media sexism

Image: Lost character Kate Austen played by Evangeline Lily

I was going to begin this post with the line "Kate is a divisive character among Lost fans", but I won’t, because it’s not true. The Lost fan community is, with some exceptions, united against Kate. Very few Lost fans are Kate fans, the way people are Ben fans or Juliet fans or Hurley fans. In fact, many fan discussions are rife with discussions of how much Kate sucks – and I must admit, I occasionally join in.

In a show with plot holes the size of my Hyundai, bad dialogue, and Jack "I’ll Fix You Whether You Like It or Not" Shephard, why is Kate often the focal point for the problems of the show among the fan community? Is it poor writing? Misogyny? Disappointment at the Lost opportunity for an amazing strong female character? I talk to The Curvature and Feministe blogger Cara Kulwicki and fellow fans from ontd_Lost to try to figure it out.

So, rather than watch the Super Bowl, I ate food and slept. In spite of my attempts to avoid the whole damn mess, however, I still wound up being forced to deal with the requisite oohs and aaaahs over the commercials. I'm not a big fan of commercials period--but Super Bowl ads are often especially problematic to me because they are well aware that they are appealing to the most base instinct of the macho drunk male getting it on with his macho drunk male friends (I read somewhere that more partner abuse happens during Super Bowl than any other time of the year).