uh huh.

[very_improbable]

Showrunner Hart Hanson on Bones:

The two main characters are timeless. Basically, it’s Spock and Captain Kirk, for those of you who are old enough for that. Aubrey and Maturin, for those of you who are older. One is a scientist and thinks very rationally, and the other is an extremely emotional, intuitive person. Little tricks, we swapped the roles, so the guy is the girl and the girl is the guy.

1) Oh! You had a clever idea to make the LADY the RATIONAL one and the DUDE the INTUITIVE one! Congratulations. You've invented THE FUCKING X-FILES.

1a) I mean, it's bad enough that this wacky gender switcheroo was presented as a clever twist in the first place, back when XF first aired, seventeen years ago.

2) ...as the transcriber points out, Spock, Kirk, Aubrey, and Maturin are all men. Even if we are giving a lot of leeway for tongue-in-cheek-ness in his tone (a lot of the talk is a sorta cheeky commentary on how being on network TV in America means not doing a whole lot that runs counter to what the broad audience finds comfortable), there is no reading of this that makes sense.

3) Which brings me to, though, the question that this now inspires: What are all these shows where there's an unpredictable emotional intuitive lady having adventures or solving mysteries or whatever with a hard-headed scientist dude? Besides the last two seasons of XF, in which Doggett and Reyes, I guess, "swapped" the "gender roles" back to intuitive-woman-skeptical-man in contrast with Scully and Mulder.

Anyone? I have been turning this over in my head and I've kind of actually got nothing.

Comments

[giandujakiss.livejournal.com]

Which brings me to, though, the question that this now inspires: What are all these shows where there's an unpredictable emotional intuitive lady having adventures or solving mysteries or whatever with a hard-headed scientist dude? Besides the last two seasons of XF, in which Doggett and Reyes, I guess, "swapped" the "gender roles" back to intuitive-woman-skeptical-man in contrast with Scully and Mulder.

I know. I gotta go back to Scarecrow & Mrs. King, actually.

But it does remind me of a meta about these pairings where the man is all wacky and out of control and the woman basically plays cop/camp counselor/school marm. That isn't true of Bones, actually, but it's true of XF and Mentalist and House and I find it annoying - it allows the men a lot of freedom and women have to be boring.

[very-improbable.livejournal.com]

Yeah, exactly. And in those kind of pairings (which, like you said, don't actually include Bones) you also have the wacky hunch-following irresponsible guy being almost always right and vindicated by the show, which is its own whole can of worms (and cf kindkit's point below).

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

That is a really good point. I can think of another example like Scully and Mulder - Daniel and Sam , from SG-1. But nothing the other way around.

[kindkit.livejournal.com]

as the transcriber points out, Spock, Kirk, Aubrey, and Maturin are all men

Yes, which forces a reading in which both Kirk and Jack Aubrey are somehow "the girl" in their respective series. Except for the part where they're in charge, I guess? And also the macho action guy?

It's an interesting light on gender stereotypes: if you're intuitive, emotional, and male, congratulations, you're the hero! If you're intuitive, emotional, and female . . . you're just a silly girl and we probably don't have room for you on the show (or in the book) anyway.

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Can I metaquote you?

for the record, I've seen Bones a couple times and I thought it was fine

[very-improbable.livejournal.com]

I don't know, man, most days I'd say yes but I'm pretty tired, there's a nice conversation probably starting here and I'd be really sad if it turned into me being yelled at by 200 Bones fans.

Thank you for the compliment, though. :)

Re: for the record, I've seen Bones a couple times and I thought it was fine

[tzikeh.livejournal.com]

Oh - I just wanted to quote the "Congratulations, you've invented THE X-FILES" bit.

But no worries!

[shayheyred.livejournal.com]

I got nothin', except I can't stand the acting anyway. And both characters are anti-charismatic.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

I just tried to come up with a Doctor Who answer, but none of the Doctors are especially rational. And then you have Liz Shaw and Three, which might have been the very first skeptic woman/zany man pairing.

[aris-tgd.livejournal.com]

Three and Jo? I'm thinking of The Daemons, especially. But, um, yeah, the fact that the first one I could come up with was from the 1970s is a bit of a tell...