Hawaii Five-0: a possibly-unfair rant

[kate_nepveu]

So one of the things I want to talk about at the WisCon "Fanfic 401" panel is marginalization of non-white characters; my principal recent example is Yusuf and Saito from Inception. [*]

And that reminds me of my response to Hawaii Five-0, specifically the fannish reaction that I've seen. I have not seen a single episode of this, though I have heard the occasional thing that makes it sound like I might like it. But, here's the thing, the principal cast consists of four people, as shown in this ridiculous promo image:

I see some fannish activity about this show from people who I keep an eye on for their fic in other fandoms. I will give you three guesses as to which two characters I see 99.95% of the energy focused on; the first two don't count.

And maybe that's not a reflection on the show (remember, haven't seen it). Maybe I'm getting a skewed view of the fandom from the random bits I happen to see. But I truly cannot motivate myself to watch this show where every goddamn reference to it makes me say to myself, "Seriously, fandom? Four team members and you pick the two white guys again?!"

(And, I admit, this isn't helped by one of them being Scott Caan (far right), because, seriously?)

Before commenting, please note: as the title says, I am ranting. If you can honestly tell me that the fandom isn't actually all about the white guys (hell, I won't even demand 50%, just a sizable chunk), go ahead and show your work. But I really don't want to hear explanations, justifications, or defenses. You, personally, reading this? Your reasons for being interested in one character/relationship more than another are your own, they're for you to be happy with or not, and I'm not going to give you a gold star or the Magical Minority Fairy seal of approval or whatever, so please keep them to yourself. I'm talking about my own reaction to the apparent aggregate fannish reaction, which is: very tired.

[*] Sadly Sherlock has only one non-white character in its principal cast, and she is not only nasty but gets slut-shamed (well done, show!), so I cannot justly blame her marginalization in fic on fandom alone. (Note, however, that I have not seen that many fics attempting to reclaim her character.) Leverage fandom, at least back when I read it, might be a little bit better about this—Hardison being a geek helps—though I continue to look very side-eyed at the prevalence of Eliot/Nate in this regard. Of course my principal comparison, as the main post suggests, is SGA . . . and that is a topic that will not fit in the bounds of this footnote.

Comments

[mkozlows]

My actual prediction before reading the rest of your post was "Well, obviously Daniel Dae-Kim because everyone loves him from Lost and Angel, and then not sure which of the others."

I think Hawaii Five-O is supposed to be really stupid, though, isn't it? It's never gotten on my radar as potentially good at all.

[kate_nepveu]

Alas!

It's not on the radar of any of our mutual acquaintances, but I have seen other friends remark that it's fun and team-y.

[veejane]

You remember when I said that Fringe had crappy plotting? I was required to watch an episode of Hawaii 5-0 recently, and it was gleefully, shamelessly nonsensical. The mystery plot made absolutely no sense on its face, not in a "this is not real doctor jargon" way but in a way that made clear that the writers just didn't care.

There was more time spent on in-text branding than there was on that plot. It was so totally insulting.

If you can get past that, I am told it's a fun show!

[kate_nepveu]

Oh dear. And cofax7 reminds me that it's a police show (duh!), which means many instances of me yelling "that's not what probable cause *means*" and the like, so yeah, probably not.

[coffeeandink]

... Up until this post I was assuming that the Big Slash Pairing in H50 was Daniel Dae Kim/Alex O'Laughlin. Now that I have looked up the cast in IMDB I see that this is indeed Not So.

[kate_nepveu]

Oh good, Steve/Danny is the big pairing in your version of the fannish white knowledge too? Well, I mean, not good, but it's not just me?

[coffeeandink]

Yeah, those are the names I keep seeing. I thought Daniel Dae Kim was Danny for some reason.

[rydra_wong]

Ditto! I am easily confused.

[rachelmanija]

I haven't seen H50, but the apparent lack of Cobb/Saito is an excellent example of what you're talking about. There's a movie with a potential pairing that involves initial antagonism followed by ANGST and SACRIFICE and I WILL SAVE YOU NO MATTER WHAT... and it's almost entirely overlooked in favor of shipping two white guys whose onscreen interaction mostly consists of being in the same place at the same time.

ETA: Okay, so Steve and Danny are the white dudes, and Chin is Daniel Dae Kim.

From A03:

Steve/Danny: 683 works.

Chin/Steve: 8 works.

Chin/Danny: 7 works.

WOW.

[kate_nepveu]

Kono/Danny: 7.

Kono/Steve: 4.

Kono/Chin: 9.

And yes, don't get me wrong, I've read some very good Arthur/Eames, and I find Cobb unattractive in that he's _batshit crazy_, but there is *at least* as much canonical support for Cobb/Saito as Arthur/Eames. And don't even get me started on an apparent fandom trope of Yusuf as a stoner, what?

[dragovianknight]

My fannish observation supports Steve/Danny as the dominant (only) pairing, which I can't fathom, because UGH. Why would you write about the two scruffy-ass guys when the universe has handed you Daniel Dae Kim?

[kate_nepveu]

Yeah, it's definitely looking that way.

[merhawk]

*blink* Really? If you go just by looks[1], I don't see how there's any slash in this fandom. Daniel Dae Kim rocks the top of the list with those cheekbones. Grace Park wouldn't be that far behind him. Alex O'Loughlin isn't too bad, but that last guy? A distant, distant, fourth.

Friend of mine is into 5-0. She hasn't posted any fic (yet!), but the way she was commenting led me to think that she'd be a Kelly/McGarrett ficcer.

Personally, I've never seen the show.

[1]In my experience, at least half of media fandom goes off of looks. Even when the media was originally a book, the fannish activity changes direction as soon as they see who "the pretty" (for various values) is on the screen.

[telophase]

Daniel Dae Kim rocks the top of the list with those cheekbones

I was just coming in to the comments to squee over his cheekbones! *is shallow*

[kate_nepveu]

It's not that I don't approve of expanding conceptions of what is physically attractive! But as part of a pattern where it seems to come at the expense of non-white people . . .

[kass]

You're not wrong about the fannish activity, at least as far as my experience indicates.

I had imagined before watching any of the show that there might be some tasty het fic featuring Daniel Dae Kim's character and Grace Park's character, but the show cast them as cousins, which largely scotches that. Though I've seen a few stories which posit them as cousins by marriage and not actually related, which seems to free people up to pair them with abandon.

I think there are actually some interesting comparisons to be made between H50 and SGA; both shows play with genre tropes, both shows feature a four-person team where it's easy to read the team as a kind of surrogate family for all parties involved. And yes, as you say, in both cases a sizeable chunk of the fandom has largely glommed on to the two white guys. In ways both awesome and less-awesome, I feel like H50 fits into the fannish space in my heart which went vacant when SGA went off the air.

[kalmn]

I had imagined before watching any of the show that there might be some tasty het fic featuring Daniel Dae Kim's character and Grace Park's character, but the show cast them as cousins, which largely scotches that.

all i have to say here is wincest.

i mean, not that that's what does it for me, but apparently there are oodles of fanfic readers and writers who don't seem to care about close familial relationships.

[kate_nepveu]

The common incest pairings I'm familiar with are either very isolated and us-against-the-world (_Supernatural_, _Fullmetal Alchemist_, occasionally the Tams in _Firefly_), or identical twins (the Weasleys in Harry Potter, and wow but I bet actual identical twins really hate that).

Which actually applies to the canonical ones I can think of, actually (_Flowers in the Attic_, to some degree _Saiyuki_--I'd have to refresh my memory, ETA: A Song of Ice and Fire (fraternal twins)).

Which is not to say that there might not be other common incest pairings that I'm not familiar with (so very much not my thing), but the apparent motivation for such pairings may not be present here.

[kate_nepveu]

Why didn't you imagine tasty het fic between Grace Park's character and any of the guys?

[kass]

Before the show started, I was basically uninterested in the two characters played by the two white guys. I knew Daniel Dae Kim from LOST (where he was awesome) and I knew Grace Park from BSG (ditto); the two of them were the actors I had a previous attachment to.

Then the show got going, my friends started writing Steve/Danny, and the way my friends wrote them made them interesting and attractive to me, which they hadn't previously been.

That said -- that's my best insight into why I started out uninterested in Steve and Danny and later came to find them more interesting, but I'm not sure it wholly answers your question. I'm pondering and I don't have a response that makes me happy.

[kate_nepveu]

Thank you for thinking about it.

[kass]

Now that I'm pondering, I think when I first heard about the show I assumed there would be a slash pairing featuring Chin Ho Kelly (Daniel Dae Kim's character) -- as others have noted upthread, he's just so ridiculously beautiful that it's kind of a no-brainer. Apparently there are a few episodes which give us more of Chin's backstory than I've seen in my sporadic viewing; I'm looking really forward to those, and to whatever fic comes out of them.

And thanks for raising the question; I'm fairly embarrassed that I didn't raise it for myself.

[mariness]

...wait, it's not Daniel Dae-Kim?

Huh.

I don't actually follow either fandom or this show, but I would have expected that he would generate more interest, just because he already had a fanbase from Lost. Also, on the excessively shallow note, I figured someone would want to explain that unnaturally perfect skin.

[kate_nepveu]

Also: cheekbones.

(Cf. the kid who plays _Merlin_ & the guy who plays _Sherlock_.)

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I'm not a fanfic reader, but if that's the slash pairing, those people are seriously misguided. As someone else says, when you can have Daniel Dae Kim?

But the characters played by Kim and Grace Park do get quite a bit of time in the show itself, including getting to kick some serious butt. And I find those two characters written as less one-dimensional than Danno and Steve.

[kate_nepveu]

Well, I'm glad to hear that, at least.

[ceara]

I've been a fan of Daniel Dae-Kim since he was on Angel, and the way that promo shot is set up tells me that he and Grace Park are the ones the shot-framers thought were the Big Draw. Also they're prettier than the other two, though admittedly I've never seen either of those guys before.

But that's the sum total of my knowledge of the whole issue.

[thistleingrey]

Ditto this for H5O.

Re: Inception upthread, I have read Cobb/Saito--exactly one story. It was on LJ, and it was either from the alarmingly long link-lists that blue_meridian compiled or something bookshop mentioned; either way, it'd be hard for me to re-find. But I remember it because I was startled to see it, and then I felt I had to read it. :P (It was all right.) Meanwhile, AO3 lists 23 stories; I am carefully not looking at how many Arthur/Eames fics they host.

[kate_nepveu]

bookshop just posted a Mal/Cobb/Saito fic, which wasn't my thing.

My favorite _Inception_ fic is the Yusuf-POV OH&S.

[thistleingrey]

I think I've read all of five or six Inception fics ever; it is not really my thing in general. I like the one you linked, though! Thanks. ("[B]ut it is annoying that displays of intelligence are apparently only attractive when Eames is the one doing the displaying." Quite.)

[kate_nepveu]

"surely, it would be like having sex with a very bossy bag of sticks"--I laughed and laughed, and I had a crush on Arthur!

[silmaril]

Exactly everything in this comment. As soon as I saw the image I thought "oh, they're really focusing on those two and the edge guys are sidekicks."

[kate_nepveu]

Guy on the right was in the Ocean's movies.

[dragovianknight]

the way that promo shot is set up tells me that he and Grace Park are the ones the shot-framers thought were the Big Draw

And now I'm going to a happy place where Daniel Dae Kim was cast as Steve and Grace Park was cast as "Danni", and all the Steve/Danny fic makes sense.

[cofax7]

The half-an-episode I've seen (I was at my mother's house and it gave her something to do) indicates that it's not only the fans who spend all their energy writing about the two white guys. What little critical commentary I've seen also indicates that this is a pattern in the show: Park and Kim's roles are to provide support and information for the two white guys, and they get relatively little agency or character development. It's possible I'm misinterpreting the data, of course.

People I like love the show and the white-guy slash pairing; me, I'm bored.

Oh, it's also really, really Republican: the leads are apparently subject to no ethical or procedural constraints on their ability to chase down and interrogate evil-doers.

[tavella]

Yeah, I read the SFGate review of the first episode and it sounded all 24ish, as well as all about the white dudes. Not for me.

[kate_nepveu]

Oh, right, it's a police show! I can't watch most police shows because I cannot help frothing at the mouth about, you know, _the Fourth Amendment_ and suchlike!

Well that's a relief.

[sasha_feather]

Agreed!

[missyb]

I do not recognize the two white dudes at all.

I do, however, recognize Grace Park from BSG and Daniel Dae-Kim from Angel. If TV and I spent a significant amount of time together, I'd probably watch for them. In particular, Grace Park was riveting in BSG.

(Daniel Dae-Kim was wonderful in Angel, but I will freely admit to being utterly fascinated by the planes and angles of his beautiful face, no matter what role he's playing.)

[kate_nepveu]

Probably I should've posted a picture without Scott Caan in glasses--he was one of the annoying brothers in the Ocean's movies.

[publius]

I think Daniel Dae-Kim is an amazing actor, too. When I have seen him, and it has always been in supporting roles, he steals the scenes. Not just because of his face, which of course is Hollywood Hot, but also because he has A M A Z I N G diction. I could fall into his voice.

[thomasyan]

I recognize the guy on the far left as playing the somewhat dim vampire lead on the Moonlight TV series, which I watched on the disease channel, er, I mean SciFi/SyFy, because I've been a fan of Sophia Myles ever since seeing her in Mansfield Park.

[glass_icarus]

H50 is an off-and-on lurking fandom of mine- I couldn't get past the first two eps, but I did read some fic! It all featured Kono (with a little bit of Chin), and there was some adorably hot Kono/Danny, but I am predictably selective in terms of reading, aheh. Oh, and also leupagus has an AU H50 that recasts the team with all the female characters.

Not that this prevails against the larger fandom trends, but I am accustomed to clinging to tiny spaces with both hands, and I am kind of incredibly/embarrassingly/depressingly glad that they exist for me to clutch at in the first place.

[kate_nepveu]

incredibly/embarrassingly/depressingly glad that they exist for me to clutch at in the first place

It's like those Aaronovitch books I was mentioning--I shouldn't be _so_ _grateful_ for the existence of a bi-racial protagonist whose ancestry and appearance is _shown to matter_ and minor characters like Dr. Walid the "practicing Scot" and the African constable in a hijab who introduces herself as a "Muslim ninja" and so forth. I am! I just wish it weren't so remarkable.

[glass_icarus]

YES. (Sometimes I need to claim rage because I am ashamed of being so grateful.)

[kate_nepveu]

My hand-waving, if only you could see it now, is expressive of many emotions. =>