FREE-FOR-ALL META COMMENT-A-THON

[upupa_epops]

Old news: lj is dead. Everyone is crazy busy, or they have other reasons not to be here. No one has time to read those huge meta posts we used to write once upon a time. But maybe we can all find ten minutes to do this:

FREE-FOR-ALL META COMMENT-A-THON!

Comments

[oneofthemuses]

This is actually really interesting to think about because Jeff is the only male character that is relentlessly objectified as a sexual object - we frequently saw Chang in minimal clothing in previous seasons but he was always intended as an object of derision both as a character and for his physique, which wasn't as appealing by conventional beauty standards (we can talk about desexualising Asian men another time) as Jeff's body was.

Britta and Annie, however, are both frequently objectified as sexual objects. [In writing all of this out, the racial implications are very apparent to me all over again, but uh, we'll discuss that later too.] Shirley is minimized as a sexual being because she's older, because she's a mother, and because she's non-white. Britta, despite her feminist standpoint, curls her hair, wears high heels, and tries to make herself attractive. The show points out that seemingly contradiction in behaviour pretty often which makes Britta, the character, funny but also effectively allows the show to objectify one

[oneofthemuses]

CONT.

For Britta, she both desires and rejects the male gaze. She is ashamed of wanting to be desired even as she works to be desired. Britta is shamed (largely by Annie and Shirley) on different occasions for her clothing, her behaviour, and her desire/pursuit of conventional beauty. Jeff is Britta's most obvious counterpart (similar age, both white, attractive, main characters) and while he's presented as admirable, she is presented as ridiculous. This is how the character was designed and has evolved. And it leads to an uncomfortable competitive Madonna/Whore complex (or Betty/Veronica pairing, if you prefer) between Britta and Annie which is wholly unnecessary and unwelcome for most fans (I hope