Sexual Ethics in “Steven Universe”

November 5, 2015 Greta Christina7 Comments

Spoiler alert: This post contains mild Steven Universe spoilers. I’m mostly avoiding more specific spoilers, although I’m fine with spoilers in the comments.

So Ingrid and I have been binge-watching/ obsessing over the animated TV show “Steven Universe.” And I noticed something the other day that I wanted to share.

I was thinking about “fusion” (a process by which the Gems, magical superheroes, fuse together into a larger, more powerful being). Let’s assume that fusion is some kind of metaphor for sex. It’s not much of a leap (although I don’t think sex is the only thing fusion is supposed to be referencing).

So in the “Steven Universe” universe, what are the ethics about fusion?

Fusing with more than one person is fine. Fusing with more than one person at a time is fine. Sometimes people get jealous — or envious, I guess might be more accurate — if other people are fusing and they wanted to be in on it. But there’s never any suggestion that there’s anything wrong with having more than one person that you fuse with.

It isn’t, however, right to be dishonest about fusion: to fuse under false pretenses, or in any way to deceive someone into fusing.

It isn’t right to fuse with no concern for the consequences.

And it’s seriously, profoundly not right to force fusion on anyone.

Thoughts?

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Greta’s Secular Students Week Blogathon! Episode 7: Parks & Recreation, and the Myth that Happy Love is Boring

June 11, 2015 Greta ChristinaLeave a comment

I’m doing a mini-blogathon today for Secular Students Week!

This week is Secular Students Week, when people around the Internet are celebrating the fantastic work the Secular Student Alliance is doing to empower students. Their goal is to get 500 donations now through June 17th: if they do, they’ll receive a $20,000 challenge grant! Help them keep up their amazing work by giving this week. A gift of $5, $10, or $20 will go a long way towards helping them reach this goal and empower secular students: please give today!

In today’s mini-blogathon, I’ll post a new blog post once an hour, from now (a little after 9:00 am Pacific time) until 5:00 pm Pacific time. In addition, for every donation that’s made today via my blogathon, I’ll post a new cat photo!

This hour’s post: Parks & Recreation, and the Myth that Happy Love is Boring. (Note: This post contains spoilers about Parks & Recreation.)

There are a lot of things I love about the show Parks & Recreation. Leslie Knope is an awesome character, a fierce icon of passion and compassion and determination and success, who is also very human and flawed and identifiable-with. The characters and stories are just exaggerated enough to be absurd and funny (and to let the audience not worry too much about whether they’re believable), while not being so absurd that they don’t resonate. I could gas on at great length.

But there’s one particular thing I like about Parks & Recreation: It explodes the myth that in narrative art, happy love is boring.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the standard arc of televised sexual tension and romantic love, exemplified by Moonlighting and Cheers: The couple CANNOT GET TOGETHER. The romantic and sexual interest is all loaded into the question: Will they get together? Will they find love? If the couple actually gets together and stays together, all that bickering and bantering, all those comic misunderstandings and missed signals, the whole dance of almost getting together and then not quite getting there, goes into the toilet. (Of course, after a few years the dance itself gets tedious and predictable, leaving the writers with pretty much nowhere to go. And if they do finally let the couple get together, the story often does tank — because they loaded all the interest into “Will they or won’t they?”, and they forgot to make the people themselves interesting.) Typically, the only time you get to have happy love on television is if it’s a family story, and the couple is already together and married at the start of the story. (In romantic comedy movies, you see this trope play out by having the arc of the movie be about falling in love and all the comic missed signals, with them finally getting together in the happy ending.)

Parks & Recreation shows this to be complete and utter bullshit, a catastrophic failure of imagination. The show goes on for several seasons after the central couple, Leslie and Ben, get together. And it makes it clear that there’s plenty of drama and conflict and tension and hilarity in a happy relationship. We get to see them meeting, getting to know each other, falling in love — and we get to see then stay in love. We get to see their relationship unfold. And it’s interesting. It’s funny. It’s dramatic. It’s entertaining.

Yes, falling in love is interesting and funny. Being in love is also interesting and funny. Happy ongoing relationships have conflicts and dramas and misunderstandings — between the people in love themselves, and just with their lives and with the rest of the world. Good for Parks & Rec for showing how it’s done.

Once again — please support the Secular Student Alliance! Help them get their challenge grant of $20,000 by reaching their goal of 500 donations now through June 17th. Even small donations help. Please support them today!

Comforting Thoughts book cover oblong 100 JPG

Greta Christina is author of four books: Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God, Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why, Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless, and Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More.

The “Mad Men” Finale, and Why Peggy and Stan Are Not Going to Have a Storybook Ending

May 20, 2015 Greta Christina5 Comments

I’ve been reading reviews and analyses of the “Mad Men” series finale, “Person to Person.” And there is an important thing about the Peggy-and-Stan romance that ABSOLUTELY NOBODY IS GETTING RIGHT.

Yes, I am right and they are wrong. This is not opinion, this is OBJECTIVE FACT, and I will stand by it until my dying breath, or until someone in the comments persuades me that I’m wrong.

Okay. Everyone keeps talking about how the Peggy-and-Stan romance in the finale is a happy ending, all tied up neatly in a bow. The only debate I’ve seen is over whether this plot resolution is narratively acceptable and well-written, or whether it’s drippy and contrived fan service. Emily Nussbaum at The New Yorker described it as “satisfying but also borderline cornball” and said it “felt like the final scene of every romantic comedy that has ever been filmed”; Rob Sheffield at Rolling Stone called it “sodden shtick” and said “Poor Stan and Peggy — they deserved a moment that didn’t feel like a cynical series-finale gimmick”; Tim Goodman at The Hollywood Reporter described it as “Peggy’s touching and comic realization that Stan loves her and she also loves him”; Matt Zoller Seitz at Vulture called it “one of the most shameless and satisfying examples of fan service I can recall.”

NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. NO!!!!!

Why is nobody questioning this relationship?

I have serious doubts about whether Peggy is really in love with Stan. And I have serious doubts about whether their relationship is a good idea, even if she is in love with him. In fact, during their entire phone conversation when they declare their love, I wasn’t thinking, “Awwwww, how sweet, they finally got together, they’re obviously right for each other, lovey lovey love love.” I was thinking, “Ummmmmmm… hang on. This smells like trouble.”

Here are some things that jumped out at me about that phone call. (Transcript of phone call at the end of this post.) Think about how hesitant Peggy is at first. How she says, “I think I’m in love with you” — emphasis on “I think” — before she finally says, “I love you.” How she then says, “I really do”: not I really am in love with you, but I really do think I’m in love with you, like she’s talking herself into it. Think about how she describes her feelings for Stan — saying, “you make everything okay. You always do.” That definitely sounds like friendship-love, but it’s not so obviously romantic love. Could be — but it’s hardly a slam-dunk.

And in particular, think about how she says to Stan, “I must be [in love]. Because you’re always right.”

I think I’m in love. Really. I must be in love. Because you’re in love with me, and you’re always right.

It seems to me that Peggy is making the exact same mistake with Stan that she made with Abe. She’s letting his romantic love for her bowl her over — and she’s letting his love for her convince her that she feels the same.

And now, think, carefully, about the things Stan says right before he declares his love. He says “I get the person I want to talk to” only when they talk on the phone. He says he misses her when they’re not together — but “every time I’m face to face with you, I want to strangle you.” He says, “When I’m standing in front of you, I bring out something terrible.” It’s not clear whether he means that he brings out something terrible in her, or in himself — but either way, ew.

Will somebody please explain how any of that is romantic? Will somebody please explain how that’s anything other than desperately sad and bug-fuck creepy? Continue reading “The “Mad Men” Finale, and Why Peggy and Stan Are Not Going to Have a Storybook Ending” →

Mad Men Finale: Feels, Thoughts, and Questions

May 19, 2015 Greta Christina11 Comments

I just watched the Mad Men finale for the second time. I’m having feels and thoughts and questions, and I want to discuss them. Posting them below the jump, so as not to spoiler. Continue reading “Mad Men Finale: Feels, Thoughts, and Questions” →

A Less Simplistic View of Evil: The Jasmine Storyline in “Angel,” And Why People Do Awful Awful Things

January 12, 2015 Greta Christina13 Comments

Content note: This post contains significant Buffy the Vampire Slayer content. However, I think it’ll be of interest to non-Buffy fans. If I’m wrong, and you read it anyway… well, that’s five minutes of your life that you’re never getting back. Also, it contains spoilers about a TV series that ended over ten years ago. Sorry.

Why do evildoers do evil?

For obvious reasons — the Charlie Hebdo shooting, the NAACP bombing, Ferguson, and just all the awful shit that’s been happening in recent days/ weeks/ months/ years — I’ve been thinking a lot about evil. I’ve also been re-watching “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” lately, along with its spinoff show, “Angel.” (I promise this isn’t a non-sequitur. Stay with me.)

Right now, I’m in the Jasmine storyline in “Angel” — the storyline about the magical being with god-like powers who wants to turn the Earth into a blissful paradise with no conflict, hatred, war, or poverty, and whose very presence instantly makes people (a) blissfully happy, (b) loving and accepting of each other, and (c) intensely devoted, worshipful, and obedient of Jasmine’s own god-like self. I’ve written before about how this storyline is a metaphor for religion and theocracy. But I was thinking again about why I like this story arc so much, and I realized:

It’s a realistic and insightful exploration of why evildoers do evil. Continue reading “A Less Simplistic View of Evil: The Jasmine Storyline in “Angel,” And Why People Do Awful Awful Things” →

Cool Peripheral Character Arcs In “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”?

September 26, 2014 Greta Christina12 Comments

SPOILERS FOR “BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER”

So I was thinking about the “Anne” episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (the one where Buffy is hiding out in L.A. under an assumed name and winds up battling the labor exploitation demon — I’m vastly entertained by the fact that she wages this battle with a hammer and sickle). I was posting on this on Facebook and Twitter, and some of us got to talking about Chanterelle/ Lily/ Anne, and what a great character arc she had for someone who is very much a peripheral character on the show: she goes from being the gothy vampire wannabe, to the lost and aimless homeless teen, to the strong woman running the shelter for homeless teens.

And I started thinking: One of the things that I think makes “Buffy” such a rich show is that it isn’t just the main characters who get good, strong, interesting character arcs. Secondary characters, even peripheral characters, clearly have rich inner lives, and you get to see them mature over the arc of the show. Jonathan leaps immediately to mind, as does Harmony. The Buffyverse seems like it’s populated by actual people, any of whom could have a show written about them.

So since I’m going to be at the Carolinas Secular Conference in Charlotte this weekend, and won’t be on the blog much until I get back, I thought I’d start a thread about this: Who are some secondary or peripheral characters in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” that you think have particularly interesting character arcs? (I think I’m defining “secondary or peripheral” as “the actor never got a named credit in the opening credit sequence.”)

There are no wrong answers. Your time starts — now!

So You Think You Can Dance Nudity Parity Watch, Season 11 — The Final Roundup!

September 5, 2014 Greta ChristinaLeave a comment

As regular readers know, I’ve been watching Season 11 of So You Think You Can Dance, the mixed-style dance competition show, and have been documenting whether the women are generally expected to show more skin than the men.

The season is over, the winner has been announced — and I’ve added up the total routines over the season, to see how many of them had women more naked than men, how many had men more naked than women, and how many had rough nudity parity between the male and female dancers.

In this final roundup, I have only included routines that included both women and men: i.e., I have not included same-sex routines or solos. I have also not included guest performances. I have only included male-female routines of the competitors, in routines that were part of the competition.

The totals:

GROUP ROUTINES
Women more naked than men 8
Men more naked than women 0
Nudity parity 2

COUPLE ROUTINES
Woman more naked than man 56
Man more naked than woman 1
Nudity parity 11

(For those who are curious, I break this down by different dance styles a little later in the post. For the routine-by-routine documentation, read the individual posts in this series.)

So the answer, in short is yes. Assuming that this season is representative of the show in general, then the female dancers on So You Think You Can Dance are, in fact, generally expected to show more skin than the men.

A lot more.

In group routines, greater female nudity outnumbered nudity parity by four to one. In couple routines, greater female nudity outnumbered nudity parity by five to one. And there was literally one — count ’em, one — routine this season in which the man showed more skin than the woman.

When I started this project, I suspected that the show didn’t have nudity parity. I did this documentation project to see if my perception from past seasons were accurate, or if it was just confirmation bias. But while I expected that I’d find a nudity imbalance, I didn’t expect it to be quite this glaring.

Four to one in the group routines. Five to one in the couple routines. And that’s the imbalance between “more female nudity” and “nudity parity” — not the imbalance between “more female nudity” and “more male nudity.” Of the 78 relevant routines in this season, there was literally one in which there was more male nudity. I will say that again, in case you missed it — ONE.

I wrote about why this matters in my original post in this series, and I’m going to say it again here. Continue reading →

So You Think You Can Dance Nudity Parity Watch, Season 11, Episode 14

September 5, 2014 Greta ChristinaLeave a comment

As regular readers know, I’m watching the current season of So You Think You Can Dance, the mixed-style dance competition show, and am documenting whether the women are generally expected to show more skin than the men. (I give a more detailed explanation of this project, and why I’m doing it, in my first post in the series.)

Before I get into the breakdown of the relative nudity or lack thereof in this episode, I want to give the producers of “So You Think You Can Dance” kudos for the opening number. This was the most same-sex-oriented routine I’ve ever seen them do, and it was obviously about same-sex marriage: the men were mostly dancing together, the women were mostly dancing together, they were doing so in very romantically and couple-y ways, they were wearing white, and the music was that wedding cliche, “Wind Beneath My Wings.” Nigel even more or less acknowledged it as such, in one of his pieces of self-congratulatory blather about how mind-bogglingly amazing his show is.

so-you-think-you-can-dance-s11e7 opening group number

It’s a drop in the bucket compared to what it should be. It’s actually pretty pathetic that “So You Think You Can Dance” has been going on for eleven seasons, and this is the first time (as far as I know) that the U.S. edition has had any same-sex routine about love or sex. (Same-sex routines in the past have always been about friendship, competition, anything but love and sex.) Still, it was a Good Thing, and I’m going to praise them for it and encourage them to do it more.

So. Here are the nudity parity results for Episode 14, the Final Four performance finale. Continue reading “So You Think You Can Dance Nudity Parity Watch, Season 11, Episode 14” →

So You Think You Can Dance Nudity Parity Watch, Season 11, Episodes 12 and 13

August 27, 2014 Greta Christina1 Comment

I’ve been letting the perfect be the enemy of the good: I haven’t posted the “So You Think You Can Dance” nudity parity documentation for the last couple of episodes, since I keep thinking, “Oh, I just have to find video links and the photos to illustrate it,” and I’ve been swamped lately and that task just seems daunting. So I’m just going to get the documentation up, sans video links and photos, and sans clever commentary. Continue reading “So You Think You Can Dance Nudity Parity Watch, Season 11, Episodes 12 and 13” →

So You Think You Can Dance Nudity Parity Watch, Season 11, Episode 11

August 11, 2014 Greta Christina1 Comment

So the main thing I want to point out about this episode: This is the first episode, of the entire competition this season, in which a man was more naked than the woman in any performance.

There have been six episodes in this competition so far (not counting auditions, for reasons explained in the first post). In the significant majority of the performances, the women have been more naked than the men; there have been a handful of performances in which there has been rough nudity parity, and the women and men showed about the same amount of skin. But this is the first episode in which the man was more naked than the woman, in any performance.

The first one. All season.

I’m just sayin’, is all.

So here’s how it broke down this week. (Note for people who are following this nudity parity watch but are not watching the show itself: The reason you’re suddenly seeing new names and faces among the dancers is that the competitors are now dancing with All-Stars, performers from previous seasons, instead of with one another.)

Opening group routine, hip-hop
Women are more naked than men (women have bare arms, bare midriffs, V-neck necklines, three of five have bare thighs with opaque stockings, men have short sleeves).

Bridget and Brandon, Bollywood disco (yes, really)
Man is slightly more naked than woman, FOR THE ONLY TIME SO FAR IN ANY PERFORMANCE THIS SEASON (woman has bare midriff, one bare arm, bare back, long flowy skirt showing shins and sometimes spinning up to show more of legs, man is shirtless).

Tanisha and Ryan, Argentine tango
Woman is more naked than man (woman has bare arms, bare back, mostly bare legs, very deep V-neck neckline, man is completely covered).

Emilio and Jasmine, hip-hop
Woman is more naked than man (woman has bare arms, bare back, bare midriff, bare sternum, bare sides down over hips — in fact, her entire torso is pretty much exposed except for her breasts and some straps to hold things in place here and there; man has short sleeves).

Valerie and Ade, jazz
Woman is more naked than man (woman has bare arms, bare legs, I think a bare back although it might be illusion netting, man has short sleeves). Also, her front torso is largely clad in flesh tone fabric that gives the impression of nudity, including her breasts.

Rudy and Jenna, cha-cha
Woman is more naked than man (woman has bare arms, bare legs, bare back, bare midriff, bare sternum, man has bare arms, vest open to bare chest and midriff).

Jacque & Chehon, contemporary
Rough nudity parity (woman has bare arms, bare legs, man is shirtless). However, she has illusion netting giving the impression of nudity on much of her torso and back.

Ricky & Lauren, jazz
Woman is more naked than man (woman has bare arms, bare legs, deep neckline, slight keyhole under breasts, man has short sleeves).

Casey & Kathryn, Broadway
Woman is more naked than man (woman has bare arms, bare back, deep scoop neckline, long skirt with slit that swirls up to show bare legs, man is completely covered).

Jessica & Twitch, hip-hop
Woman is more naked than man (woman has bare legs, bare midriff, bare sternum, bare forearms, man has bare forearms).

Zack & Amy, contemporary
Woman is slightly more naked than man (woman has bare arms, long flowy sheer skirt that shows bare legs, bare sternum, largely bare midriff, man is shirtless).

sytycd s11e11 christina perry kathryn chehon

Kathryn & Chehon, backing Christina Perry song
Woman is more naked than man (woman has bare arms, bare back, long flowy sheer skirt that shows bare legs, deep V-neck neckline, he has bare arms, deep scoop neckline).

Greta Christina’s books, Coming Out Atheist: How to Do It, How to Help Each Other, and Why and Why Are You Atheists So Angry? 99 Things That Piss Off the Godless, are available in print, ebook, and audiobook. Bending: Dirty Kinky Stories About Pain, Power, Religion, Unicorns, & More is available in ebook and audiobook.

Greta Christina's Blog

Atheism, sex, politics, dreams, and whatever.

Television

Sexual Ethics in “Steven Universe”

Greta’s Secular Students Week Blogathon! Episode 7: Parks & Recreation, and the Myth that Happy Love is Boring

The “Mad Men” Finale, and Why Peggy and Stan Are Not Going to Have a Storybook Ending

Mad Men Finale: Feels, Thoughts, and Questions

A Less Simplistic View of Evil: The Jasmine Storyline in “Angel,” And Why People Do Awful Awful Things

Cool Peripheral Character Arcs In “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”?

So You Think You Can Dance Nudity Parity Watch, Season 11 — The Final Roundup!

So You Think You Can Dance Nudity Parity Watch, Season 11, Episode 14

So You Think You Can Dance Nudity Parity Watch, Season 11, Episodes 12 and 13

So You Think You Can Dance Nudity Parity Watch, Season 11, Episode 11

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