Which is why I didn’t initially respond to it.
Now, I don’t think there is such a thing as an ideologically-sound TV show, although recognizing power differentials in the entertainment industry and working from there is a good thing. I don’t believe that these two concepts are mutually exclusive. And, if it isn’t obvious enough, Joss Whedon’s work (much of it excellent, imho) is certainly not above criticism.
The function of art, meanwhile, is…
Oh, bollocks. I am actually responding to this in a serious manner, aren’t I?
Mmmkay. Allecto is a fundamentalist. She’s the Cotton Mather of the feminist movement.
I see her on Feminist Sci Fi – angry at the notion of being referred to as “crazy,” while completely forgetting the way in which she slandered Joss Whedon’s wife, Kai Cole, by reducing her entire existence to that of a lobotomized f(uc)k-puppet. To add insult to injury, Allecto didn’t even bother to use Kai Cole’s actual name when she wrote about her. Instead, Kai Cole is referred to like an ephemeral, abstract, nameless, and brainless being. Like an amoeba.
Men use this sort of language against women all the time – particularly in art. I enjoy and admire Tolstoy’s work, for example, but whenever I think of Natasha toward the end of War and Peace, I practically get hives. Forget Tolstoy and hives, though, if I am to dwell on a feminist erasing a woman to score a cheap point, I’m going to end up with bloody sores, looking a bit like the undead. And who would want to add more horror to an already creeptastic debacle.
Allecto, don’t worry, I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you’re just a jerk.
P.S. Your continued usage of the word “rapist” to describe Joss Whedon, in light of your requests for people to stop being so mean and whatnot, is doubly hypocritical.
Natalia A. 
I had trouble even getting through the whole thing. I had to read it in stages. As someone who watched all of Firely, Buffy, and Angel — and loved them, and saw realistically draw characters instead of walking talking gender automatons — the total feeling of utter wrongness in her representation of everything kept overwhelming me. I had to conclude that here was a person with a gigantic axe to grind on anyone with any genitalia at all, who got in her way.
“Allecto, don’t worry, I don’t think you’re crazy. I think you’re just a jerk.”
seconded.
you catch her piece on proper radical feminist lesbian sex? phallic toys used for penetration are RIGHT OUT, and she’s not at all sure about this here “fisting” either.
oh, and slash is patriarchal, including femmeslash. great stuff.
“Let me just say now that I have never personally known of a healthy relationship between a white man and a woman of colour.”
Wow. Just wow. As a white man in the first healthy relationship of my life, with (you guessed it) a ‘woman of colour’ (god I hate that term, even before it’s needlessly anglicized), I have to second your view on her being a jerk.
Hi friend,
The artist formerly known as Kathryn Wilson here, extending a hello.
I stop by and peruse your writings often, and I wanted to extend you my website if you are so inclined. It’s wallacewilson.org, ’cause I changed my name to Wallace, which still feels good after a year and half.
How are you? What are you thinking and feeling? Me, I miss ya. I’m going to grad school for creative writing next year. Kind of insane. I will never have any money, ever.
My last blog entry was about Eastern NC and it made me think of you.
Drop me a line sometime if the mood strikes.
WW
She also says that she’s never seen a white woman be abusive of her WoC girlfriend in the lesbian community, I believe.
mostly, I get the impression she doesn’t get out much. and when she does, she sees what she wants to see, basically.
Wallace! You changed your name? Congratulations!
I love your site and am linking to it.
Dave, some anglicized spellings are an old habit of mine. I originally learned Brit-English, not American-English. It’s always been an effort to keep the “u” out of the word “colour” after I moved to the States and became an American, and one day, I just said “screw it.”
As for Allecto, well, people are entitled to their own opinions, but I rather hope I am entitled to tell them that they suck. *sigh* The whole “rapist” thing against Whedon is pure slander.
Whedon has issues in his work, but is he criminal? WTF??? I shudder to think what Allecto would make of Dante or Kafka or, hell, Nabokov…
Right, rape is one of those things that really, really should not be thrown around lightly (or, conversely, treated lightly when it does happen). Invoking rape in a conversation is like invoking the Nazis; best to avoid doing it unless you have a very direct and demonstrable link in mind, which Allecto does not if her writing is any indication.
I also just hate the term ‘person of color’ and all variants on it. It essentially paints a line with people who can be considered “white” on one side, people who can’t on the other, and then mashes together everyone on the latter side. Either way, Anglicization is a minor quibble and I don’t really care; Shan does it, most people I know who learned English anywhere but North America do as well. I was under the impression Allecto was American though, which makes it feel like a pointless affectation, which I’m sure is the least of her sins in this instance.
Maybe Allecto is Canadian….? Most Americans I know are OK with the term “person of colour” or “woman of colour” (WOC for short), and I’m OK with it as well, when I’m speaking English… But in Russian, for example, “person of colour” can be a huuuuuge insult.
Either you refer to someone directly using their ethnicity, or you don’t mention it at all, the logic goes (perhaps someone out there might like to correct me, maybe it’s only an insult in the circles I run in – God knows, I don’t wish to generalize).
Maybe there’s something to that – I don’t know. I do believe that the term POC is crucial when it comes to delineating white privilege, especially in the blogosphere (for a handy example of that – look at which bloggers get book deals, and which rarely do. This is especially true of the feminist blogosphere).
she’s Australian.
and, I hear your arguments wrt the semantics; but, me, I figure, you call people what they want to be called, and as long as self-defined PoC use the term, I’ll use it; it’s not my call. if someone particularly doesn’t want it applied to hirself, of course, then I won’t.
Yeah, I understand calling people what they want to be called, but there are practical limits. I’m never going to spell women as “wymyn”, to cite a somewhat cliche example (except for right now 😉 ) because there’s no point and most women I know don’t even use the word. PoC is a term I have never, ever heard verbally outside a classroom; I simply don’t know anyone outside the academic setting who uses the term. For similar reasons, I never use ‘African American’; it’s unwieldy, limited, and assumes facts sometimes not in evidence. And again, I don’t know any ‘African Americans’ who themselves use the term. I’m not saying this as a “backlash against PC” or anything like that, which in my experience is generally just a way of saying “I’m going to improvise a high-minded sounding reason to be an offensive asshole”, just clarifying what I mean.
I understand the argument about delineating white privilege, but it still doesn’t make the term work well, imo. Also, it tends to oversimplify the discussion, because while white people may (generally) be on top of the clusterfuck of the American/world power structure, being East Asian in America is not like being Black in America is not like being Mexican is not like being Dominican, and that’s before you even bring class and religion into the argument.
Either way, calling Joss Whedon a rapist and generally implying men suck…Doesn’t really hurt my feelings personally but it seems like a dick move. But as for her being from Australia, oops, I’m a jerk :-0
Being a sinophile, a geek, and a fan of overused old-westisms, I liked Serenity/Firefly. Guess I suck.
You don’t just suck, you’re a RAPIST! As am I, apparently….
I don’t know many people who actually use African-American; but WoC is actually in pretty common usage on the blogosphere, at least. maybe it’s less cumbersome on the screen, what with the acronym and all.
There are very few forum like areas where you can talk about allecto with like minded individuals, as she censors the probably 100s of hate comments she gets.
I’m sure she wrote such an overly scathing article to get attention, and now she is bathing selectively in it. Too often feminism is confused with a hatred of men and a sexism towards men. I have nothing against women and support feminism, but when you start to degrade men and say phallic objects are out… You’ve lost it. I have rarely seen feminism be used properly, and allecto is adding to the bad name feminists get.
It’s times like this that women wonder why (scared) men oppress them… For example, “I dug my key into the side of his pretty little….” That Carrie Underwood song… Remember? Well, a man could never do that, it would be sexist. So where’s the double standard now?
Erm. I don’t like allecto, but saying that men oppress women out of “fear” is not, in my opinion, reflective of reality. Men oppress women, and other men, because society is still generally cool with violence, and violence is still seen as a great way to solve problems.
And I’ve had a dude damage my property once. We hadn’t even dated. He just severely upset when his vulgar advances were ignored.
I don’t agree with Doug’s statement because I feel like it excuses men from responsibility, but the general idea that fear is present in oppressors’ minds isn’t entirely wrong. I think a very, very large percentage of White racists are scared shitless of Blacks, Latinos, and of course Arabs. Homophobes…Well, the word kind of says it all. Rich people I think are often terrified of poor people and the prospect of those people taking what’s theirs. That being said though, women have way more to fear from men than the reverse, and to use any fear men might have of vindictive women to justify sexism, which I feel Doug is doing, is pretty repugnant.
I read part of her posts. Couldn’t make it through the whole thing. She claimed that Mal’s cross-dressing for a heist in one episode to be comparable to him doing a black face minstrel show. She thought that Saffron was a symbol of misogynistic women-bashing (nevermind the fact that Saffron was – villain or not – also a strong character who wielded quite a lot of power, especially over the MEN). She insisted that Shepherd Book was a “magic negro” in “Objects in Space” and then complained when Early was African American also. She complained when Zoe called Mal (her superior officer) as “Sir”. There’s seriously no pleasing her.
And yes, Whedon is a feminist. He’s just not her extreme nutty type. One person put it best when they described Kaylee – cheerful, kind, and energetic, she got her job through hard work, she was a vital member of the crew, and she wanted a relationship but on her own terms. That right there is Whedon’s feminism. He female characters are intelligent and strong in their own ways. None of them are at all submissive or stand down to any of the men without good reason and none of them just stay in the kitchen or stand by and scream helplessly if they could do something to assist. Them screwing up or not being perfect isn’t him bashing womankind, it’s him making believable characters. Oy…