frustrated but not all that surprised
I've been watching ABC's new show Off the Map for a few weeks now, and while I wouldn't exactly call it a paragon of good television, the jungle setting is good for pretending I'm not sitting in a house surrounded by four feet of snow.
However, there are certain factors that are beginning to quickly irritate me.
I knew Aimee Garcia was going to have a recurring role before she actually appeared, thanks to IMDB. I saw her last year on Trauma and loved, loved, loved that character. She played Marisa, an badass pilot who flew choppers in Iraq. She was tough, and strong, and sexy. She was not a typical character, so when I saw the actress's name listed for Off the Map, I got a little excited. The most recent episode has been immensely disappointing, largely because her Off the Map character is a hand-fluttering, indecisive girly-girl. Now I'm all pissy again that NBC had to go and cancel Trauma, which had a rich collection of characters (not a girly-girl in the bunch) while shows like Gossip Girl and 90210 get cult followings.
I'm hoping Off the Map gets canceled, just so my faith in humanity can be balanced out a little, because I have good reasons for hating all the characters this week. The men are despicable, manipulative, and entitled. The women are pathetically naive and idealistic, incapable of making a decision unaffected by their emotions (which are frequently in chaos over OMG WHY DOESN'T HE LIKE ME). The one female character who seems to have even a bit of sense is basically asexual for now, frequently portrayed as the cold bitch in the meantime.
As for why I'm not surprised, that would be because this is a pretty average depiction of women on TV. I think one of the reasons I prefer slash pairings to het pairings is because there is rarely ever a female character on television I can identify with or admire completely. The last het pairing I seriously shipped was Mulder/Scully, years ago. I loved Scully. If I didn't suck at science, I could've totally been Scully. Girls nowadays could use a Scully as a role model. Instead, they get Snooki, and the Gossip Girls, and frickin' Bella Swan. FML.
That turned out longer and rantier than I was shooting for. I shouldn't be typing for people when I'm this tired. Blah.
However, there are certain factors that are beginning to quickly irritate me.
I knew Aimee Garcia was going to have a recurring role before she actually appeared, thanks to IMDB. I saw her last year on Trauma and loved, loved, loved that character. She played Marisa, an badass pilot who flew choppers in Iraq. She was tough, and strong, and sexy. She was not a typical character, so when I saw the actress's name listed for Off the Map, I got a little excited. The most recent episode has been immensely disappointing, largely because her Off the Map character is a hand-fluttering, indecisive girly-girl. Now I'm all pissy again that NBC had to go and cancel Trauma, which had a rich collection of characters (not a girly-girl in the bunch) while shows like Gossip Girl and 90210 get cult followings.
I'm hoping Off the Map gets canceled, just so my faith in humanity can be balanced out a little, because I have good reasons for hating all the characters this week. The men are despicable, manipulative, and entitled. The women are pathetically naive and idealistic, incapable of making a decision unaffected by their emotions (which are frequently in chaos over OMG WHY DOESN'T HE LIKE ME). The one female character who seems to have even a bit of sense is basically asexual for now, frequently portrayed as the cold bitch in the meantime.
As for why I'm not surprised, that would be because this is a pretty average depiction of women on TV. I think one of the reasons I prefer slash pairings to het pairings is because there is rarely ever a female character on television I can identify with or admire completely. The last het pairing I seriously shipped was Mulder/Scully, years ago. I loved Scully. If I didn't suck at science, I could've totally been Scully. Girls nowadays could use a Scully as a role model. Instead, they get Snooki, and the Gossip Girls, and frickin' Bella Swan. FML.
That turned out longer and rantier than I was shooting for. I shouldn't be typing for people when I'm this tired. Blah.