waltersskinner replied to your post: the worst thing the fucking nbc lecter show ever...
to be fair from what they said at the time it was an issue of not being able to get the rights to clarice starling rather than an actual choice to exclude her and bryan fuller did make a lot of male characters from the books into female characters in the show
I wasn’t very clear, you’re right, i didn’t mean to imply that the fandom effect was a purposeful venture on behalf of the creators, i just meant that the show itself follows fanfic trends, in that 90% of fanfic is about 2 white dudes who have unhealthy relationships somehow being in love with each other, and that the show which actually /is/ fanfic (but with a huge ass $$$$ budget) follows the same model.
And that while coming from the creator, a gay man, that narrative is one thing, but coming from scores and scores of straight women consuming it and reacting to it, it is a completely different, far more sinister thing that's just a glut of fetishization and female exclusion under the guise of progressiveness.
But yes, I know they couldn’t get her, i’m glad actually, after what the show did to all it’s other ladies, i don’t want any of their paws on her. Before the show aired the gender bending sounded like a good thing, but the stories they were given, the abuse added to them, how they were never given importance of the homoerotic subtext between the two white guys? yeah, a problem. One that doesn't get discussed enough because apparently it’s Just Not Progressive to say anything against the central white m/m narrative, no matter how damaging said narrative is to the stories of the women around it.
(i am incapable of not using an example so like, Abigail, who lived in the books, just fine, instead was subjected to further abuse, and murdered... just to fuck with Will b/c Lecter was all romantically betrayed, the ‘m/m narrative is more important than women’s stories’ crap literally got her killed, and this shit isn’t ~progressive, it’s deeply troubling b/c i can pick a bunch more examples out easily, and it is not above reproach, i don’t care how gay it is).
(but also, the show not getting Starling does not stop the fandom from treating the character as most of the ladies on the show were in it’s narrative, aka, badly, which is what i mostly made my post about, i still can’t look for clarice content without being bombarded by content where the fandom is pulling that crap, and i’m so done. so done.)
