Well, LOST now joins Rescue Me--

[changeyourstars8]

-- on the list of 'shows I used to like but will no longer watch'. And what do you know, for sortof the same reasons.



So Shannon (whom I adored) wasn't enough. Neither was Danielle-- she's always been one of my favorite characters. Ana-Lucia's storyline could've been handled so much better. Libby had great potential. Nadia was always someone I looked forward to seeing. And now they gun down Alex, too?

The fact that it's turning into a killfest bugs me enough, but hm, what do those characters all have in common? Let me think.

Boone dies trying to do something to save them, generally considered a hero's death. Charlie? Knew he was going to die heading down there, did it anyway. Definitely a hero's death. The women? Gunned down by accident or as collateral damage or to hurt/manipulate the men.

I hate the thought of not watching anymore, because I used to love it so incredibly much, and I'll keep up with ack_attack's recaps because even if I don't like the show in question she's hilarious, but. . .

I know several of the other shows I watch have issues with their female characters; I'm hard-pressed to find any show that's perfect in that area, but they haven't gotten nearly this bad. I'm done.

Comments

[particle-person.livejournal.com]

Claire's still alive so far, though. And Kate makes it, we know. The biggest problem with Lost is that it never had that many female characters to begin with, which is really weird considering the size of the cast.

[ficangel.livejournal.com]

Yes. I wanted to say that part of the creative uptick of this season has been an improvement in gender issues, as well, because Kate and Juliet have basically been made of badass, but it is what it is. Shannon. Ana Lucia. Libby. Danielle. Alex. Nadia. Not a goddamned one of them had a death that was important because they were important, but because instead they kicked some man in the ass and made him important.

Goddamnit. My extremely gay apple-picking fandom-the one where I'm keeping a sharp eye on the comm because two of the members modded a comm a few years ago that cheered on Daughtry for accidentally striking Kat McPhee in the face with a microphone by saying that she was clearly getting too close to Ace-is kicking Lost's ass on gender issues. That? That's fucking pathetic.

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is.

Mom stopped watching over a year ago, because she said every time she turned it on it seemed like somebody was getting beaten up or tortured and she said she wanted to see survival on a spooky island, not that stuff. I should've taken the hint then (or rather, when Shannon died and I caught a comment from one of the writers about, 'well, there wasn't anyplace else for her character to go') but I didn't.

And yeah, I'm really upset about all this because dammit, I want the show to do better than this because I loved watching it. It was the first show I ever actually managed to remember was on instead of just setting a tape and watching it later. And there are some characters on it that I still really like, and I want to know what happens with them.

But when I'm sure that actually watching as opposed to just reading a comedic recap will give me a huge headache? Can't.

[ficangel.livejournal.com]

It's actually worse to me that Sawyer is getting his hero on (because I do still love him) and that the show is handling that particular storyline so well, but it completely leaves them without an excuse for the rest of this shit.

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

I know! I read about Sawyer's storyline and was just all, "Dammit" that the rest of the show can't be that good. Maybe I'll keep track of what happens with him and rent the discs later on and just skip forward to his scenes. LOL

[mrlzbth.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's a really good point, and not one I had thought about...I've thought about the tendency of Lost to kill off female characters, but not the difference in how those deaths are treated from those of the male characters.

Interesting that the women all seem to get shot, too. I'm going to have to think more about that!

But...you can't seriously stop watching. What about the Sawyer goodness? (Though he's admittedly not quite as much angsty fun as he used to be...)

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

Sawyer is one of the main reasons I've kept watching as long as I have been, even though I've been getting more and more annoyed with the show itself, Sayid being another reason. :-)

but not the difference in how those deaths are treated from those of the male characters

Yeah, I didn't pick up on that for a while and then once I did I tried to ignore it, because I reminded myself that I'm not always as perfect as I should be with gender issues either, they're a product of their society and yadda yadda yadda, but it went from being 'the kind of stuff you sometimes get with most any show' to 'oh come on, not again'.

Interesting that the women all seem to get shot, too.

And they always die from it-- Locke and Sawyer both got shot and recovered (not that I'm saying they shouldn't have, especially Sawyer, because then I would've stopped watching a lot earlier. I'm shallow that way. Hee) but I really would've liked to see at least one of the women get an episode equivalent to Sawyer's-- centered on her as she tried to be tough and make jokes through a hell of a lot of pain and one or more of the guys trying to nurse her back to health; or Locke's-- people thinking she's gone and then, surprise! The only one I can think of who had even close to that was Naomi, and then guess what happened to her.

And even if they do pull a surprise comeback with Danielle, Alex is dead, and it just feels like dirty pool to do something like that to her character. We waited for a couple of seasons to have a reunion, and then their story got put on the back burner and then zapped altogether.

Okay, I'll stop grumbling now, really. LOL

[tavella.livejournal.com]

That was the final straw for me, when I quit watching it at the end of season 2. I was already on the margin because they had been doing a lot of timemarking plotwise, but it was who they killed off and how.

Sure, the fact that it was two of the small number of women characters that were being killed off may have been dictated by DUIs, but the *way* -- the fact that all three of the women were killed after having sex or thinking about having sex (Libby was flirting with Hurley and had gone to get a *blanket* for the beach) made me see red.

I've occasionally thought about going back, because they have apparently being doing better plotwise and writing wise, but reviews have suggested that they haven't gotten any better on gender issues, and I suspect I'd just be seeing red again.

[allthelivesofme.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was like, "Okay, show, if I wanted to get some kind of 'if you're a female and you have sex, your number is up' not-so-hidden message, I'd go rent some cheap 80s horror movies".

Looking back, I should've just stopped watching after Shannon was killed, because that was when the show started taking a nosedive for me. But I kept thinking it'd get better. Oops.