I knew when I started the Great Supernatural Death Count that those who complained the show is racist and/or sexist would not be swayed. This is not a new phenomenon. I experienced something similar with the Law & Order fandom several years ago.
At that time, Lennie Briscoe, played by the legendary Jerry Orbach, had worked with three different young detectives, Mike Logan (Christopher Noth), Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) and Ed Green (Jessie L. Martin). There had been great consternation when Chris Noth was replaced by Benjamin Bratt, and in an effort to keep Mike Logan’s legacy alive, someone asked Jerry who Lennie’s favorite partner was. Jerry replied, “Benjamin Bratt.” Chris Noth’s fans disagreed, saying that Lennie liked Mike better, even though the answer came straight from the actor himself.
The moral of this story is people will continue to believe what they want to believe. And that’s ok.
I think the “real” complaint, as pool and cali5 noted in comments on the Super Stats page, is the treatment of recurring characters. In anticipation of this, I actually took a cursory look at the deaths among repeat performers. The numbers are indeed different, but statistical analysis indicated the differences were not significant. But then, the number of subjects was too small to give reliable results. (I realize this is all a bunch of statistical mumbo jumbo no one probably cares about. It’s just that the researcher in me loves playing with statistics.)
Anyway, their comments actually got me thinking about other ways to look at the treatment of women and ethnics. I’ll discuss it some other time. Right now I need to go and watch some more season 4 episodes.
Numbers can lie
I knew when I started the Great Supernatural Death Count that those who complained the show is racist and/or sexist would not be swayed. This is not a new phenomenon. I experienced something similar with the Law & Order fandom several years ago.
At that time, Lennie Briscoe, played by the legendary Jerry Orbach, had worked with three different young detectives, Mike Logan (Christopher Noth), Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt) and Ed Green (Jessie L. Martin). There had been great consternation when Chris Noth was replaced by Benjamin Bratt, and in an effort to keep Mike Logan’s legacy alive, someone asked Jerry who Lennie’s favorite partner was. Jerry replied, “Benjamin Bratt.” Chris Noth’s fans disagreed, saying that Lennie liked Mike better, even though the answer came straight from the actor himself.
The moral of this story is people will continue to believe what they want to believe. And that’s ok.
I think the “real” complaint, as pool and cali5 noted in comments on the Super Stats page, is the treatment of recurring characters. In anticipation of this, I actually took a cursory look at the deaths among repeat performers. The numbers are indeed different, but statistical analysis indicated the differences were not significant. But then, the number of subjects was too small to give reliable results. (I realize this is all a bunch of statistical mumbo jumbo no one probably cares about. It’s just that the researcher in me loves playing with statistics.)
Anyway, their comments actually got me thinking about other ways to look at the treatment of women and ethnics. I’ll discuss it some other time. Right now I need to go and watch some more season 4 episodes.
3 comments | tags: fans, television | posted in Commentary, Law & Order, Not SciFi, Supernatural