Edit 27 March 2011: A lot (but not all) of the comments I'm getting for this journal come down to things like "oh yeah, I hate Duncan and Alejandro too," or "but I actually like that pairing, don't badmouth it." Please keep in mind this isn't meant to be a general TDWT opinion piece like when I was doing episodic reviews---rather, this is meant to be a pseudo-scholarly analysis of the season, specifically geared toward the writers' characterization along gender lines. In other words, saying "X's storyline portrays this" is not the same as saying "X is a good/bad character in and of him-/herself." So I don't mean to seem picky or anything, but I would prefer comments based on the specific points I've raised, or similar (counter)points that you may have come up with. Thank you.
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While Heather was trying to show up Alejandro by winning and Courtney was trying to get back at Duncan by losing, Sierra was focusing on her usual sole objective: Cody. [1]
[1] Yup, pretty much every female character's strategy in this challenge involves making some sort of point to a guy. Yay for feminism!---Line that may or may not wind up in my fanfiction "Change of Plans," Chapter 5
As readers may have noticed, I've not posted a new chapter of "Change of Plans" tonight; I hope to get it up in a few days, but I suck at scheduling so the new chapter isn't complete.
But while writing it, something occurred to me: practically every female character in season three is a lovestruck, anti-feminist idiot.
I'm a bit reluctant to make this argument, not the least of which because I wouldn't consider myself a "feminist" ("masculist equalitarian" would probably work better), but I think it's worth noting how this particular form of character derailment has spread throughout the series, and how the female characters---all of whom were more or less awesome in season one---have been particularly affected.
This has actually been pointed out to me once or twice before, though I didn't realize how true it was until I started writing my story. If you actually stop and go through the characters, you realize that pretty much every girl's story arc was tied up in a love interest, usually with the result of her acting like an idiot and/or screwing herself because of them. Obviously, the guys
have love interests---those same girls---but their whole stories aren't
about them. To illustrate the difference, let us stop to examine the characters in question.
Feminist Failures
---Fell for Alejandro, become lovestruck enough to get herself voted out.
---Fell for Alejandro, become lovestruck enough to get herself voted out. Ooh,
déjà vu.
---Was a fairly strong player for the first half of the game, and (to me at least) managed to pretty much redeem herself after her execrable behavior in season two. As soon as Duncan returns, however, getting back at him becomes her obsessive mission, and afterwards, she falls for Alejandro, becoming lovestruck enough to get herself voted out.
Again. Okay, I'm starting to notice a pattern here.
---Probably the most blatant example of this issue, because literally 90% of everything she does has to do with a guy she likes, who is pretty explicitly not interested in her. (The other ten percent is dedicated to Chris, which is pretty much the same problem.) She's hardly even a character for most of the season, she's more like the "curse" haunting DJ---a plot device for misery. She becomes less annoying at the end of the season, but even then everything is about Cody, it's just sweet instead of infuriating.
Borderline Examples
---She gets points for independence---even when she's with Duncan their relationship is low-key (so low-key that those of us who didn't already ship them sort of wondered why we should care) and she doesn't let her affection stop her from playing the game. But then again, once he came back, what happened? She
immediately kissed him (self-control, please?), and this act leads to her eventual vote-off and pretty much everything else she does until then. Bah.
---On the one hand, she
was affected by this---her whole season was taken up by her falling for Alejandro (
AGAIN! Do you
see why I call this guy a Gary Stu?! At least Justin's "powers" were limited to brief moments of stupidity, not whole story arcs!) Of course, she beat him at the end, but still, I for one would have traded this whole "UST with an evil EBULER!!1!1 villain" storyline for, say, one where she undergoes enough character development that she
deserves to win at the end of the season.
Smartest Female Characters(?!)And who's left that could actually be considered competent female characters with characterization besides love interests? Lindsay and Izzy.
...No, seriously.
You could argue that yes, finally remembering Tyler is the most memorable thing that
did this season. And yet, she also proved herself to be the most competent member of Team Victory; she outlasted everyone but DJ and proved obviously more skilled than he was, accomplishing the Paris challenge alone before he ruined her work. About as much as she did story-wise had to do with her team as her love interest, and her vote-off had nothing to do with Tyler (well, he was her model for the fashion challenge, but that didn't really affect the issue).
, on the other hand, didn't have much of a real "story line" of her own; she's always been more of just a "random comic relief" character, if still an awesome one at that. She dated Owen and crushed on Alejandro a bit (
), but if anything I think she interacted with Noah more than either of them. I can't recall if her injury in the Jamaica episode had anything to do with her and Owen's little drama that episode and I don't care enough to check, but overall I say she beats everything out but Lindsay.
So yeah. Dumb blonde cheerleader and the psycho chick are actually the only girls who seem to have a characterization outside of their boyfriends this season.
I support a Lindsay-Izzy ticket for the next Prime Ministerial election. (I don't know if Canadian politics works that way and I don't care, I'd vote for them anyway.)
(You could also count Blaineley, but I'm not going to. Granted, she doesn't have her characterization tied up with a guy, but then...she barely has any characterization at
all. I know most people don't have as much disdain for her as I do, but to me she's such a
lame female character that I don't think she should even count. If she's the best example of empowered femininity that TD can come up with, then women in the TD universe should lose the right to vote.)
Now, compare them to the guys. You have Harold, who voted himself off largely because Al convinced him Leshawna would find it attractive; but then, he was almost definitely going to be kicked off anyway for reasons that were logically in-character and unrelated to her (which makes Al's evil plan so brilliant
how, incidentally?) And you could arguably count Cody, who spends the whole season either hitting on Gwen or being forced together with Sierra; he gets a bit more personal growth near the end, though, which is still
personal growth even if Sierra had an important part in it. And you could arguably say Alejandro, since his plots inevitably involve seducing girls, one of whom ultimately turns around and ruins him. So that's about half as many examples as the girls have, and I would count them all as less blatant than what happened to Bridgette, Leshawna or Sierra.
Also, of note:
every female character this season had a love interest, even if that love interest was only Alejandro. Among the guys, three didn't even
have love interests (Ezekiel, DJ and Noah). Meanwhile, the only three girls without real love interests also happen to be the only original contestants never to repeat a season (Eva, Katie and Sadie).
Again, it's interesting to note the differences between these facts and season one. The female characters were stronger there---of the six canon couples from TDI, half had the girls outlast their love interests in the game, compared to only Heather beating Alejandro in TDWT, which gives here mere minutes of extra screen time (again, this is count Alejandro as love interest for Bridgette and Leshawna rather than their "official" beaus, since he's the one who affects their story arcs). This allowed Gwen, Lindsay and Leshawna to develop independently of their boyfriends, the same way that Duncan, Owen and Geoff were able to develop independently of their girlfriends that same season. TDWT, however, tips the scales in favor of one gender.
It's particularly interesting to compare Gwen and Courtney across the seasons. In TDI their relationships were part of their
personal development, like the Sierra/Cody example mentioned above---Gwen was grumpy with Trent helping her to calm down, and Courtney was uptight with Duncan helping her to relax. (Duncan/Courtney also arguably worked the other way, too, making Duncan less of a bully by giving him someone to be nice to.) The Gwen/Duncan/Courtney love triangle in season three, however, serves as nothing but drama---Duncan does not facilitate any positive character development in either Courtney or Gwen, but merely causes them to butt heads and eventually get eliminated. (While his own elimination, meanwhile, comes after both of theirs and is
not romance-related.)
In conclusion (because I might as well treat this post as a term paper, it's long enough and I'm utilizing the skills I've learned in English class anyway),
Total Drama World Tour has several characterization problems, a large one being that it takes awesome female characters and largely derails them into lovestruck idiots. Even with being the first season with a girl winner, it nevertheless turns most of the girls into demoted love interests for the male characters, tying up almost all of their story arcs in with them. Especially Alejandro and Duncan; what are they, walking lobotomies for the female brain? Makes me feel even better for not liking them.
Total Drama World Tour
