Oh my, there is SO MUCH that I want to say, but so much of it will be said in my later post! Ahhh! *sits on hands* (Not that I don't still have a lot to say now, because hi, this is basically my favorite show ever and Sarah is among my favorite characters).
How cool to see the creators make that the most important part of the program, and avoid making her fit the ideal that John’s future self seems to have memorialised.
Basically this. And if you have any movie-universe context, it's even better, because TSCC splits off from movie canon at the point where Sarah dies. The show is actually AU fanfic premised on the belief that it was dumb to kill Sarah and give the story to John in the future. *loves it*
And I'm not ashamed to admit that TSCC was when I first got dissatisfied with the Bechdel Test. Not that it isn't useful! I still use it all the time. But it's a starting point, and when it's all that gets said about "feminism" in a piece of media, it can be very reductive. Season 1 is not as good on this front, but in season 2 there are five (!!!) major female characters with important roles. And I kept seeing people be like, oh Sarah's a Mama Bear who's all about her son and it doesn't even pass the Bechdel Test. But FIVE MAJOR FEMALE CHARACTERS. And Sarah/Cameron is often hostile, and particularly centered on John, but there are also so many layers to that hostility; Sarah's fear of machines, Sarah's fear that John is too close to Cameron, Cameron's having more knowledge of the future than the Connors, the discomfort with Cameron's increasing humanity, the fact that they need Cameron to protect them, the use of violence, how to save innocent lives, whether they should save innocent lives, etc. It's just really reductive of what's going on to just look at the surface layer and say "oh they're arguing about John again"? Of course, I always wished that the different women interacted more, and when they do, it does relate to John a lot of the time. But there's just so much more to talk about there than that. So I wish this fuller context could go alongside things like the Bechdel Test without making me feel like I'm trying to give a "pass" to something just because I personally liked it.
And the marketing was always terrible. Ugh. Fox marketed half-naked Cameron to teen boys, and that was not the audience for this little gem of a show.
The other reason why I think the show and Sarah & John's relationship surpasses a simplistic Mama Bear trope is because, like you say, a connection about people who need each other, who have a very fraught relationship in a very desperate situation, but also because she's so clearly. . . forming him. He is so clearly Sarah Connor's son. She is so *present* both in the story, but in who John is. And I think I'm stealing this idea from prozacpark, who says this a lot, but I do also think it's important for fiction to reclaim ideas that have traditionally been roped off as "feminine" as powerful, active things worthy of serious attention. Like *motherhood*, the real, active, day to day work of having, protecting and teaching a child. Like even if TSCC is often about Sarah's motherhood, writing that off as automatically a bad thing or not feminist media, in the face of a story that takes it seriously and makes it a huge, complicated thing, is maybe not a solution? (Again, with the wanting context to go alongside the criticism, because both are valid for different reasons).
I would argue here that "TSCC", despite its killer robot focus and place in the action genre, is against needless death and so casting Sarah as a non-deadly saviour is part of a strategic theme about the best way to save the world.
Yes! I too was a little wary of this idea that Sarah hasn't killed and the importance the show gives the idea, but ultimately I was convinced by how they handle it. First, like you say, Derek is the opposition on that point and even he doesn't act like it makes Sarah weak. Also, Sarah IS totally badass and can be pretty hard as nails; it's just that she has a ton of compassion too. Complicated characterization! And I really like that TSCC sets up debates about things like that, about whether you should give up your humanity to (maybe) save humanity, or whether you've already lost if you do that, and doesn't really answer them? Who is innocent, and should you trade an innocent life to save MORE innocent lives? How much of a duty does Sarah have to give up herself to save John or the world? Characters approach the questions differently and behave in very different ways; they disagree and criticize each other often, and the story shows upsides and downsides of all their approaches, but the story doesn't say anyone is necessarily right in how they deal with such impossible questions. It presents the ideas with complexity and, often, with grace, but it doesn't try to slap a pat answer on them, because there aren't any.
Just out of interest is there much of a John/Charley following?
Not really? There's a bit, but I'd say the main boyslash ship is John/Derek, to the extent there is one. I will also somewhat gleefully note that this is one of the few fandoms I've been in that just doesn't *have* an established boyslash ship. Sarah/Cameron outweighs most of the other pairings in terms of fannish following (in a relatively small fandom, sadly, though it was decently active while the show was on) though of course nothing can touch Cameron/John.
*rolls around in this post*
How cool to see the creators make that the most important part of the program, and avoid making her fit the ideal that John’s future self seems to have memorialised.
Basically this. And if you have any movie-universe context, it's even better, because TSCC splits off from movie canon at the point where Sarah dies. The show is actually AU fanfic premised on the belief that it was dumb to kill Sarah and give the story to John in the future. *loves it*
And I'm not ashamed to admit that TSCC was when I first got dissatisfied with the Bechdel Test. Not that it isn't useful! I still use it all the time. But it's a starting point, and when it's all that gets said about "feminism" in a piece of media, it can be very reductive. Season 1 is not as good on this front, but in season 2 there are five (!!!) major female characters with important roles. And I kept seeing people be like, oh Sarah's a Mama Bear who's all about her son and it doesn't even pass the Bechdel Test. But FIVE MAJOR FEMALE CHARACTERS. And Sarah/Cameron is often hostile, and particularly centered on John, but there are also so many layers to that hostility; Sarah's fear of machines, Sarah's fear that John is too close to Cameron, Cameron's having more knowledge of the future than the Connors, the discomfort with Cameron's increasing humanity, the fact that they need Cameron to protect them, the use of violence, how to save innocent lives, whether they should save innocent lives, etc. It's just really reductive of what's going on to just look at the surface layer and say "oh they're arguing about John again"? Of course, I always wished that the different women interacted more, and when they do, it does relate to John a lot of the time. But there's just so much more to talk about there than that. So I wish this fuller context could go alongside things like the Bechdel Test without making me feel like I'm trying to give a "pass" to something just because I personally liked it.
And the marketing was always terrible. Ugh. Fox marketed half-naked Cameron to teen boys, and that was not the audience for this little gem of a show.
The other reason why I think the show and Sarah & John's relationship surpasses a simplistic Mama Bear trope is because, like you say, a connection about people who need each other, who have a very fraught relationship in a very desperate situation, but also because she's so clearly. . . forming him. He is so clearly Sarah Connor's son. She is so *present* both in the story, but in who John is. And I think I'm stealing this idea from
I would argue here that "TSCC", despite its killer robot focus and place in the action genre, is against needless death and so casting Sarah as a non-deadly saviour is part of a strategic theme about the best way to save the world.
Yes! I too was a little wary of this idea that Sarah hasn't killed and the importance the show gives the idea, but ultimately I was convinced by how they handle it. First, like you say, Derek is the opposition on that point and even he doesn't act like it makes Sarah weak. Also, Sarah IS totally badass and can be pretty hard as nails; it's just that she has a ton of compassion too. Complicated characterization! And I really like that TSCC sets up debates about things like that, about whether you should give up your humanity to (maybe) save humanity, or whether you've already lost if you do that, and doesn't really answer them? Who is innocent, and should you trade an innocent life to save MORE innocent lives? How much of a duty does Sarah have to give up herself to save John or the world? Characters approach the questions differently and behave in very different ways; they disagree and criticize each other often, and the story shows upsides and downsides of all their approaches, but the story doesn't say anyone is necessarily right in how they deal with such impossible questions. It presents the ideas with complexity and, often, with grace, but it doesn't try to slap a pat answer on them, because there aren't any.
Just out of interest is there much of a John/Charley following?
Not really? There's a bit, but I'd say the main boyslash ship is John/Derek, to the extent there is one. I will also somewhat gleefully note that this is one of the few fandoms I've been in that just doesn't *have* an established boyslash ship. Sarah/Cameron outweighs most of the other pairings in terms of fannish following (in a relatively small fandom, sadly, though it was decently active while the show was on) though of course nothing can touch Cameron/John.