A brand new, official website celebrating the late, great Gerry Anderson has just been unveiled. All the classics are there, as well as news on Anderson Entertainment's upcoming productions.
www.gerryanderson.co.uk
Personally, Captain Scarlet was always my favourite. I wish this site had gone up last month - I might have stood more of a chance in the Gerry Anderson round of the March Geekest Link. Never mind, we still won.
www.gerryanderson.co.uk
Personally, Captain Scarlet was always my favourite. I wish this site had gone up last month - I might have stood more of a chance in the Gerry Anderson round of the March Geekest Link. Never mind, we still won.
Mr, Tessier, I recently saw your article on "Trapped in the sky" as part of Television Heaven. You briefly talked about the Hood's now being seen as a product of the time the show was made. I think you were somewhat harsh, especially with the notable pointing out of Kyrano's use of as a manservant. One still has to remember, the series was still in a different culture and time period. I think complaining about the characters roles as “product of their times” is projecting our own cultural ideals onto an entirely different culture and time-period. Portraying some characters to fit more modern ideals of a character can easily make one realize how contemporary ideas about some character’s roles have only surfaced and gained strength recently. It’s really no different then than what every other culture has done anyways, portray the ideal version of characters. If a character’s part in the story is construed as non-pc, it’s only because we believe so, and the other culture believes it’s the ideal role and character for a character. sure, our culture can have it’s own ideals of what people should be like, but I don’t favor imposing them on other cultures and pretending they adopted our values. In addition, Thunderbirds went out of its way to depict some characters with better writing when it could, such as Tintin who sometimes worked as an assistant to Brains, as well as actual operative of IR. I believe any non-pc moments are more representative of the environment of Britain in the 1960s than of the show as a whole. I would even say, it is not bad as the casual sexism in Fireball XL5 or Stringray. And really compared to other shows of the time it really wasn’t anything terrible. I am not saying any non pc, explicit or in explicit, doesn’t exist, for the most part it isn’t there. Thunderbirds was much more progressive than perhaps Stringray, with extremely well rounded female characters and a complex Tracy Family who treating all people they met with respect; maybe there are things that cause one to raise one's eyebrow in Thunderbirds, but it's just reflecting its time for the most part. There are only a couple of genuine missteps and SunProbe, for example, goes out of its way to depict Tintin and Kyrano with respect; Jeff frets at asking Tin-Tin to risk her life like this, but Kyrano assures Jeff that she’s willing to do whatever it takes, especially as he and his daughter owe Jeff their lives. Another snippet of back story worth wondering about, which is never fully explored in the show proper.
ReplyDeleteHi, I appreciate your thoughts. I may have come off harsher than I meant. I think we agree more than you realise. When I say the treatment of characters depending on their ethnicity or gender is a product of its time, I mean that a series from 1960s Britain is bound to have different attitudes and approaches than a modern production. That doesn't make it above critique in such matters, but does mean it has to be viewed through a different lens. Still, it's an oportunity for us to look at it and confirm that now we know better (or at least some of us do. The world seems to be rapidly moving backwards in that respect).
DeleteI do agree that the writing for Thunderbirds improves on Stingray in that respect, and indeed that Kyrano and Tin-Tin are given more respect in later scripts. Sylvia Anderson's work to improve the treatment of female characters paid off with Lady Penelope and, to a lesser extent, Tin-Tin, although she has little impact on "Trapped in the Sky" itself. I think it's OK to say that something was progressive for the time while still noting that it comes across as questionable to modern sensibilities. There are certainly many, many programmes which look worse when viewed through modern eyes.
Thanks for your response. I believe it is possible to accept both sides of the arguments; Thunderbirds was a show both of its time and ahead of its time. Ironically, some fans question the secret operation behaviour because it is hard to believe IR would elude photographs or be tracked to their base but it doesn’t take away the enjoyment of the show. As a kid, with the exception of the Hood’s glowing eyes which scared me, I was blown away by the series. The drama was intense and gripping, the voice acting superb and the characterization fantastic. The detail to attention paid to the marionettes, combined with the work of the voice artists allowed the characters to emote better than many 'flesh and blood' actors. And, presumably because of the format, the writers had got away with scripts that would be considered too scary and dramatic for any other children's series.
Delete