randominstance

To say that I love BGC is not to say that I don’t also note its flaws.

It does have a serious case of Women Being Written By Men sometimes. There’s a painful lack of solidarity inside the group at times:

A) the group generally perceives Priss as the ‘bad girl’ and doesn’t immediately support her actions or decisions. Nene calling her 'apewoman’ in ep 8, Sylia being guilted into sending out a rescue team in ep 1 when Priss is late (again) in reporting in. They bend over backwards in ep 3 to try and womansplain to Priss that it’s NOT about her even though the whole mission is absolutely one of vengeance.

B) there are some painful conversations in episode 8 which mar an otherwise fine episode with 'diet talk’. Even taking into account the Hard Suits likely have to be bodyfitted down to millimeters, Priss and Linna team up to harass Nene about her weight gain - of an entire centimeter oh no - and the whole group combines to pick on Nene for not being able to fight at even a 'normal girl level’. We know that Linna and Priss’s laughter hurts, because it comes up again in Nene’s mind when she sits down to have a piece of cake. This kinda thing is sort of death to team cohesion…

“Leave it to Sylia to sacrifice Nene,” Priss says in episode 4, and she ain’t wrong. How Nene has been set up to fail isn’t fully addressed in the original 8, but it’s pretty obvious that her suit is below grade, her weapons are inadequate, Sylia isn’t forcing her up to the team’s fighting standard, and that her abilities are meant for backstage work - so why do they keep pulling her up front with the combat team? And then mocking her for not being good at it? This makes me question Sylia’s leadership abilities (and it’s not the only time I’ve had questions about her judgement)

There’s also some implied size-shaming going on in episode 4, when Priss complains that the skirt she borrowed from Linna 'bags’ and then they refuse to complete a conversation about their clothing sizes because Linna takes offense at the implication Priss is smaller than she is.

C) Although the group generally talks out their missions as a whole first before deciding on their course of action, there’s a sense that the characters aren’t as much friends as they are co-workers. Linna and Priss do hang out in episode 4 - with some interesting suggestive implications - and we know that Linna and Nene both go to Priss’ concerts on and off based on ep 5. Based on potential timing issues, I’m sure that Nene probably can’t interact with the others as often because of work being the mole inside ADP.

I’m not saying they need to be in each other’s faces 24/7 but the way their interactions are usually structured definitely adds to the vibe of 'we’re just here doing this thing for now, we’re not together in it’. I guess YMMV as to whether that’s a good thing or not, but the closest contemporaneous analogue also running in '86 are the Dirty Pair, another 'girl mercenary’ group, and they’re written as bickering friends/sisters with a fairly close relationship.

D) Linna kind of gets the short end of the characterization stick, being mostly written as concerned about status (“I want to trade in my car and get new clothes”. “Who cares about art?”) although the Irene/Vision subplot does do a lot to lift her and give her some extra focus, and the show heavily implies she’s at least bi-curious. “If I were a guy I’d make a pass at you, no sweat.” She’s also bossy toward Priss in episodes 3 and 4 in a way that implies the group kind of tends to punch down at each other depending on who’s in the room. Though you could also call her exchanges with Priss the fond exasperation of someone who’s tired of their friend’s constant drama. For the record, Priss does the same thing to Nene right after Linna does it to her. “Girl, all you think about is eating.” They pull the same stuff on each other in ep 5 when they get together at Hot Legs and meet Sylvie.

I dunno, this is all just brain dump. I don’t expect an 80’s series to be up to modern ideas - that would be silly and ahistorical - but I definitely think about it in the context of what I wish to see more of now and want to see less of going forward. That’s where I think that Women Being Written by Men comes into play, because the focus is more on tearing each other down - catty behavior, a bad group dynamic.

Women CAN be our own worst enemies, too - there’s no doubt about that. We’re good at tearing each other down. But given the context of the team I’d want to see more internal coherency and more internal support. More recognition of oppression as being existent on multiple planes at once, and maybe not treating each other like crap in the off hours and then expecting a clean, cohesive fighting unit in a crisis.

Waiting until episode 8 to actually address the Nene 'combat problem’ (and then in some ways actually making it worse with the off-field bullying being explicitly called out) is low-key frustrating.

Now, I’m a Priss girl myself, the other characters are less on my mind most of the time, and Priss obviously gets the lion’s share of screentime as the 'face’ of the group. But yeah, if Mackie can operate very comfortably as a support character that comes in during pinches or does a good job of hacking himself, why isn’t Nene just stationed with him like, 99% of the time? Is Sylia worried her little brother is gonna get too handsy with Nene or something?

Also, yeah, if Nene’s presence on the field were expressed as her suit being a signal-jammer/scramble, that would immediately make her more useful, but her suit would need to be beefed up EVEN MORE to counter this since the 'white mage’ role needs stronger defense, and the other three are all too busy to protect her while being in aggressive combat roles. I mean, at minimum, Nene should be going out wrapped in a Motoslave, at least, on top of her normal suit, if she’s performing code functions.

Like, why was LINNA the one that was brought forward in ep 6 to wreck Largo’s beam satellite and Nene was in support mode? That should 100% have been reversed, unless they’re arguing Nene isn’t strong enough to hold the weapon in place while it fires - but that’s the Motoslave’s job, right? Nene’s suit wings opening up was super cool and why didn’t we see more of THAT? Anyway.

My initial thought of fixing this would have been to combine the Mackie and Nene characters into one: making Nene not only the group hacker but also the backup suit-fixer and support coder (which could make her VERY useful on the field when the others are constantly getting their suits crushed/mangled/damaged) - but then you kind of have to give up the ADP mole role, right?

By I dunno ep 6 you can argue that Leon could take over the 'mole’ role inside ADP since he’s fully onboard with the Sabers anyway. So there’s other ways to structure the existing characters for the same value or better.

This is the kind of thinking I would hope enters into a reboot process - says she who’s been waiting 30 goddamn years for someone to wake up and remember this franchise exists and not fuck it up. I am not a fan of Crash or 2040, LOL.