http://remindmeofthe.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] remindmeofthe.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] remindmeofthe 2011-10-29 09:55 pm (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for your comment.

Easy answer first: "Meta," in the context of fannish works, refers to a piece of writing that deals with the show/book/movie/whatever in question as a work a fiction. Some fandoms have more of it than others.

If Chuck were a female character, doing the same things Chuck does now, I think that people would be writing the same defense about him that you just wrote about Jenny.

I would expect so, and they'd be right. If Chuck were Charlotte instead of Charles, she would be operating in a very different context, without the power of male privilege (http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/faq-what-is-male-privilege/) that Charles has. Her behavior would still be wrong and problematic (if Charlotte assaults Jenny at the party, it's still assault; if Jenny is Jason and he does not want Charlotte's attentions, it is still assault), because women can be rapists and abusers too. Charlotte still has class privilege and the other non-gender-related privileges Charles has; however, the absence of male privilege is a critical one. It's an entire level of power that Charlotte doesn't have, and she is expected by society to acquiesce to those who do have it. If you reimagine the finale with Charlotte and Jason, then it takes on a whole different feel; she still has power to leverage over him, but she doesn't have male privilege. He does. It gets a lot more complicated in trying to decide who took advantage of who, because the overall balance of power is redistributed.

For the record, I don't think Chuck's gender on the show is an automatic indictment. I do believe he's been victimized himself and that the show has misrepresented that as badly as it has basically everything else involving sex and gender. He's still a rapist. The cycle of abuse is self-perpetuating.

That is not ringing quite true to me.

I'm not quite sure why? You've summarized it pretty effectively here. Unless you're objecting to the black-and-whiteness of it? Which, yeah, nothing is black and white and every rule has countless exceptions. I'm sure plenty of people have had fantastic and fully consensual sex with their bosses! I'm also sure that those bosses are better people than Chuck, who repeatedly demonstrates his enjoyment of wielding his power over people. Maybe some of his/his father's employees did genuinely want to have sex with him, but I would be frankly astounded if they all did, or if they all felt that they could safely decline without putting their jobs on the line.

One of the difficulties of the definition of consent I've set forth here is that it can get really complicated really fast and people don't like complicated shit. There are a lot of layers of privilege and power to keep track of. Context is key, which is why this meta is so long - I needed to explore Jenny's context here and show in detail why she did not have the ability to consent in the finale. It's true that Chuck is also damaged there, plus he's been drinking, but he still has power that Jenny does not have, and he still uses it to corner her.

And finally:

You made a really great case for why Jenny was "raped" (I put it in quotes to emphasize your word choice for what happened)

Understood, but please don't do it again here. It still looks and feels a lot like scare quotes, which are one of many derailing tactics used to undermine rape survivors. I think your phrasing by itself, as well as the full content of your comment, made it quite clear that the word choice was not yours.

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