinity is sold short a lot too. We have Luke Cage, T'Challa and his father (though they did the mentor dying thing).

Mod: Black Panther brings us back to secrets being toxic.

Seth: Being trans and "trying to figure out how to be a man without having been a boy." A lot of the portrayals like Sisko and his son, and Steven universe and his father, really resonated.

Charles: It's important to have boys have positive non-male role models and learn masculinity and build masculinity. Like Thor wanting to be a Valkyrie being part of how he built his masculinity. We need more characters who see themselves in non-male characters.

At this point the mod asked for audience suggestions. As far as what's been covered so far, I liked the specific call-outs to models of Black masculinity. Nico's line about cis male spaces being scary resonated extremely strongly, and Seth's point about being a man without having been a boy. It was really great overall to have two trans men on the panel. One of the panelists (I forget which one) joked about being the "token cis straight white guy" when everyone was introducing themselves.

The points about genuine joy and the toxicity of keeping secrets, especially keeping feelings hidden, were also great, but I wish there had been more about the trope of mentors dying. This is so common in fiction and it's extremely tiring, especially because it tends to restrict the information flow to be really unidirectional. This trope deprives men of a kind of ongoing dialogue with people who are at different stages in life, in their skills, etc. Passing down knowledge, skills, and information is all well and good, but it would also be really healthy to see older or more skilled men learning from the younger people in their lives and living to process and enact that learning.

Mod: Audience suggestions?

Audience: Brooklyn 99, Queer Eye

Sam: I watched the old one [Queer Eye] and didn't take away much. The new one is very affecting, about taking care of yourself and finding your own style. A lot of the men are unsure of themselves, shrinking into themselves. The show encourages them to find what they like to wear, do with their hair, kind of "this is what I'm rocking." It inspired me to make changes in my own life. I really do value the way they approach that task, the kindness.

Audience: In the first episode they were stressing the guy being made over reuniting with his ex. It put her in an uncomfortable position. Do they keep doing that?

Sam: I don't think so, but I hear what you're saying.

Nico: I group watch it with my gay friends. It's fun until episode 4, one where they do a makeover on a closeted-to-family gay man. They don't pressure him to come out to his stepmom, but he does, and we were openly weeping. They stopped calling it "For the Straight Guy." It's directly addressing toxic masculinity and men who are steeped in it. My issues with it as a gay man, it's a little weird, Jonathan leaning into campiness, and every now and then it's a little exploitative.

Charles: Until recently explicitly queer content was negative and had to be punished. Even now the gay person is often punished, or it's not a positive thing about them but silly and funny rather than desirable or aspirational.

I've heard really mixed reactions to the new Queer Eye, and I'm really wary that a lot of the reactions that focus on how affecting it is come from people who aren't gay men, while a lot of the more reserved reactions have been coming from queer people (not exclusively men). I haven't seen it myself, but I am not sure what to think of upholding queer men as mentors in style and self-actualization, in implied contrast with potential straight male mentors in the same areas. There's a lot going on there with the feminization of queer men and how one can learn so-called "soft skills" from them, which is the part that to me feels like it implies queer men are better models for that than straight men. But there's also a lot there about queer men being aspirational models and how queer people often have a more complicated struggle with self-love and positive expressions of self, and there being a lot to learn from that. I do wish that straight men learning self-love and positive self-expression from each other was more common, not because queer men don't have a lot to teach fellow men, but because men having a variety of positive models is important.

There's another element that bothers me, this idea that a queer person will come into your life and fix it and you can demonstrate how liberal and enlightened you are. It's a bit "magical queer" to me, especially if the show doesn't go into the queer mens' interiorities and subjectivity, as opposed to them being props/tools/vessels in the makeover person's narrative. I'm glad not all the makeover subjects are known to be straight anymore, but I do wonder how much the queer experts get to be seen as subjects, too.

I'm also not sure, not having seen the show, if it deals at all with some of the less positive things that can happen in cis gay male communities, like the strains of misogyny and racism that can fester there. Those things are rampant throughout our society of course, but I don't like erasing how queer spaces have those problems and building a myth of queer spaces being overall more enlightened than society at large. I guess that's kind of the overarching hesitation I have with the show, this idea of queer people and queer spaces being more enlightened without discussing the problems we still have there, including bigotry towards fellow queer people (such as ace, aro, bi people, etc.).

On the other hand it's an overall queer-positive show that presents queer men as aspirational and normalizing queerness is great. So, you know. I'll have to watch it and see how I feel after. These are just hesitations I have about the premise -- later on in this post I talk a bit about barriers to entry for Brooklyn 99, which I did get past, and now enjoy that show even with its flaws. It might be the same with Queer Eye!

Audience: Mr. Rogers

Mod: There's the "Two Rogers Test": If you are worried you're about to act out toxic masculinity, as yourself, would Steve Rogers approve and would Fred Rogers approve? If they would both approve then it's probably not toxic.

Audience: Newt Scamander. Eddie Redmayne did a good job. The character wants to write textbooks, loves animals, is not the one chosen saviour.

This audience member seems to have been thinking of Pop Culture Detective's video on The Fantastic Masculinity of Newt Scamander. Pop Culture Detective does a lot of content about positive masculinity, including the Steven Universe video mentioned in this tweet from the panel's hashtag. The Newt Scamander video does mention potential autism, which made me wary, but the video also explicitly said that Newt was deeply empathic, and the problem was in how he can express that. Being autistic myself, I really appreciated that, since autistic people lacking empathy is a super damaging misrepresentation and stereotype.

Sam: I really love Brooklyn 99. All the male characters have moments of not so great masculinity, but that's usually presented as a bad thing and it shows men learning from each other. In the second to last episode of "the most recent semen— uh, season" [audience laughter], Jake has to make a choice and doesn't do the rash impulsive thing but is emotionally supportive and helps his friends by talking and lifting them up. It's an example of how far his character has developed. Holt and Terry are good examples. Terry in real life is a good guy too. B99 shows men's relationship with women, both romantic and platonic, being a source of development and courage.

Brontë: I haven't seen it, but I'm wary of representations of masculinity in a cop show.

Audience: I was also wary of Brooklyn 99 for the straight white male protagonist and humanizing cops, but it does a good job, including about prison. Elementary also does a good job.

Seth: I only know Elementary from tumblr.

Nico: "So you know Joan's outfits."

Sam: Can I talk about cops again?

Nico: "Nothing would give me more pleasure."

Sam: "I somehow doubt that."

Sam: I apologize for not mentioning this. It was an oversight. I don't think the show does a good job with the cop angle. The problem with all shows that portray cops as good is they misrepresent what police work is, and Brooklyn 99 doesn't try very hard on that. The show is comedy with a cop framing, and doesn't interrogate that and how it works. It ignores the reality of policing and what police do, like arresting low-income people and people of colour. That's a pretty big caveat! I think it does an okay job talking about the difficulties of being a black cop. Terry was arrested by a white cop when not in uniform, but there's no examination of systemic racism.

Nico: Last year there was a panel on future cops, and it's such a prevalent narrative that it fades into the background. That's insidious. I grew up watching Cops. It was my first impression of police, you know that "bad boys, bad boys, watcha gonna do." That media makes them a wacky soap opera is insidious. Elementary has that genius detective trope-- is it possible to have that without the toxicity? Johnny Lee Miller's version is not a non-toxic male. Doyle's Holmes is much sweeter and kinder than most visual takes except Granada. Elementary is such an incredible slow burn learning process for this character. I initially started watching it out of spite against BBC [Sherlock] fans, but I kept watching for the incredible arc. What really impressed me was how the show addresses and grapples with Joan doing emotional labour for him. He continually makes a conscious effort to make sure she is supported, paid, valued, and knows that's not her job.

Sam: Not much to add but the second season with Mycroft was garbage.

I haven't watched Elementary yet (though it's on my list), but the cis straight white male protagonist Jake of Brooklyn 99 was a definite barrier for me. David J. Schwartz had a nice twitter thread about the barrier of Jake, and I've had someone point out to me that Jake is Jewish and therefore still a minority portrayal, but I don't feel like either of those really got at Jake being a barrier for entry into the series specifically. Schwartz's thread deals largely with his development over time rather than addressing the anxiety I, like many others, had about a cop show centering a cis straight white male cop. It took hearing a lot of good things about B99 about every character that wasn't Jake for me to actually give the show a chance. And I do enjoy the show. It has a lot of good stuff going for it, alongside the complicated and negative stuff. But what I needed wasn't to be sold on Jake as positive or Jake as minority or Jake as subversion. What I needed to know was that the show actually centered marginalized identities.

I don't recall the show doing much with Jake's Jewishness (maybe it does later?) but I do know I've seen people complain about characters who are "technically" Jewish but aren't observant Jews or otherwise really connected to their Jewish identities. It's part of a general problem with what I call "ticky box" representation versus representation of practice. There's a lot of bigotry out there that comes down to "well it's okay in theory but not in practice." Like when homophobes say they're "okay with" queer people but can we not be queer at them in public? It's not enough to just say a character is part of a certain marginalized identity, or mention it every once in a while when it's funny/inconvenient. This is actually related to something I covered on the "Sex and the Sim City" panel and one of the reasons I attended the "Contextual Queerness" panel: I wanted to talk and hear about narratives that are queer not just by virtue of composition, but because they get at actual truths and practices of queer identity. I explicitly do not mean directly porting over queer problems from our world, like coming out to homophobic parents. That's a real struggle real queer people have, but also doesn't access the many axes and modes fiction has at its disposal for portraying a marginalized experience.

Anyway, I'm really glad that this panel covered Brooklyn 99 and touched on what it means to have police as positive protagonists in our culture.

Audience: My Cat from Hell teaches men to have soft feelings for cats.

Seth: About the toxic genius character. Toxic masculinity isn't just muscle-bound grunting guys, but also toxic scientist, nerd, skinny, evil masculinity. One of my heroes was Carl Sagan, and now Neil DeGrasse Tyson (ignore his twitter). He uses science for the good of society and the joy of learning. Contrast with the genius who hates people, so smart that he's mean.

Charles: Depictions of non physically-intimidating masculinity can still be bad. I love Poirot but he's not the greatest model. He has to be proper and put-together and not much of a jerk, a Belgian outsider in xenophobic Britain, but has a superiority complex and knows he's better than everyone else. He runs into his nemesis who might be smarter than him, and it's awful. There's a fragility that goes with that. If anyone challenges you it gets nasty real quick, like in BBC's Sherlock. You don't see men who are okay with being corrected.

Brontë: It's interesting but dangerous about Rick and Morty. Rick is an asshole genius. When I watch that show it's very mean to him and picking apart that trope, but a lot of other people get wrapped up in "fuck yeah Rick!" Morty is this lesser companion grandkid that gets toted around, but I think Morty is the humanity of the show,

Mod: Speaking of asshole geniuses: Sheldon Cooper?

Audience: [boos, groans]

Panelists: NO

Audience: Columbo?

Mod: Police procedural, not sure how great as a role model. We don't see a lot of relationships with family and other detectives.

Audience: He makes omelettes though!

Audience: There's also a book called Toxic Geek Masculinity

I am reading that for reviewing alongisde Gaming at the Edge right now!

Me (in the audience): What about Bob's Burgers?

Panelists: [not familiar, ask me about it]

Me: Well Bob, of the burgers, tries to have these really positive and genuine relationships with his family, including his wife, his daughters, and his son. The show does a slot with how he and his family are super weird but aren't particularly embarrassed by their weirdness.

I didn't do a particularly good job of encapsulating what I like about Bob's Burgers in general and about masculinity on that show in particular, but stay tuned here on Lady Business for a quick hit about how Bob's Burgers is basically today's Addams Family!

Nico: Fear of intimacy and fear of vulnerability leads to toxicity, lashing out, and hatred, in intersection with misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia. It's important to have those conversations around feminism. Feminism has been the root of my understanding of masculinity. It shows us what's possible.

Audience: Bob isn't interested in performing masculinity. He's not into sports and he's not hypersexual. He's just being himself. I'm frustrated by sports because it's a performance of masculinity where men can't be vulnerable. My favourite thing about this con is the men I've met. They're not trying to impress upon me their masculinity, just their genuine self. "Thank you for being men I can be my true self with."

This was an extremely touching sentiment from the audience. I also want to point out that not all of the reactions/discussion of Bob's Burgers from the audience was positive.

Charles: We had a moment with masculinity where you can't be like, he's not a man, he's doing sports. When you get away from the capitalist business of sports, when it's not being sold to you, when it's about understanding your body and knowing yourself it can be positive. But when you're expected to become a monolith, there's this militarization, with team sport drilling you're pushed to not be yourself, not be an individual.

Nico: Cool Runnings!

Charles: That's starting to change now. And Cool Running like Nico said.

Seth: There's PK Subban. He stood out from his team, got millions of dollars to a children's hospital. The team said, who's this weirdo with his dancing? You have to go. They traded him away. That crushing "you're not an individual, you're part of a team" thing, when he just takes such joy in being a good hockey player.

Audience: Speaking of hockey and baking, Check, Please! is about a hockey player who bakes and is gay, and one of the secondary hockey guys has a minor in gender studies.

Audience: Another Bob, Bob Ross. "I'm making happy little mistakes". He's being streamed on Twitch, which is usually a toxic gamer space.

Nico: I wish we had time to talk about video games.

Mod: You could propose a panel on masculinity in games.

Audience: There's also adventure documentaries/films, like one with a guy biking to the North Pole talking about how scared he was and he had to be rescued. Often in these films you have teams trying to do something, and the women are valued and respected. There's some good straight guy masculinity there.

Mod: Film festivals are a great place for not your standard Hollywood fare.

Audience: American Ninja Warriors has a lot of the positive "woman on the team thing," like men admiringly going, "she's huge!"

The panel ran out of time and broke up at this point. I really enjoyed the discussion, and I do wish both Bob Ross and video games could have been discussed. As a kid I loved watching Bob Ross paint and painted several oil landscapes in his style/following his instructions. He's a great model of positive masculinity, but also of an overall approach to creativity and life in general. In the toxic perfectionist environment I was raised in, it was really important to have someone telling me it's okay to make mistakes.

Masculinity in and around video games and gaming culture is a whoooooole huge topic, and I do hope there will be a panel! I'm also, like I said, reading two related books right now that I plan to write about.

---

Here's a roundup of works mentioned during the panel:

• Adventure Time
• American Ninja Warrior
• Black Lightning
• Black Panther
• Bob's Burgers
• Brooklyn 99
• Check, Please!
• Cool Runnings
• Elementary
• Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
• Forged in Fire

• Great British Bake Off
• My Cat from Hell
• Queer Eye
• So You Think You Can Dance?
• Star Trek: Discovery
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
• Stargate
• Steven Universe
• Ultimate Beastmaster
• Veronica Mars

Also mentioned:

• Carl Sagan
• Hockey
• Jack O'Neill
• Jean-Luc Picard
• Luke Cage
• Neil DeGrasse Tyson
• Steve Rogers

And here are some tweets from the hashtag:

• @mycrazyhair livetweeted this panel extensively, starting here
• @tigerpetals tweeted a lot of the highlights starting here
• @youripides also did a great livetweet, and she was really excited about hockey, and also suggested some more shows
• My Little Pony also majority female
• Suggesting Tim Gunn as a positive masculine model
• The tweet I mentioned before linking to a video on Steven Universe
• Different toxic masculinities in Dr. Horrible

Stay tuned for more panel writeups!

Comments

[oracne]

Thank you so much for these! You did a bunch of ones I was interested in but couldn't get to.

[justira]

Thanks! I hope they're helpful/interesting =)

[monanotlisa]

Thanks for the write-up!

(Now I want to re-watch SGA for positive depictions of masculinity. I love the boys in my icon, but tbh, I've always thought of them as that: boys. Grown-up, sure, but both in tightly regulated environments that have strong outside framing, i.e. school/academia/military contracting for Rodney, and boarding school/military for John. I have always thought of them as reflections of the writers' hopes and dreams and insecurities, allowing us as writers and fans to insert ours into them so easily in this juggernaut fandom of back when.)

[justira]

No problem!

(I can't comment on SGA as I never got into that, though I did watch the first couple seasons of SG-1, but that was lover a decade ago)

[monanotlisa]

I really appreciate all the work y'all put into this comm in general. :)

(And hah, we did a conceptually opposite watch of the Stargates: I only watched the last seasons of SG-1, but all of SGA.)

[justira]

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoy the blog =D

[forestofglory]

Thanks so much for writing this up -- I enjoyed your thoughts being being included with the panel write up!

Nico mentioned the recent discussion of Kirk as less of an asshole that popular culture depicts him so I wanted to link to "Freshly Remember'd: Kirk Drift" by Erin Horáková which started that discussion. It's really interesting piece on changing ideas of masculinity over time and how today's toxic idea can effect our views of the past. I think a lot of people who are interested in this panel would be interested.

[justira]

Thanks for linking that, and for your comment in general! I remembered that someone at Strange Horizons had written about Kirk, but had not dug up the link for this post. Thank you for doing that!

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

This was a good read, thanks for doing this.

The small comment of The Rogers' Rule does make me wonder about an analysis of the many takes of Steve Rogers with regards to this topic.

[justira]

Thanks so much for reading and commenting!

I'm really glad you brought up Steve Rogers's evolution and retellings over time. (Stay tuned for my Antiheroines/Villainesses writeup, which is almost done and talks about reinterpretations and retellings!) One aspect of that that I find particularly interesting is what Chris Evans brings to modern interpretations of the character. I've talked before about how actors are creative people too, and involved in the development of their characters, and I think this is happening in this scene with Sharon Carter, as analyzed by project-blackbird. The writers seem to think it's an example of Steve being awkward and not great with women, but I think part of the analysis here — which claims this is a graceful pickup of a soft no — relies on Chris Evans's delivery and his overall interpretation of Steve as a generally good, non-toxic male.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Steve is awkward and not great with women-before the Bond Tour Gals put him through bootcamp How To Live With Women. Here, and yes, Chris has a lot to do with this, he makes a try-washing machines, I've got one, she doesn't and she soft no-s him (because that's not where she belongs for this op) and he picks up on it. She then clarifies it's not a long-term no and if iirc he smiles at her.

It rather goes with that interview that went off the rail, Chris and Jeremy saying something that probably had more to do with Director/Writer choices and Chris being the one that later gave a good apology. I don't keep up with most of the public appearances, but it seems that all of the 'beverages prior" are older things like he's figured out that isn't what he wants to model.

And of course he's got Dodger to calm him down.

[justira]

I don't really keep up with actors or public appearances too much myself, but I absorb a decent bit through fandom osmosis and hang out with several people who ARE very interested in Chris Evans, so I'm a bit more familiar with him and his take on the character than is usual for me. I do think he's learned a lot over the course of his stint in the MCU. I learned from him too, actually! A friend linked me to this video, where Chris talks about brain noise, and I really appreciate public figures who talk about things like anxiety and depression. The idea that making noise is what brains do helped me a lot at that point in my life.

[viridian5]

The original Ninja Warrior (Sasuke) from Japan had the male competitors supporting each other and in some cases sharing tips with each other on tackling obstacles.

[justira]

I'm not familiar with any version of Ninja Warrior, but that sounds really wholesome.

Thanks for your addition, and for reading!

[viridian5]

It was so wholesome. I haven't watched the American version and don't know much about how different or alike it is because I can't deal with the American commentators, but the original wasn't really competitor vs. competitor, though everyone strove to do their best and fastest runs and make it to the top, but all competitors vs. the course, with everyone there as fans.

Thanks!

[justira]

Yes! Competitor vs. course, rather than competitor vs. competitor! When I replied to your previous comment I typed out and deleted several versions of this thought, but you got exactly what I failed to find the words for! I think that's kind of part and parcel of that helping hand ethos in reality TV, where the focus is more on overcoming the challenge than anything else. Make an awesome makeup for this theme, finish the obstacle course, bake the cake. Kind of that classic breakdown of types of narrative (person vs. nature, person/person, person/self, person/society).

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I know I've seen clips of one of the stunt women doing some sort of show of the ilk and the commentary was very good, very "wow, this is awesome" very "she's really taking this course"

Thank you

[brainwane]

I proposed this session and could not attend due to a schedule conflict, so I am very grateful for this thorough writeup! I recommended it in wiscon. Much thanks!

Re: Thank you

[justira]

Phew, so sorry I didn't get back to you sooner! I'm glad the writeup was helpful, and thanks for reccing it! =D

[selki]

Thanks for this write-up! I missed Wiscon and don't know all the shows referenced, but I still thought the ground the panel covered was interesting!

[justira]

A very belated but heartfelt welcome!