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snick_backupIn response to some correspondence I received on Tumblr relating to my tags on this gifset, I wrote a post about Jody Mills as a mother figure, which I'm crossposting here. (Hint: I am opposed.)
I don’t mean to diminish the importance of Jody’s history as mother to her deceased son or what that past relationship means to her. However, I think it’s totally possible to acknowledge Jody’s role as a literal mother without then implying that she must necessarily act as a mother figure to every person she meets, including men that are only 8-12 years younger than her and therefore in her own peer group. In fact, it’d seem fairly peculiar to me if she was positioned as a mother figure to Sam and Dean, due to how close she is to them in age.
It’s arguable that that is precisely what canon does with the dialogue from that gifset - Jody threatening to use her ‘mom voice’ - but that strikes me as less an ongoing positioning of Jody as a mother figure and more a one-off joke, one that it seems in-character for her to make without her implying that she plans to take over mom duties whenever in the Winchesters’ vicinity.
That said, even if canon did make an ongoing effort to position her in that way, I’d still be plenty annoyed about it, because I’d then see it as part of a broader cultural trend of disparity between the acceptable age for a woman in a romantic relationship and the acceptable for a man. According to IMDB, Jared was born in 1982, Kim Rhodes was born in 1969, and Jim Beaver was born in 1950. If we assume that character ages and actor ages are roughly equivalent, which we know is the case at least for Jared/Sam and Jensen/Dean, then there’s only a 13-year difference between Sam and Jody and a 19-year difference between Jody and Bobby. Yet Jody and Bobby are an acceptable romantic pairing for canon to hint at, and Jody/Sam were apparently so obviously unsuitable that it doesn’t appear to have occurred to anyone on the writing team that they might be taken that way.
(For that matter, Samantha Ferris was born in 1968, which puts an 18-year difference between Ellen and Bobby, another romance canon teased us with for an episode.)
This phenomenon of older man/younger woman is a prevalent one in entertainment and it suggests, in our culture that values youth so highly, that women age - and thus lose value as a potential romantic partner - much more rapidly than men do. It’s gross and I defy it by shipping Dean/Ellen and Sam/Jody at every opportunity. And also writing blog posts like this one.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Comment here or there. (
DW replies)
I don’t mean to diminish the importance of Jody’s history as mother to her deceased son or what that past relationship means to her. However, I think it’s totally possible to acknowledge Jody’s role as a literal mother without then implying that she must necessarily act as a mother figure to every person she meets, including men that are only 8-12 years younger than her and therefore in her own peer group. In fact, it’d seem fairly peculiar to me if she was positioned as a mother figure to Sam and Dean, due to how close she is to them in age.
It’s arguable that that is precisely what canon does with the dialogue from that gifset - Jody threatening to use her ‘mom voice’ - but that strikes me as less an ongoing positioning of Jody as a mother figure and more a one-off joke, one that it seems in-character for her to make without her implying that she plans to take over mom duties whenever in the Winchesters’ vicinity.
That said, even if canon did make an ongoing effort to position her in that way, I’d still be plenty annoyed about it, because I’d then see it as part of a broader cultural trend of disparity between the acceptable age for a woman in a romantic relationship and the acceptable for a man. According to IMDB, Jared was born in 1982, Kim Rhodes was born in 1969, and Jim Beaver was born in 1950. If we assume that character ages and actor ages are roughly equivalent, which we know is the case at least for Jared/Sam and Jensen/Dean, then there’s only a 13-year difference between Sam and Jody and a 19-year difference between Jody and Bobby. Yet Jody and Bobby are an acceptable romantic pairing for canon to hint at, and Jody/Sam were apparently so obviously unsuitable that it doesn’t appear to have occurred to anyone on the writing team that they might be taken that way.
(For that matter, Samantha Ferris was born in 1968, which puts an 18-year difference between Ellen and Bobby, another romance canon teased us with for an episode.)
This phenomenon of older man/younger woman is a prevalent one in entertainment and it suggests, in our culture that values youth so highly, that women age - and thus lose value as a potential romantic partner - much more rapidly than men do. It’s gross and I defy it by shipping Dean/Ellen and Sam/Jody at every opportunity. And also writing blog posts like this one.
Crossposted from Dreamwidth. Comment here or there. (
no subject
Date: 2013-06-21 09:20 pm (UTC)And man, all that Sam/Jody stuff in "Time After Time" was just lovely.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-21 09:39 pm (UTC)"Time After Time" was an amazing ep for Sam and Jody. I loved everything about them and it seemed so natural that they'd be a fandom pairing darling... except not really. I am still sad-faced.
no subject
Date: 2013-06-22 11:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-06-22 07:39 pm (UTC)