It should not come as a surprise that I am a long-time fan of the Star Trek franchise, having watched the various series with some regularity since 1987 and the debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation. That watching has most recently been through streaming video services rather than catching the various series and movies in syndication and theaters, and that streaming video watching turned not long ago to Star Trek: Voyager. One of the less-popular Star Trek properties, it ran from 1995 to 2001 (per IMDB.com) and follows Kathryn Janeway and the crew of the eponymous ship through abduction into the Delta Quadrant and travel back to the Federation space from which they came. Suffering the effects of franchise fatigue and, perhaps, a reaction to the darker atmospherics of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Voyager languished on minor networks through its initial run and now attracts attention primarily as a negative example (if not so much as Star Trek: Enterprise). Its deployment of medievalism in the early episode "Heroes and Demons" is one encapsulation of the phenomenon; it serves in some ways to underscore its utility as an image of what not to do.
In the episode, the eponymous starship comes across an unusual photonic phenomenon and stops to investigate it. Meanwhile, one of the senior bridge crew, Ensign Harry Kim, is taking recreation in the holodeck, the illusory suite that will replicate a number of experiences for its users. When he is summoned to duty and does not appear, his crewmates begin to search for him; they find that he has vanished amid his holodeck program, an adaptation of an adaptation of Beowulf. In the event, the photonic phenomenon encountered by Voyager is a home for photonic life forms who interact uncomfortably with the holographic constructions of the holodeck; those life forms had used the cover of Grendel in the holodeck program to abduct ship's crew in retaliation for the (admittedly inadvertent) abduction of their own from the phenomenon by the starship's investigation. The ship's holographic doctor is able to carry out what amounts to a prisoner exchange, returning the abducted photonic life forms and retrieving the stolen ship's crew.
Many avenues of critique of the episode and the series of which it is part present themselves, and they are well worth exploring. That most relevant to the work of the Society, however, attends to how the episode presents the purported milieu of Beowulf. That there will be changes to the work for its representation is understandable and even necessary; the original work, cast in Anglo-Saxon verse, would necessarily need alteration to suit the in-milieu new medium of the holodeck (particularly with its interactive elements), as well as the narrative medium of the television series. Too, the program Kim runs is explicitly labeled as "based on" the Anglo-Saxon epic; it is overtly a derivation and deviation within the milieu, rather than a re-creation of the poem. Some "inaccuracies" in the presentation are therefore to be expected and to be "forgiven," if such changes are indeed to be regarded as erroneous (and there are good arguments why they should be, to be sure, such as Helen Young's "Who Cares about Historical Accuracy? I Do").
That some changes are to be expected and set aside as necessary to translations across media does not mean that all of the present changes are good, however. The insertion of the character Freya into the story serves as an example of a less-than-ideal alteration. While there are certainly accounts of shieldmaidens in legends and contemporary "historical" reports (which are not always accurate in the sense that we commonly understand accuracy), and there were certainly warriors who happened to be women among the people of the time and place depicted in Beowulf, the replacement of the unnamed coast-warden--who is explicitly labeled in masculine terms (and who is not unaccompanied, having retainers to order to hold Beowulf's ship against his return [ll. 293-300])--with Freya comes across as an imposition of a female character for the express purpose of having a female character in a more active role than the poem presents (much like the "enhancement" of Arwen's role in Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies or the insertion of Tauriel into his Hobbit films). That she seemingly exists as a love interest whose death inspires heroism from the male protagonist reinforces the impression of Freya as a sop to particular interests, an inclusion made to fill a particular diversity slot rather than as an important part of an amended story. The name, as well, betrays a sense of "oh, this sounds medieval and female; it fits a hole we need." While the overtones of the name--it is one of a goddess of love and war, among others--are perhaps appropriate to the character's function, the relative ineptness of the character herself suggests that the name was chosen for ease of speaking rather than authenticity of depiction. As a change to the source-text, is it one one that responds to prevailing misconceptions about what it true and what needs "fixing" in one medieval culture, making it a model of what to avoid in medievalism.
Problems inhere in matters that are less "change" and more "typical presentation," as well. The problem of the "monochrome Middle Ages" that Young decries in "Who Cares about Historical Accuracy? I Do" and elsewhere is painfully present in the episode (although the argument could easily be made that the relative remoteness of Heorot and the poem-stated identification of the Danes sworn to Hroðgar could make for homogeneity in the population). Aside from the Voyager crew who enter the holodeck and the photonic life form that is regarded as villainous, the characters in the program are white, almost exclusively male, and bearded (with little-kept beards)--fitting a common and ultimately inaccurate image of the medieval. The architecture of Heorot in the episode accords little with what is known of mead-hall building, but it fits the half-timbered construction associated with "lesser" buildings in common understandings of the medieval--a style of building common to later periods than that discussed in Beowulf. As with the half-hearted inclusion of Freya, the depiction of Heorot and its inhabitants seems more calculated to accord with generic medieval ideas than with the best information available at the time about how the early medievals lived. It is something that is not to be expected from the demonstrably scholarly Starfleet personnel depicted across the Star Trek franchise, and it is not something that should be taken as a model of medievalist storytelling.
There are other problems to be found with "Heroes and Demons" and Star Trek: Voyager, to be sure, and some that are far worse than the mis-depiction of the medieval in a single episode of a series that has an interesting premise and the ultimately unrealized possibility of excellent storytelling. The particular issue of the inept handling of the medieval, though, serves as a useful indicator of what else is wrong with it, one of many flaws that has led to prevailing disdain for the show. That disdain does much to argue against the value of a franchise that has offered much to many across decades, which is saddening to see, even if, in such a case, deserved.
Travels in Genre and Medievalism
Showing posts with label sexism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sexism. Show all posts
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Regarding (Female) Thor
On 16 July 2014, Brett White's "A New God of Thunder Debuts in Thor This October" appeared on Marvel.com. In the piece, White notes the announcement that the role of the Nordic thunder-god will be assumed by a female character of unknown identity, following the comic-universe paradigm of Mjolnir being wielded by whoever is worthy. It is an announcement that has attracted much attention; Alex Fitzpatrick's 15 July 2014 Time.com piece "Here's Why a Female Thor Makes Total Sense" discusses it, as does David Betancourt's 16 July 2014 Washington Post piece "The New Female Thor: From Asgard to New Guard, Five Things to Know about Marvel's Bolt from the Blue." So, too, do Paris Lees's 16 July 2014 Guardian piece "A Female Thor is Good--A Feminine Male Superhero Would Be Better" and George Gene Gustines's 16 July 2014 New York Times piece "Marvel Will Introduce a Female Thor This Fall." The announcement has also been made a vehicle for satire, as in Rex W. Huppke's 17 July 2014 Chicago Tribune piece "The Female Thor Sits down with Human Resources." The presence of pieces on the subject of the character in many major United States newspapers bespeak the significance of the decision and of the character, generally; the refiguring of Þórr in popular culture is a matter of broad interest. And as comments, particularly on White's piece, note, it is one that prompts some of the...less fortunate tendencies in people to emerge.
That the assumption by a female character of the attributes of the most famous son of Oðinn irks so many betrays sexist leanings amid the comic's readership, which is both deplorable and worth exploring so that the underlying causes can be examined and worked against.* Perhaps more relevant to the specific goals of the Society is that the consternation with the way in which the character is being reshaped ignores the ways in which the character has already been reshaped, not only in multimedia presentation (the need to alter concepts for different presentation venues is a commonplace) but also in its core conception in the dominant Marvel comics continuum. While Marvel keeps Thor the son of Odin (using modern Anglicized versions of the names), the seeming punishment Thor endures of being mindwiped and embodied in a blond-haired, blue-eyed medical student of differing ability is an...interesting appropriation, yet one embodied in the beginning of the character's presence in the continuum. Is not the character "supposed" to be red-haired and bearded? Whence the flying through the power of the hammer (an early instantiation of troll physics, perhaps)? Whither the children the character is supposed to have? Yet such changes from the "source materials" pass without comment from the comics' fanbase (I imagine that medievalists who have turned their attention to the work do complain, as did one folklorist of my acquaintance in regards to the 2011 Branagh film), although they are hardly insignificant.**
Underlying that lack of complaint is likely a lack of awareness of the older materials. How many know Þórr from the Eddas and sagas is unclear to me; how many know him from the older materials not...inflected by Christian recording practices is likewise unclear to me, although I expect the number is far lower. For the great majority of the comic's readers, then, the Marvel version of the character is likely to be the "real" one, much as many children in the United States view the Disney version of Cinderella as the "real" one and react to the much earlier Grimm version as somehow a perversion of the story. It becomes a foundational narrative through which other concepts are filtered, particularly when introduced to people in their youth as comic books tend to be (like what I discuss here). As such, it assumes a privileged place in popular conception and alterations to it are met with resistance, as evidenced by the comments section of the White piece. And I have to wonder how much of a portal to further examination of the medieval by the readership it becomes. There is, after all, significant overlap between comic-book readership and RPG playership, as trips to comics conventions, gaming conventions, comics shops, and RPG sessions will quickly reveal, and the RPG is sometimes such a portal, as I note. There is similarly overlap between comic book readership and fantasy readership, and fantasy readership also serves as such a portal. How comic books serve such a function might be worth investigating, and the results of that investigation used to help determine how much effort needs to be put into "correcting" the presentation of the medieval in the comic, as there have been calls to do.
Whatever the cause, the figuration of Marvel's Thor as a female does much to highlight the fraught nature of appropriation and adaptation. How changes to seemingly "settled" intellectual units function and how audiences react to them surely reveal much of the cultures that enact such changes and the audiences that react. As I write, what seems said of the former is that there is an effort to be more gender-inclusive, which is surely a good thing in principle even if the execution may be somewhat contestable. What seems said of the latter in general is less pleasant. Yet even that unpleasantness suggests that there is something about the way in which the medieval is presented and represented that is of particular importance to popular audiences in the United States; the vehemence of the reaction argues in favor of the centrality of the medievalist to popular culture no less than does the ample mainstream media attention mentioned above. This means, of course, that the medieval itself remains in a position of privilege, which is good news for medieval studies scholars; if it is important, then there will be continued need for the work we do.
*Three things come up here:
That the assumption by a female character of the attributes of the most famous son of Oðinn irks so many betrays sexist leanings amid the comic's readership, which is both deplorable and worth exploring so that the underlying causes can be examined and worked against.* Perhaps more relevant to the specific goals of the Society is that the consternation with the way in which the character is being reshaped ignores the ways in which the character has already been reshaped, not only in multimedia presentation (the need to alter concepts for different presentation venues is a commonplace) but also in its core conception in the dominant Marvel comics continuum. While Marvel keeps Thor the son of Odin (using modern Anglicized versions of the names), the seeming punishment Thor endures of being mindwiped and embodied in a blond-haired, blue-eyed medical student of differing ability is an...interesting appropriation, yet one embodied in the beginning of the character's presence in the continuum. Is not the character "supposed" to be red-haired and bearded? Whence the flying through the power of the hammer (an early instantiation of troll physics, perhaps)? Whither the children the character is supposed to have? Yet such changes from the "source materials" pass without comment from the comics' fanbase (I imagine that medievalists who have turned their attention to the work do complain, as did one folklorist of my acquaintance in regards to the 2011 Branagh film), although they are hardly insignificant.**
Underlying that lack of complaint is likely a lack of awareness of the older materials. How many know Þórr from the Eddas and sagas is unclear to me; how many know him from the older materials not...inflected by Christian recording practices is likewise unclear to me, although I expect the number is far lower. For the great majority of the comic's readers, then, the Marvel version of the character is likely to be the "real" one, much as many children in the United States view the Disney version of Cinderella as the "real" one and react to the much earlier Grimm version as somehow a perversion of the story. It becomes a foundational narrative through which other concepts are filtered, particularly when introduced to people in their youth as comic books tend to be (like what I discuss here). As such, it assumes a privileged place in popular conception and alterations to it are met with resistance, as evidenced by the comments section of the White piece. And I have to wonder how much of a portal to further examination of the medieval by the readership it becomes. There is, after all, significant overlap between comic-book readership and RPG playership, as trips to comics conventions, gaming conventions, comics shops, and RPG sessions will quickly reveal, and the RPG is sometimes such a portal, as I note. There is similarly overlap between comic book readership and fantasy readership, and fantasy readership also serves as such a portal. How comic books serve such a function might be worth investigating, and the results of that investigation used to help determine how much effort needs to be put into "correcting" the presentation of the medieval in the comic, as there have been calls to do.
Whatever the cause, the figuration of Marvel's Thor as a female does much to highlight the fraught nature of appropriation and adaptation. How changes to seemingly "settled" intellectual units function and how audiences react to them surely reveal much of the cultures that enact such changes and the audiences that react. As I write, what seems said of the former is that there is an effort to be more gender-inclusive, which is surely a good thing in principle even if the execution may be somewhat contestable. What seems said of the latter in general is less pleasant. Yet even that unpleasantness suggests that there is something about the way in which the medieval is presented and represented that is of particular importance to popular audiences in the United States; the vehemence of the reaction argues in favor of the centrality of the medievalist to popular culture no less than does the ample mainstream media attention mentioned above. This means, of course, that the medieval itself remains in a position of privilege, which is good news for medieval studies scholars; if it is important, then there will be continued need for the work we do.
*Three things come up here:
- Helen Young addresses something along the same lines here;
- harryfisher87 leaves a telling comment on the White piece that speaks to the sexist issue; and
- I am not sufficiently well equipped in feminist theory to do the necessary explicatory work for such a project, although I would very much enjoy reading the efforts of those who are, perhaps following up on Helen Young's work.
Monday, June 16, 2014
Who Cares About Historical Authenticity? I Do
Read the previous entry in this series here.
Read the next entry in this series here.
A few days ago I (Helen here), posted about "Games of Thrones," and why people care if it's really 'medieval' or not. I'd always planned to do a follow-up post, but have been kicked into writing it sooner than I intended originally by something I read on Tumblr over the weekend.
I've written before, here on my own blog, and here in the Year's Work in Medievalism, about what I call the 'monochrome Middle Ages,' the assumption that everyone in Europe (including travellers) during the medieval period was white. Usually tacked onto this is the idea that there was no concept of 'race' then either. Of course, none of this is true, but it's used right across the spectrum of media fandom and production to exclude characters of colour from medievalist texts, even when they are fantasy and include, say, ice zombies and dragons. Similar concepts of 'historical authenticity' are variously used to justify representation of violence against women, offering only limited roles for women, lack of representation of queer characters, and exclusion of disabled characters. There are, of course, medievalist texts that don't do any of these things, and that specifically try to work against them. The Dragon Age franchise from Bioware has included queer characters and attempted to work against sexism, and to be more racially inclusive, albeit in limited ways.
Academics aren't the only ones who challenge assumptions about what 'medieval' means when it comes to race, gender, sexuality and the rest. There's an incredible resource on Tumblr: "People of Color in European Art History,"which is here. It links a social justice agenda with reams of historical evidence about the represenation and presence of people of colour in Europe in the Middle Ages.
I joked in my previous post about 'which anachronism in Game of Thrones irritates you most' being a good conversation starter at conferences, but when it comes to questions like racism and sexism, these kinds of issues are serious, and can go beyond even issues of representation on screen (or in the pages).
Back in January this year, Warhorse Studios ran a crowd-funding campaign to support their game Kingdom Come: Deliverance (which is not out yet as far as I can tell from Australian outlets, which are often behind). They made a lot of its historical accuracy; the creative director, Daniel Varda, has been quoted as saying:
This kind of extreme, potentially violent reaction is ultimately another reason that historical authenticity, and whether a media text is really 'medieval' or not is important. We can joke about, or be genuinely annoyed by inaccuracies, but there's far more to them than that. Academic versions of the Middle Ages have, historically, contributed to incorrect assumptions about them, and we've now got a responsibility to do something about that. I'm not so naive as to think that someone who writes death threats over the mere suggestion that a game might be more inclusive, or that there were people of colour living in Europe in the Middle Ages, will stop or have their views shaken by any amount of op-ed pieces. But we still have a responsibility to point out when things are wrong, because ultimately if we don't, we allow those same ideas to be perpetuated. The notion that "that's just how it was" is one that I've heard time and time again. Which is one of the reasons that writing op-eds, or blog posts, or articles with variants on "that's NOT how it was," matters.
Read the next entry in this series here.
A few days ago I (Helen here), posted about "Games of Thrones," and why people care if it's really 'medieval' or not. I'd always planned to do a follow-up post, but have been kicked into writing it sooner than I intended originally by something I read on Tumblr over the weekend.
I've written before, here on my own blog, and here in the Year's Work in Medievalism, about what I call the 'monochrome Middle Ages,' the assumption that everyone in Europe (including travellers) during the medieval period was white. Usually tacked onto this is the idea that there was no concept of 'race' then either. Of course, none of this is true, but it's used right across the spectrum of media fandom and production to exclude characters of colour from medievalist texts, even when they are fantasy and include, say, ice zombies and dragons. Similar concepts of 'historical authenticity' are variously used to justify representation of violence against women, offering only limited roles for women, lack of representation of queer characters, and exclusion of disabled characters. There are, of course, medievalist texts that don't do any of these things, and that specifically try to work against them. The Dragon Age franchise from Bioware has included queer characters and attempted to work against sexism, and to be more racially inclusive, albeit in limited ways.
Academics aren't the only ones who challenge assumptions about what 'medieval' means when it comes to race, gender, sexuality and the rest. There's an incredible resource on Tumblr: "People of Color in European Art History,"which is here. It links a social justice agenda with reams of historical evidence about the represenation and presence of people of colour in Europe in the Middle Ages.
I joked in my previous post about 'which anachronism in Game of Thrones irritates you most' being a good conversation starter at conferences, but when it comes to questions like racism and sexism, these kinds of issues are serious, and can go beyond even issues of representation on screen (or in the pages).
Back in January this year, Warhorse Studios ran a crowd-funding campaign to support their game Kingdom Come: Deliverance (which is not out yet as far as I can tell from Australian outlets, which are often behind). They made a lot of its historical accuracy; the creative director, Daniel Varda, has been quoted as saying:
you can think of it as a Braveheart-game – majestic castles, armoured knights, large-scale battles, political intrigues – all set in a large medieval open world. We want to make the experience as authentic as possible: real locations, real castles, period-decorated costumes and armour, combat and fencing designed by the best swordsmen around, and a story based on real historical evidence.I read about this because a post on the "People of Color in European Art History," responded to a reader question about it which asked if characters of "other-than-white" descent might be realistically included, and for academic resources. The person who runs the blog (who is often referred to as 'medievalpoc' as s/he chooses to be anonymous) responded with an array of academic texts, and some artwork, suggesting that they could indeed be included without breaking the 'accuracy' conceit, and also remarked that representation of women and racial minorities was not a priority for the developers. The post was re-blogged around Tumblr (more than 1 200 times as I write this), but was also linked to on the social media site Reddit under a provocative headline. As a result, medievalpoc received an absolute wave of terrible abuse, which was covered on The Daily Dot here (this makes for disturbing reading).What I didn't realise at the time but has recently been posted about on the Tumblr, is that the abuse went as far as death threats, and threats against medievalpoc's family. This is an extreme instance of where the 'monochrome Middle Ages' ideas, and its variants on other issues. can lead.
This kind of extreme, potentially violent reaction is ultimately another reason that historical authenticity, and whether a media text is really 'medieval' or not is important. We can joke about, or be genuinely annoyed by inaccuracies, but there's far more to them than that. Academic versions of the Middle Ages have, historically, contributed to incorrect assumptions about them, and we've now got a responsibility to do something about that. I'm not so naive as to think that someone who writes death threats over the mere suggestion that a game might be more inclusive, or that there were people of colour living in Europe in the Middle Ages, will stop or have their views shaken by any amount of op-ed pieces. But we still have a responsibility to point out when things are wrong, because ultimately if we don't, we allow those same ideas to be perpetuated. The notion that "that's just how it was" is one that I've heard time and time again. Which is one of the reasons that writing op-eds, or blog posts, or articles with variants on "that's NOT how it was," matters.
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