[this is not going to end well]
Mar. 12th, 2012 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tellitslantSo I needed to reset my brain this weekend - apparently - and I accidentally spent basically all of Saturday lying in bed reading Rizzoli & Isles fanfic. It's not a show I'd ever watched, but, you know, it was there, and spockette tweeting about the badfic had made me curious to see the goodfic. (Of which, oddly enough, a lot is on ff.net. Wow, the pendulum has swung the other way.) Anyways, after several kajillion stories I thought I would actually find out what these characters looked like, so I watched a couple of episodes on youtube. And now I am fascinated.
I mean, not with the show, which is pretty crap - entertaining-ish crap, but, well, if I'd known it was based on Tess Gerritson's novels I would have had a much better idea of the likely quality going in. But I am intrigued by the gay. This show has got to be one of the clearest examples of "we're not gay we just love each other" I have ever seen - WITH all the attendant problematics that the trope involves in fanfic - but while shows playing with homosocial subtext is nothing new, it feels like a change to see one that is so deliberately courting a lesbian fanbase. Admittedly that has partially to do with social mores about what it is permisible to represent male friendships as, but this isn't just a case where the show is representing a close friendship in a way that slips into subtext. This is deliberate pandering to an audience - they go undercover in a lesbian bar! like, literally! what even is this show! - while just as deliberately never intending to actually go there. I also hear, though have not verified, that a lot of the showrunners etc are actually quite staunchly right-wing and conservative, which is even more interesting because it emphasizes that the (sub)text is a deliberate choice.
I am not telling anyone who watches this show anything new, I realize that, but seriously, though - is this a mark of the lesbian becoming a marketed-to demographic? Because we're not, generally. Niche products like The L Word, sure, but even that no one quite knew how to sell - see also the ad campaigns, which ranged from "put them all in dresses!" to "put them all in pants!" to "oh shit, just make them all naked!" - and side storylines in ensemble shows are much more explicit. This is a mainstream show acknowledging the male gaze but deliberately courting the lesbian gaze, and that doesn't happen very much. Except maybe with Xena, but then, was Xena really 'mainstream'? Certainly not as mainstream as a police procedural in this sort of television schedule.
It's kind of interesting, and seems like it's not being advertised to play it up but depending on word of mouth, and... yeah. Intriguing. I just wish the show were better. On the other hand, I'm mostly not listening to the ridic dialogue because I'm too distracted by Rizzoli's miraculous abs. Whoa baby.
spockette tweeting about the badfic had made me curious to see the goodfic. (Of which, oddly enough, a lot is on ff.net. Wow, the pendulum has swung the other way.) Anyways, after several kajillion stories I thought I would actually find out what these characters looked like, so I watched a couple of episodes on youtube. And now I am fascinated.I mean, not with the show, which is pretty crap - entertaining-ish crap, but, well, if I'd known it was based on Tess Gerritson's novels I would have had a much better idea of the likely quality going in. But I am intrigued by the gay. This show has got to be one of the clearest examples of "we're not gay we just love each other" I have ever seen - WITH all the attendant problematics that the trope involves in fanfic - but while shows playing with homosocial subtext is nothing new, it feels like a change to see one that is so deliberately courting a lesbian fanbase. Admittedly that has partially to do with social mores about what it is permisible to represent male friendships as, but this isn't just a case where the show is representing a close friendship in a way that slips into subtext. This is deliberate pandering to an audience - they go undercover in a lesbian bar! like, literally! what even is this show! - while just as deliberately never intending to actually go there. I also hear, though have not verified, that a lot of the showrunners etc are actually quite staunchly right-wing and conservative, which is even more interesting because it emphasizes that the (sub)text is a deliberate choice.
I am not telling anyone who watches this show anything new, I realize that, but seriously, though - is this a mark of the lesbian becoming a marketed-to demographic? Because we're not, generally. Niche products like The L Word, sure, but even that no one quite knew how to sell - see also the ad campaigns, which ranged from "put them all in dresses!" to "put them all in pants!" to "oh shit, just make them all naked!" - and side storylines in ensemble shows are much more explicit. This is a mainstream show acknowledging the male gaze but deliberately courting the lesbian gaze, and that doesn't happen very much. Except maybe with Xena, but then, was Xena really 'mainstream'? Certainly not as mainstream as a police procedural in this sort of television schedule.
It's kind of interesting, and seems like it's not being advertised to play it up but depending on word of mouth, and... yeah. Intriguing. I just wish the show were better. On the other hand, I'm mostly not listening to the ridic dialogue because I'm too distracted by Rizzoli's miraculous abs. Whoa baby.
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-12 11:47 pm (UTC)(Watch Cagney and Lacey instead. Then I might feel like I know you again.)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-12 11:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-13 12:49 am (UTC)And yes, the show's kind of... Well, I don't watch the show for the cases. I watch it for the characters, and not just Jane and Maura either. I LOVE Frost and Korsak and Angela to pieces.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-12 11:54 pm (UTC)The rest... yes. The show is frickin' groundbreaking. It's surprising to see something so affective in this day and age, and in this genre. Crazy, right?
I think the right-wing conservative element has something to do with "cop." Cop is a conservative profession and American mystery genre and political theory and all that, but at the center is Angie Harmon, who I sincerely believe just wants to play a cop for the rest of her life. I think that's awesome.
I almost wrote don't overthink, but I forgot your job. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-13 02:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-13 06:19 am (UTC)Heh. Unfortunately, the show goes the other way for season 2 and *clearly* shies away from the gay by shoehorning multi-arc love interests for both characters, not just "Jorge the Effeminate Dude From That One Episode Who's Only Comic Relief Anyway"
Hmm. I'm curious - what leads you to believe the subtext is a deliberate choice?
R&I TPTB seem to have been focused on creating a female-led duo but were blindsighted by the subtext that arised from Angie & Sasha's on screeen chemistry. From interviews, it's as if what they sought to show was a solid female friendship, but that's it - a show that didn't necessarily adhere to the Bedchel test.
Writing-wise, they definitely flirted with it mid s1, but after the "outbursts" of people talking about subtext online, it's clear they backtracked and went out of their way to mark the leads as straight. Then again, Jane going on and on about guys just...makes her gayer. It's a catch-22 for them and conservative Angie. Hahaha!
Angie Harmon on twitter: who should Jane end up with?? Twitterverse: MAURA. Angie: Uh, I said A GUY. Cue angry response and subsequent pandemonium. It was quite funny. It honestly seems as if she's either completely unaware of the subtext or chooses to actively ignore it.
It was interesting to watch Warehouse after R&I - a show where the *actors* proclaimed they were the ones to have "inserted" the subtext into their scenes, which in turn led the writers to play it up once they realized what they were doing.TPTB acknowledges the subtext and I'd argue the s3 finale is very very close to text. It's quite organic, and also proof of how much of a "living thing" shows are, when writing is so close to shooting. Happens less in CanCon, which is another interesting topic...
I just wish the show was better
IKR? The funniest is when the showrunners go on about the "tension" and storytelling intrigue behind the cases. Haha. Since when is this show a procedural? It's the Jane Family Show Feat Girlfriend Feat Coworkers. Even beyond Maura/Jane they spend more time on the family and workplace dynamics than the case itself. When they don't do that, it fails so spectacularly it loses its camp appeal.