Not that I haven't liked those angsty white guys on SCC myself, because I have. But one of my two favorite regulars, James Ellison, is really sidelined in fandom; for example, schronicles, d_or_c, judgment_daily (SCC newsletter), and scc_vids don't even have him in the header, despite the fact that he's been billed as a regular from the beginning. As far as I can tell, this lack of fandom interest stems from a combination of two factors: his limited contact with Sarah's family and his status as a character of color. The former was a plot necessity as the writers had structured it, but it usually situated him in the supporting B-plot; I'm not sure that even means he has less face time than a supporting white male character in a given episode, but it made Ellison's story subordinate to the main plot, at least in S1. With respect to the second factor: it's great that a PoC is in the main cast in a less-stereotypical role, but the very fact that the one major CoC is in the B-plot and not the A-plot may say something about the show. And honestly, had said white male supporting character appeared in the pilot (which would not have been a good writing choice, but whatever), I really believe there would have been more fan creations about him even then than there is now about Ellison. After 35 episodes, I can only think of about five stories and one video featuring Ellison in a significant role. (For a similar example, see also Day Break... which is a very small fandom, it's true, but Taye Diggs is the leading man on the show. Yet I can think of literally ONE fan creation that's even partly about his character and at least 10x the number of fan creations about the white, male antagonist. To be fair, it's true that a lot of DB fans probably like Adam Baldwin's character in part because Baldwin was on Firefly, but still!) As lcsbanana commented elsewhere, a lot of people avoid shows that start out with CoC leads (or avoid the CoCs), and adding a CoC without changing the preexisting cast doesn't work to engage fan interest with the CoC.
My sense is that the majority of people in a lot of TV fandoms are white (and female), and there's a disproportionate tendency to embrace the snarky white male character, especially if he has or acquires a traumatic history. I don't blame the show itself in SCC's case, mainly because I feel it vindicated me by NOT embroiling Sarah in a romance with said character, which was one of the two things I most feared would happen. But I guess that leads me to my final point about why I'm not that into general SCC fandom: 3) a troubling tendency toward internalized misogyny. That usually takes on one or both of the following forms: either there's only a very limited number of ways fans approve of with respect to how to be a woman on the show (you can be Sarah, or if you don't like Sarah, you can be Cameron whose concept of gender may not be the same as a human's, but every other major/recurring female character is boring/icky)... or they're not really interested in any of the female characters (in which case I have to wonder why they're watching the show). And if there's even the slightest possibility of a love triangle, or pentagon, or non-Euclidean whatever—even if the original pairing was just in fandom! this is so prevalent in SCC, I can't overemphasize it—a lot of fans will immediately start slamming (often in highly sexist terms) the new addition to the mix, especially if that addition is female.
To be sure, the show set up relationships in S2 which in some ways (at least initially) encouraged this reaction, and I'm not entirely sure the showrunners succeeded in walking that line. But even in those cases, I think SCC did succeed in overturning a lot of important gendered expectations, and any success in that respect derives from how intense, conflicted relationships between female characters are so important in the show... and in many cases, their emotional underpinning ultimately has more to do with a given female character's personal history than with (romantic ties to) any man.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
long comment on SCC, SCC fandom, and fandom in general, part 3 (I should re-up those Ellison icons)
Date: 2009-04-16 08:53 am (UTC)My sense is that the majority of people in a lot of TV fandoms are white (and female), and there's a disproportionate tendency to embrace the snarky white male character, especially if he has or acquires a traumatic history. I don't blame the show itself in SCC's case, mainly because I feel it vindicated me by NOT embroiling Sarah in a romance with said character, which was one of the two things I most feared would happen. But I guess that leads me to my final point about why I'm not that into general SCC fandom: 3) a troubling tendency toward internalized misogyny. That usually takes on one or both of the following forms: either there's only a very limited number of ways fans approve of with respect to how to be a woman on the show (you can be Sarah, or if you don't like Sarah, you can be Cameron whose concept of gender may not be the same as a human's, but every other major/recurring female character is boring/icky)... or they're not really interested in any of the female characters (in which case I have to wonder why they're watching the show). And if there's even the slightest possibility of a love triangle, or pentagon, or non-Euclidean whatever—even if the original pairing was just in fandom! this is so prevalent in SCC, I can't overemphasize it—a lot of fans will immediately start slamming (often in highly sexist terms) the new addition to the mix, especially if that addition is female.
To be sure, the show set up relationships in S2 which in some ways (at least initially) encouraged this reaction, and I'm not entirely sure the showrunners succeeded in walking that line. But even in those cases, I think SCC did succeed in overturning a lot of important gendered expectations, and any success in that respect derives from how intense, conflicted relationships between female characters are so important in the show... and in many cases, their emotional underpinning ultimately has more to do with a given female character's personal history than with (romantic ties to) any man.