Re the X-Files gender thing: Hmmm, I don't know. Maybe because Fox Mulder is the original archetype (is he? maybe not, I don't know), but I see brilliant eccentric investigator as a totally male thing. It's not that he has feelings "like a woman" (whatever that means), it's that his gut and open-mindedness and thinking-outside-of-the-box-ness make him always right. David Creegan, original British David Creegan, Tony Hill (basically any Robson Green role), Charlie Crews - all guys who are so smart people don't get them. Their female partners are straight-laced skeptics who later reveal that all they want are babies.
But then again I don't watch the Kyra Sedgewick show or the Holly Hunter show or Rizzoli & Isles or whatever that new Dana Delaney show is, so maybe this is my fault - maybe there are a lot of brilliant eccentric lady investigators and I'm just not watching it.
Ugh, yes, you're totally right, thank you for more clearly articulating how I feel about the whole Mulder-Scully gender dynamic thing when people talk about it -- I think people want to categorize them as believer vs. skeptic, so they act like it's a big deal that the dude is the believer and the lady is the skeptic, when you're totally right that Mulder's actual archetype is brilliant-quirky-eccentric dude investigator, which is not exactly a gender swap. Especially since he is always educating Scully as to the true nature of reality and aliens etc. Ha. Though yeah, I have no idea if Mulder is the original for this one or not, I'm trying to think about cop shows of generations past! Maybe the difference is having a lady buddy cop at all? The older cop/detective shows that are jumping to mind for me are, like, Starsky & Hutch or Miami Vice (lololol are those even in the same genre as XF or even other procedurals of today, idk, they are ridic). Uh, anyway, someone who knows more about past shows will have to answer that one, but I feel
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OK, glad you agree! Because the original argument made me go, "This feels wrong." Also I wanted to add that in society women are told to follow the rules and be good girls or else suffer horrible consequences, while guys get to go off and explore and find themselves and learn from their mistakes and in the end everything will work out for them because usually a woman is like, cleaning up after them. Especially because the lady partners are working in a male-dominated field - one fuck-up and they've failed because they're women, while their male counterparts get to fudge the rules all the time.
But then I thought of The Closer and Saving Grace and I don't know, maybe ladies are also allowed to be thoughtless assholes now.
Yeah, the whole gender-flip thing was repeated so much in XF fandom back in the day (haha, I have no idea if anyone still says it, this is probably stuff from, like, 1994 or something ridiculous) that I had never really gotten farther than "Um, somehow that doesn't seem right to me but I'm not sure how and everyone says it so whatever" so I'm glad to have it clearer in my head! And ugh, yes, amen to the good-girl thing -- in your more extreme cases, the lady partner of the eccentric genius is completely forced into being the joyless mom figure who is always raining on the parade (and always WRONG) like a lady in a Judd Apatow movie about man-children, and it is depressingggggggg. I don't think Scully fell into that as much, but God knows she had a thankless job in a lot of ways.
maybe ladies are also allowed to be thoughtless assholes now.Ahahahahahaha, GOD LOVE THE FUTURE AND ~*~EQUALITY~*~. Now I actually want to watch shows about lady cops and see if they do get to be thoughtless assholes or if it's all a sham. I feel like somehow
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RIGHT? I WANT IT SO BAD, THEM RUNNING AROUND IN TRENCH COATS IN THE RAIN BEING DUBIOUS AT EACH OTHER AND HAVING SEXUAL TENSION. Ben needs Leslie to check out if these are alien abduction marks or just mosquito bites!!! He is sick of doing these weird autopsies in small towns with inadequate facilities!
Ahahahaha, oh my God, their first case, Leslie yelling at Ben all the time and randomly stopping the car when the radio goes crazy to spray paint a big X on the highway and Ben being all, SERIOUSLY, WHAT THE HELL. Leslie read Ben's thesis on Einstein! She liked it.
I WOULD ACTUALLY LOVE RON AS SKINNER. Haha, he would totally be a Skinner who did not care about anything, but he would call them into his office to yell at them every so often. HE CAN'T HAVE LESLIE GETTING FIRED, BECAUSE THEN HE'LL HAVE TO DO STUFF. NOW GO BE NICE TO YOUR NEW PARTNER, KNOPE. And April would be his assistant who keeps them from having meetings with him.
Argh, now that I am into this I want to make comment:
But I actually feel like Leslie Knope would be one female character who would make a really excellent Mulder, in that she would work crazy hard and be insane and believe in aliens and go chasing weird cases across the country, but it would somehow not come across as being an hysterical female, it would just be awesome.That's the crazy thing about Leslie. When they first wrote her character on this show, she came off like a pseudo Michael Scott; a little bit crackpot, a little socially awkward, and way too much into her job to be healthy. She hasn't lost that last part, but as the show's gone on, she's gained more credibility, much like M. Scott but without all the crazy storylines that make no sense. I mean, sometimes Parks and Rec goes off the wall with its satire but the funny thing about Leslie is that you can totally respect her and what she's doing. It's interesting to me how all of her co-workers have come to respect her so much, too -- in real life, people are usually
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I knoooooow, my favorite thing about the progression of Parks is how they started to take Leslie seriously as a person, it's so delightful! I love how much the show and its characters appreciate her for how hard she works and how great she is. It's such an awesome positive center to the show!
Seriously, right, the chemistry when they were yelling at each other! I wish that had lasted a lot longer if they're going to drag it out. I mean, I love them being buddies with secret handshakes tooooo, but c'mon, guys, just make out already. I BELIEVE IN MIKE SCHUR, THOUGH, don't leave us hanging, man!
Oh man, your Ben/Leslie X-Filesque AU makes me want to read fic again and I haven't read fic in aaaaages.
except Ann, who makes me want to die. (Ugh, on the one hand, I am so happy she has more to do now that there's this Chris storyline, but on the other hand, IT IS SO MORTIFYING AND ALSO I FEEL LIKE RASHIDA IS STILL SORT OF UNDERUSED? I agree SO MUCH, and I feel like the problem with Ann is that the show isn't willing to let her be separate from the P&R department stuff, so they shoehorn her in in the least convincing ways possible. They shoehorned Andy in (almost literally!) by making him the shoeshine boy, they should do the same for Ann - give her a reason to be around the department permanently! - or just go back to her being Leslie's friend away from the madhouse. And it's not like it would be completely disconnected from the rest of the action 'cause it's still Leslie and there's no way she wouldn't talk about her work with her best friend.
Ahahahaha, there's nothing like the X-Files for putting you back in the mood for fic, I gotta say. Ugh, I kind of do want to write it, even though it's just pure self-indulgence. Though I guess if you can't be self-indulgent in fanfiction....
UGH, right? Ann is so totally out of place, it's like, GO TO WORK, ANN! I feel like the other issue with her is that they seem to think she needs to be the straight-man to balance out all the ~*~crazy~*~ people in the Parks department, except... well, the people in the Parks dept are not actually that crazy? So then Ann just shows up to be a wet blanket and rain on everybody's parade (except when she's being awesome BFFs with Leslie). I feel like it's hangover from The Office, where you needed Jim and Pam to be the audience's POV, but The Office was a show about hating your job (at least initially, when it had a clearer thesis statement than it does now) and Parks is... not, so it doesn't really work the same way at allllllll. It makes me so sad, though, I love Rashida and want her to be awesome
Also talking about Ben and Leslie as Mulder and Scully made me think about the gender dynamics there -- people always talk about how Mulder & Scully was a nice gender-flip kind of situation, because Scully was the calm logical scientist and Mulder was the one who just had a lot of feelings.
I feel like I agree with this? but also I think it falls into the potentially gender-stereotypical situation of having the girl always being the wrangler for the Slightly Unhinged Dude. [Which is, sadly, something I really enjoyed about Elliot and Olivia - they're pretty equally deranged.] I think you see that a lot in comedy, too, the 'sensible' woman surrounded by the 'hilariously off-kilter!' men.
Also obviously I still ship Ben/Leslie like burning, though I was thinking the other day that I actually kind of miss when she was yelling at him all the time, I don't even know why.MEEEEE TOOOOO. I don't know what it says about me that I prefer my pairings to be frequently screaming at each other (answer: I am a terrible person), but, yeah. I wish
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Man, yeah, actually see the above thread with typicrobots for a better exposition of the whole Mulder/Scully dynamic that more clearly is what I actually think about that, because you're exactly right. ALSO interesting that you bring up Elliot and Olivia, because as I was thinking of examples in the above thread, I flipped past them in my mental cop rolodex and was like, WELL, AT LEAST THOSE TWO ARE BOTH EQUALLY COMPLETELY UNHINGED. For every dude Elliot hits, Olivia steals some panties. It evens out
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But then again I don't watch the Kyra Sedgewick show or the Holly Hunter show or Rizzoli & Isles or whatever that new Dana Delaney show is, so maybe this is my fault - maybe there are a lot of brilliant eccentric lady investigators and I'm just not watching it.
ANYWAY THIS ENTIRE POST IS DELIGHTFUL.
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But then I thought of The Closer and Saving Grace and I don't know, maybe ladies are also allowed to be thoughtless assholes now.
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maybe ladies are also allowed to be thoughtless assholes now.Ahahahahahaha, GOD LOVE THE FUTURE AND ~*~EQUALITY~*~. Now I actually want to watch shows about lady cops and see if they do get to be thoughtless assholes or if it's all a sham. I feel like somehow ( ... )
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GIVE ME THAT RIGHT NOW, KOVSKY. RIGHT NOW.
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i would say that ron could be skinner, but that's sort of wildly and hilariously inappropriate, isn't it?
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I WOULD ACTUALLY LOVE RON AS SKINNER. Haha, he would totally be a Skinner who did not care about anything, but he would call them into his office to yell at them every so often. HE CAN'T HAVE LESLIE GETTING FIRED, BECAUSE THEN HE'LL HAVE TO DO STUFF. NOW GO BE NICE TO YOUR NEW PARTNER, KNOPE. And April would be his assistant who keeps them from having meetings with him.
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But I actually feel like Leslie Knope would be one female character who would make a really excellent Mulder, in that she would work crazy hard and be insane and believe in aliens and go chasing weird cases across the country, but it would somehow not come across as being an hysterical female, it would just be awesome.That's the crazy thing about Leslie. When they first wrote her character on this show, she came off like a pseudo Michael Scott; a little bit crackpot, a little socially awkward, and way too much into her job to be healthy. She hasn't lost that last part, but as the show's gone on, she's gained more credibility, much like M. Scott but without all the crazy storylines that make no sense. I mean, sometimes Parks and Rec goes off the wall with its satire but the funny thing about Leslie is that you can totally respect her and what she's doing. It's interesting to me how all of her co-workers have come to respect her so much, too -- in real life, people are usually ( ... )
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Seriously, right, the chemistry when they were yelling at each other! I wish that had lasted a lot longer if they're going to drag it out. I mean, I love them being buddies with secret handshakes tooooo, but c'mon, guys, just make out already. I BELIEVE IN MIKE SCHUR, THOUGH, don't leave us hanging, man!
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except Ann, who makes me want to die. (Ugh, on the one hand, I am so happy she has more to do now that there's this Chris storyline, but on the other hand, IT IS SO MORTIFYING AND ALSO I FEEL LIKE RASHIDA IS STILL SORT OF UNDERUSED?
I agree SO MUCH, and I feel like the problem with Ann is that the show isn't willing to let her be separate from the P&R department stuff, so they shoehorn her in in the least convincing ways possible. They shoehorned Andy in (almost literally!) by making him the shoeshine boy, they should do the same for Ann - give her a reason to be around the department permanently! - or just go back to her being Leslie's friend away from the madhouse. And it's not like it would be completely disconnected from the rest of the action 'cause it's still Leslie and there's no way she wouldn't talk about her work with her best friend.
(Edited, because WOW, SELF. ANDIE? REALLY?)
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UGH, right? Ann is so totally out of place, it's like, GO TO WORK, ANN! I feel like the other issue with her is that they seem to think she needs to be the straight-man to balance out all the ~*~crazy~*~ people in the Parks department, except... well, the people in the Parks dept are not actually that crazy? So then Ann just shows up to be a wet blanket and rain on everybody's parade (except when she's being awesome BFFs with Leslie). I feel like it's hangover from The Office, where you needed Jim and Pam to be the audience's POV, but The Office was a show about hating your job (at least initially, when it had a clearer thesis statement than it does now) and Parks is... not, so it doesn't really work the same way at allllllll. It makes me so sad, though, I love Rashida and want her to be awesome
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I feel like I agree with this? but also I think it falls into the potentially gender-stereotypical situation of having the girl always being the wrangler for the Slightly Unhinged Dude. [Which is, sadly, something I really enjoyed about Elliot and Olivia - they're pretty equally deranged.] I think you see that a lot in comedy, too, the 'sensible' woman surrounded by the 'hilariously off-kilter!' men.
Also obviously I still ship Ben/Leslie like burning, though I was thinking the other day that I actually kind of miss when she was yelling at him all the time, I don't even know why.MEEEEE TOOOOO. I don't know what it says about me that I prefer my pairings to be frequently screaming at each other (answer: I am a terrible person), but, yeah. I wish ( ... )
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