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Three more years of LOST?!

Jill

I love LOST, but I don’t want to wait three years to figure out how it all ends! But if it means three more years of Sawyer and Sayid, I suppose I can live with it.

sawyer

sayid

Yeah, I can definitely live with it. More LOST eye candy below the fold. Just because image-searching these two is way more fun than finishing my final papers.

sawyer



naveen andrews

naveen andrews

Kind of makes me wish there was a category for “hot jungle sex.” Maybe we should make this a regular Feministe feature. Beats the hell out of cat-blogging, huh?

129 thoughts on Three more years of LOST?!

  3. Dunno if there’s going to be three more years of Sawyer if the rumor mill is correct…

  5. No love for Jin? That makes me sad.

    But as a mostly-lurker I vote for regular Lost-blogging!

  6. Coming out of lurkerdom just to note that Sayid is the hottest thing on the face of the planet. Sayid, have my babies.

  7. Dunno if there’s going to be three more years of Sawyer if the rumor mill is correct…

    NO!!!

    I will boycott if that happens. I will cry. They canNOT kill off Sawyer. No, no, no.

  8. No love for Jin? That makes me sad.

    Jin is foxy too, but he’s taken by Sun. And I love Sun, so I’d hate to intrude on her marriage 😉

    Plus Jin is not shirtless or sweaty nearly enough.

  10. THe rest of my post was eaten 🙁

    Maybe it’s my imagination, but I think there’s been an increase in shirtless men on Lost this season. They even gave us a bit of Desmond recently. I think we should e mail ABC for promoting equality and indulging the female gaze 😉

  12. I have never been as disappointed in women before.

    Seeing any female appreciate the hideousness that is Naveen Andrews convinces me that God really is going to destroy us as a species very soon.

    There just is no way anyone can find his greasy hair, long dirty nails, annoying raspy voice, and unkempt beard even remotely attractive.

    No way.

    Please don’t make me go down the bunker Jill.

    Please give me some hope for the world.

  14. It’s ONLY in the rumor mill right now, not even remotely in spoiler territory. But people in some of the forums I haunt are worried that they’ve suddenly resolved all of Sawyer’s loose threads where his major story arc is concerned. They could be wrong, but the folks at Television Without Pity are very creepy in the ways that they’re able to predict stuff.

    **SPOILER**

    Apparently there are more deaths in store by the end of the season. I won’t say how many, and Lindelof isn’t saying who.

  15. There just is no way anyone can find his greasy hair, long dirty nails, annoying raspy voice, and unkempt beard even remotely attractive.

    Yes, he should be taking full advantage of the salon services on the island.

  16. Is it wrong that I still refer to the character of Jack (Matthew Fox) as “Charlie” from his Party of Five days, even as there’s another character named Charlie? Don’t blame me because his acting sucks!

  18. No Daniel Dae Kim? Sigh.

    And I guess I’ll have to wait even longer to see sexy pics of Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson. Sigh again.

  20. Apparently there are more deaths in store by the end of the season. I won’t say how many, and Lindelof isn’t saying who.

    Charlie? Claire?

    I kinda hope it’s those two. They’re boring anyway. If it’s Sawyer, Kate, Sayid, Desmond, Sun or Jin or Hurley, I will hit something.

  21. No Daniel Dae Kim? Sigh.

    It’s only because Jin is married, and I don’t mess with married men. Plus he’s always too clothed and too sweat-less.

    And I guess I’ll have to wait even longer to see sexy pics of Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson. Sigh again.

    Yes, you will be waiting on that one forever. But if they hadn’t killed off Paolo, I’d be all over that, too.

  23. Yes, he should be taking full advantage of the salon services on the island.

    Jack, Locke, Jinn, Sawyer, and every other person does!

    There’s just no excuse for him being so dirty.

    Hell, he was like that when the plane landed!

    I am very very passionate about this subject.

  25. I am very very passionate about this subject.

    Oh, ooookay. If it makes you feel better I will wash Naveen Andrews for you. Happy now?

  26. Okay enough about Sayyid.

    Let’s talk about that ridiculously long, sexy shot of Kate changing.

    I was in the Claire camp up until that moment.

  27. See, the sexy Kate shots irritated me. So did her back story where she was — SPOILER — married and acting like a 50s housewife. But I blame the writers/producers for that. I love Kate and think she is super hot. She gets filed under “hot jungle sex” too. Claire bores me.

  28. The gratuitous look-at-the-sexy-girl shots bothered me, too. I’m not a Kate fan in general. I think the actress does a good job, but the character is used too often as a stand in for any type of woman they decide the need, at the expense of having more female characters. The love triangle also gets irritating. THere’s so much ELSE going on that’s much more interesting.

  29. I think the actress does a good job, but the character is used too often as a stand in for any type of woman they decide the need, at the expense of having more female characters.

    Seriously. And what ever happened to the woman who had cancer?

  30. Oh, ooookay. If it makes you feel better I will wash Naveen Andrews for you. Happy now?

    You could re-enact that scene from The English Patient where he’s washing his hair.

  31. Claire bores me.

    Blonde Claire can be boring.

    But Raven Claire’s backstory was nice.

    She’s cute.

    The gratuitous look-at-the-sexy-girl shots bothered me, too.

    I would like to see more gratuitous shots of Kate changing, swimming, running, and fighting in the mud.

    It keeps my mind off the annoying love triangle.

  32. WRT the love triangle: I think they should all just accept a nice polyarmourous relationship. Kate has two hotties, that sort of thing.

    I heard the rumor about a major character biting it. My money’s on Locke.

  33. Okay one more thing about Sayyid.

    Couldn’t they get an actual Middle Easterner to play the character?

    Whenever this guy has flashbacks, they have actual Arabs in the supporting roles. It’s so bloody obvious that Naveen isn’t Arab.

    Arrgh!

    He’s my biggest pet peeve of the show.

  34. Yeah, I would bet it’s Locke, too. His story is pretty much wrapped up, so it would make sense. And I hope he’s killed by Rousseau.

    But I still vote for Charlie or Claire.

  35. Will somebody please fill me in as to what this show is about? I live under a rock.

    No, seriously, I don’t have a TV. I see news articles about this show all the time, but none of them give me any idea what the premise is.

  36. Will somebody please fill me in as to what this show is about? I live under a rock.

    You know how Seinfeld was a show about nothing?

    This is a show about something, but they’re not telling us what that is yet.

  37. Frumious B: A plane crashes on an island in the Pacific. Mysterious spooky things happen. That’s about as much as you need to know if you’re not interested.

    Also: Naveeeeeeeeeeeeeeen *___*

  38. Oh, ooookay. If it makes you feel better I will wash Naveen Andrews for you. Happy now?

    No, no! Let me!

    Though I am more of a Jin girl. Oh, and Desmond. He’s annoying, but I could make him shut up …

  39. I’d almost forgotten about the woman with cancer and her husband. I guess she just came in to be the wise spiritual black woman and then disappear.

    I think Lost has more diversity than most tv shows, and at first it was so exciting. I was really impressed with the introduction of an Iraqi character, one who fought against Americans. And I was surprised at the lack of controversy.
    But they keep killing off the women and turning the minorities into token side characters. It was really disappointing when they killed off Michelle Rodriguez.

  40. They do keep killing off or otherwise getting rid of all the minority characters. Michelle Rodriguez’s character really annoyed me, so I was kind of glad to see her go — plus she kept getting arrested and whatnot, so I can see why they wanted her off the show.

    Michael and Walt have to come back at some point, even if they’re currently absent (I suspect they’ll show up in the season finale). I’m still mad that they killed off Echo. He was pretty rad.

  41. Walt was pretty cool. I still want to know what’s going on with him. Something about Michael got on my nerves, though, and I was relieved when he was gone.

    I’d vote for Locke or Charlie going next. Locke still seems to have a lot to offer, though. I’m not sure what Charlie’s purpose is at this point. He’s gotten very strange.

  42. Oh man, I love me some Sawyer and Sayid.

    I used to love Jack, too, but he’s PISSING ME OFF a lot, lately.

  43. Jack is a good illustration of the saying about it being easier to be a saint than to live with one.

  44. But they keep killing off the women and turning the minorities into token side characters. It was really disappointing when they killed off Michelle Rodriguez.

    That’s cuz she got arrested doing 110 while smashed on a small road in Hawaii. Same thing with whatsherface who played Libby. I thought it was kind of hilariously obvious that they didn’t mean for that to happen and just had to off them as quick as they could.

  45. Such gratuitous objectification! I’m taking away your feminist badge, Jill!

    Oh, wait…

    Seriously though, I have managed to avoid getting sucked in to the cult of Lost so far, but the strain is beginning to show.

  46. Ok, I’ve never read an issue of Men’s Health, but as far as I can tell from the covers I’ve seen, they have yet to run a story that isn’t on the topic of abs, getting laid or money. Or possibly all three at once (‘Get rock-hard abs whilst having great sex and investing in blue chip options!’). Can anybody confirm or deny my suspicion that this is the lamest magazine ever?

  51. I love me some Sayid and Sawyer, but I haven’t watched all season. I missed a couple of episodes at the beginning and didn’t want to watch new ones until I got caught up, but I never got a chance to catch up. So I’m really, really behind.

  52. Okay, don’t read this little rant if you like Lost, but Lost am teh xuxx9rz. It’s so obvious, or was the last time I watched it, that the writers have no idea whta they’re doing. It’s actually kind of interesting, because I think it’s fairly obvious that they’re stealing some of their ideas off of these fan web sites, but then changing them (always for the worse) so as to hide the fact. So you have this kind of reverse fan fiction thang going on, where the actual writers are ripping off fans’ internet speculations and theories and doing a poor job of it. The Sawyer character is such an embarrasingly one-dimensional rendition of the most banal cliche it’s hard to believe. I like the Sayyid character; anyone who prefaces cauterizing someone’s head wound with gun powder with a simple “This will not be pleasant” is my kind of former torturer (oh, and of course the Americans made him do it–way to decide war is bad in 2006, ABC. Very timely). It’s too bad, because for a while, the whole Locke-Jack/faith-reason opposition was interesting and seemed promising. (And I think Locke was the only compelling character they ever managed to create.) I’m glad/proud I stopped watching when I discovered Veronica Mars (back when it was on Wednesdays), such a vastly superior show it makes my head spin.

  53. …would it be wrong to ask readers to send pictures in?

    Well, maybe not wrong, but some of us might end up flayed for doing so…

  55. I got annoyed with “Lost” when they ditched the perfectly good (but older) Bernard and Rose characters and tried to shoehorn in a couple of young hotties whose names I never quite caught before the writers realized that NO ONE CARED and put them back to being background extras again. That had the rank smell of Network Meddling to me.

  56. Plus Jin is not shirtless or sweaty nearly enough.

    I don’t actually watch Lost, but let me say that I don’t actually like when men are sweaty. It makes them far too manly for me. I like my petite, hairless men… who don’t sweat…

  57. I got annoyed with “Lost” when they ditched the perfectly good (but older) Bernard and Rose characters and tried to shoehorn in a couple of young hotties whose names I never quite caught before the writers realized that NO ONE CARED and put them back to being background extras again. That had the rank smell of Network Meddling to me.

    It still was a damn funny way to kill them off though.

  58. Ok, I’ve never read an issue of Men’s Health, but as far as I can tell from the covers I’ve seen, they have yet to run a story that isn’t on the topic of abs, getting laid or money. Or possibly all three at once (’Get rock-hard abs whilst having great sex and investing in blue chip options!’). Can anybody confirm or deny my suspicion that this is the lamest magazine ever?

    I’m sorry, but those are the top three things that matter to 99.9% of real guys.

  59. I’m sorry, but those are the top three things that matter to 99.9% of real guys.

    I think you need to meet some new guys.

  60. pssst. I’m a guy. 🙂

    But maybe I’m in that .1% who cares about other things.

    Maybe.

    okay, here’s my top three:

    1) Abs

    2) Jessica Biel

    3) Religion and Politics

    does that make a better person?

    (don’t answer that.)

  63. 1. Women

    2. Politics

    3. Music

    But sometimes baseball crowds its way in there. Let us know where to send the pictures.

  64. Jill-
    Are you procrastinating from writing exam papers too? Because I don’t know when I’ve seen you comment on a thread so much. Or when I’ve so thoroughly read a thread about a tv show I don’t watch…

  66. hmm… I’m not doing my Immigration Law and Policy take home final. What are other people not doing?

  67. So the show is set in modern day? How long have they been on this island, and how is it that they are still lost? How did they know it was cancer that woman had? Is there a fully staffed hospital that can do biopsies but mysteriously has no radio? Shouldn’t they be out of ammo by now?

    I actually thought it was a Christian-themed show. I think I had it confused with those Left Behind books.

  68. Hot-cha!

    I think I’ll just be over here having a nice long cigarette.

    Middle-eastern men do it for me in a big way. And Sawyer is just hot.
    I don’t even watch the show.

  69. Frumious-

    It’s set in the modern day. They’ve been on the island for about three months now, but the show starts when the plane crashes. You never really know how much time has passed between shows until they let on — sometimes it’s a day, sometimes it’s a week, sometimes it’s a few hours. The issue is that they’ve crashed on a small island in the South Pacific, and that there’s all kinds of weird supernatural stuff going on with the island — it screws up compasses and navigation systems, for example. They have no means of communication, and the island is totally undeveloped, which is why they haven’t been rescued, among other reasons (I don’t want to ruin those for you, in case you start watching it).

    The show consists of present-day action along with back stories of each character. So you get bits and pieces of what the characters’ lives were like before they arrived on the island, which is how you know that the woman has cancer — she was diagnosed before arriving. The ammo issue is complicated. There was an FBI agent on the plane, which is how they have a few guns and ammo, and then there are “others” on the island — people who are scary and already live there, and they have weapons. They also randomly discover some caches of explosives and whatnot.

    It’s definitely not a Christian show, although there are some interesting religious themes. And I’m making it sound really ridiculous — any description sounds ridiculous — but I promise it’s amazing.

  70. I like my petite, hairless men… who don’t sweat…

    Not me. If a guy’s petite, I want him petite, bearded, and with chest hair, and if a guy’s hairless, I want him hairless with a big, muscular chest.

  72. Couple of things….

    A) Bernard and Rose were never regulars. They existed mostly to demonstrate the island’s healing powers(Rose’s cancer, Locke’s paralysis). Once that is done, there is no real reason to shoehorn them into other story lines. In three years, they have only appeared in half a dozen episodes, if even that many.

    B) I would be very surprised if Michael and Walt returned. They were written off because the actor playing Walt has grown too much. Remember, in show time it is only 70-80 days since the crash. It’s 3 years in real time. The kid playing Walt has probably grown a full foot and hit puberty by now. My understanding is that they originally had big plans for Walt, but didn’t take the growth thing into account in their original planning.

  74. And, question: What are your theories about how the wreckage of the plane and all the bodies were supposedly found? Obviously they are not dead and not in Hell, because if that were the case, they wouldn’t have introduced it so soon. Could The Others have planted wreckage? Is everything in Hurley’s head? Is the parachuter lying?

  77. I suppose I stand by my earlier comment, but it occurs to me that I have no business critizing any television show, since I decided to watch 24 this year, which is basically just a really bad soap opera with torture.

  78. I think they have to leave the Walt supernatural thing hanging. He was 12 when the show started (thanks IMDB), he turns 15 this month, and will be 18 when the show finishes. The only way they couyld do it is to get another actor, since when the show wraps in 2010 they will probably probably have spent less than a year on the island in show time.

    As far as the wreckage, the logical guess is that the Other’s planted it, but who really knows what is really up the writer’s sleeves. It wasn’t just the parachuter that made the claim that they were dead, Locke’s father said it also.

    If you want to get science fictiony, there is an argument to be made that the circumstances around the plane crash sent the entire island into an alternate timeline/universe where the island is accessed through some damage to the space/time continuum, and life goes on without them in the outside world.

  79. Re: Men’s Health

    I’m not denying that sex, abs and money are interesting topics (although I, personally, am uninterested in being rich and chiseled), I’m just wondering how many issues of it you have to read before you know that doing sit-ups will make your stomach harder and sex is fucking awesome.

  80. And, question: What are your theories about how the wreckage of the plane and all the bodies were supposedly found? Obviously they are not dead and not in Hell, because if that were the case, they wouldn’t have introduced it so soon. Could The Others have planted wreckage? Is everything in Hurley’s head? Is the parachuter lying?

    >I really, really hope the creators aren’t going to do the old “just kidding!” with the hell thing and go back on their blood oath. Or say that it’s some time warp continuum. Or go the 8th grade creative writing route and have Jack go “woah, it was all just a dream!”

  81. Daniel Dae Kim needs some love, married or not. He is so hot on those Gap ads.

    About women on Lost: In the extras for the Season One DVD set, the writers talked about how Kate was supposed to be the “Jack” of the island… the main focus, the hero. They changed at the last minute because the producers said they needed a “stronger” focus, which I took to mean someone more male. And Kate’s been this flighty woman unable to make up her mind about anything ever since.

  82. And Kate’s been this flighty woman unable to make up her mind about anything ever since.

    Gah! I know! She really bugs me because of that, even though she can kick ass.

    The best female character on Lost in my opinion…ROUSSEAU! She knows what’s going on!

  84. And Kate’s been this flighty woman unable to make up her mind about anything ever since.

    Kate annoys the crap out of me, and I think it’s because the writers can never really decide what to do with her character. A woman who seems that spineless all the time doesn’t fit with a mercenary con artist. It’s also probably a function of Evangeline Lily’s acting skills which seem to begin with “pouty” and end with “spaced out”.

  85. We absolutely need to see more Locke action! And also pics of Terry O’Quinn. *sigh*

    My biggest fantasy is to see that Jack moron snuff it. He couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag and his character is just annoying as hell.
    I second most people’s comments about Kate. I like her and sometimes she can be very strong, but then she becomes really spineless all of a sudden. Besides, I can’t see how anyone in their right minds can hesitate between Jack and Sawyer…

    Oh yes, and they can certainly kill Claire and Charlie as far as I’m concerned.

  87. On the DVD commentary, the directors can never stop talking about Evangeline/Kate. It gets really annoying, because it’s clear they’ve set her up as their ideal woman because they have giant crushes on her. With her background, she could have been a kick-ass role model for girls, but since now her whole existance revolves around whether she wants to have sex with Sawyer or Jack, I think she’s become just another female love interest character.

    Jack was supposed to die in the pilot. Shame they felt they had to take the typical entitled white male into the hero. yawn.

    I love Rousseau!!

  88. Men’s Health is even worse than National Review. But I don’t complain, because it’s just Cosmo for men–Cosmo‘s three stories being lose weight now, how to please him in bed (since you have no idea how sex works, ’cause you’re a girl), and…well, actually, they usually just do two versions of the how to please him in bed story.

  89. The best female character on Lost in my opinion…ROUSSEAU!

    I loff her. I think she and Locke should get together and blow things up real good every week.

  90. I got annoyed with “Lost” when they ditched the perfectly good (but older) Bernard and Rose characters and tried to shoehorn in a couple of young hotties whose names I never quite caught before the writers realized that NO ONE CARED and put them back to being background extras again. That had the rank smell of Network Meddling to me.

    That more likely is based in problems with L. Scott Caldwell’s (the woman who plays Rose) schedule. She is apparently got quite a stage carreer, and the Lost creators have said they would use her more if she was not doing so much stage work.

  91. her whole existance revolves around whether she wants to have sex with Sawyer or Jack

    Seriously? I don’t watch Lost, but the last thing I would ever do if I were stuck on an island with no medical care or hope of being rescued would be to have unprotected sex. Unless the plane was also transporting a cargo of condoms and morning-after pills. 🙂 Clearly, not enough female writers on the staff over at Lost HQ.

  92. Unless the plane was also transporting a cargo of condoms and morning-after pills.

    Considering that the Dharma Initiative is drop-shipping planeloads of peanut butter and ranch dressing to the island, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a few condoms in there as well — properly marked with the Dharma Initiative logo, of course.

  93. Alecto, that struck me, too.

    (SPOILERS)

    Twice now the sex has been spontaneous, too. The first time I didn’t think too much about it because the characters thought they were going to die. BUt the second was out of pure emotion. It was hard to believe a woman would be willing to risk all of that without any mention of whether there were condoms, or she was on birth control or something.

  94. Spoiler warning for people who haven’t wasted their time watching season 3. Ahem. I’m still bitter about this show, which I keep watching, probably in the vain hopes that Jack will die. Soon. Preferably painfully. But really, rescued and taken off the island would be fine.

    Alecto, you especially would not be having all that unprotected sex if you found out that, when men get on the island, they get super sperm, while women who get pregnant on the island get dead.

    Kate had great promise, which they destroyed entirely. I don’t know why they’ve ignored Sun and Jin. Claire was never much of a character. They killed off Shannon (alas), Libby and Ana Lucia — one character who was fun and two who actually did things . Rousseau is interesting, but unused. Juliet is reasonably interesting and shows up all the time and isn’t periodically captured, which, for this show, is pretty impressive.

  95. I wouldn’t trust Dharma condoms!

    Now I’m imaginging Dharma tampons. Do you think they’re environmentally friendly?

  96. when men get on the island, they get super sperm, while women who get pregnant on the island get dead.

    Wow.. seeing it like that is really disturbing.

  97. I have to defend Lost on the subject of minorities and women.
    4 of the 9 or 10 core characters that have survived all 3 seasons are minorities:
    Hurley—Hispanic
    Sayid—Iraqui
    Sun and Jin—Korean
    Walt and Michael, who lasted 2 seasons–African American
    Rose—recurring character—African American.
    Mr. Eko—African (season 2 and part of season 3)

    Sure, they’ve killed some women off, but they’ve also killed some men off. After all, they’ve killed Boone, Mr. Eko, and Ethan Rom.

    Women they’ve killed: Shannon, Ana-Lucia, and the other tailie woman. But don’t forget they killed two of them because the actresses were arrested for drunk driving. They had to film around Michelle Rodriguez’s jail time since she was already on probation when she was arrested.

    All in all, the only show that casts more minorities and does more with them is Grey’s Anatomy.

  98. They started with a lot more men than women, too. Of the (main) characters that have survived 3 seasons:

    Jack, Sayid, Sawyer, Locke, Charlie, Jin, Hugo
    Kate, Claire, Sun

    Of the new major characters they’ve added that have not died:

    Ben, Desmond
    Juliet

    So we have, of these, 3 main characters on the show who are minorities.

    Main characters they’ve killed off (Ethan Rom was not that major):

    Boone, Eko, Walt, Michael (essentially)
    Shannon, Libby, Ana Lucia

    4 minorities. Hey, lots of dead minorities. And more dead women, too.

    Recurring characters they mostly ignore:

    Bernard
    Rose, Rousseau

    1 minority. Hey, a majority of women, finally!

    (I might have forgotten some characters here, but I think I caught most of them.)

    Sure, maybe they’re less bad than GA, I don’t know, I don’t watch it. But that doesn’t mean they’re particularly great with minorities, and they’re definitely terrible with female characters.

  99. It was hard to believe a woman would be willing to risk all of that without any mention of whether there were condoms, or she was on birth control or something.

    Eh, women did that for hundreds of years — I don’t find it all that weird. It’s a gamble, but one that a lot of people take in the heat of the moment even today.

  100. No… There are 4 minorities. Hurley is Hispanic… Hugo Reyes.

    They mostly ignore all recurring characters, regardless of race or sex.

    As previously explained, the actor who played Walt outgrew the part. Two of the women were killed because of the public misdeeds of the actresses.

    I didn’t say they are great with minorities, but the only show that is better is Grey’s Anatomy.

    Like it or not, you have to go to an all black comedy on UPN to find more minorities on one show than on Lost, Or Gray’s Anatomy. It ain’t perfect, but it’s what we got.

  101. Yes, there have been reasons for the characters they chose to kill off, but the important point is that they haven’t been replaced with significant characters who are minorities or women, with the exception of Juliet who is interested but also used for romantic interest/sexual tension.

    Anyone else notice how very, very white Ben’s group is? They also killed off the very minor black woman who was part of his group, the one who talked to Michael.

  102. I meant to say that Juliet is interesting, not interested.

    I also wanted to add that I’m not condemning the show. THey do a better job than most, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be criticized.

  103. Getting in on this late…

    One of the things that bothered me about how they kill off the women is that they seemed in Season 2 to create female characters that exist solely for viewers to hate, then killed them. I liked Ana Lucia, but I was very much in the minority; it was clear (to me, at least) the producers wanted you to hate her. Both Ana Lucia and Shannon were bitchy, and around the same time they died (between the middle and end of last season), Kate got really soft and started just being only interested in trying to choose between two equally unappealing men (sorry, Sawyer-lovers, but seriously, he’s gross). Then I was mad, when Sun got pregnant, that they couldn’t come up with a decent storyline for women (if you’re not pregnant, a mom, or hot for gross Sawyer, we don’t know what to do with you!), but I’m highly interested in how the pregnancy stuff will play out.

    –SPOILERS BELOW —

    I was wondering if we could talk more about the Pregnancy as Death Sentence storyline. I can’t decide if it’s awesome or horrifying. (I have no way of proving this, but very early on in season one I said this whole thing was going to be about reproduction.) First, I agree with those of you who say it’s weird these women would be having sex without birth control (esp since TWO women had sex with icky Sawyer! Sorry I couldn’t resist). But now that one, probably two, women are pregnant, how is it possible they haven’t even raised the possibility of abortion? If someone told me that my pregnancy was 100% likely to kill me, my first question would be, how do I get rid of it? Surely the doctors would be able to figure out between the two of them how to abort the fetus even if they didn’t have the usual equipment, right? I am eager to see whether Kate brings it up. If they can explain why abortion isn’t an option (illegal on the island, haha?), then fine, but if it never gets discussed, that will be a very strange oversight. I don’t know that you could even make the argument of the fetus being more important than the mother, since both die.

    Is this some crazy storyline about the political nature of reproduction (with Ben hanging in the sidelines, controlling women’s bodies)? Or did it just never occur to the producers that there could be an unwanted baby?

  104. Don’t forget that the exclusively white group are the bad guys. That’s progress…

    I am actually glad to see the progress that’s been made in recent years. Drama’s have traditionally had only token minorities, but if you look at another new show like Heroes, and you see a lot more of minorities cast in parts that did not have to be minorities, and are not defined by their minorityness.

  105. wall-flower, I think the Ana Lucia thing was just evidence of how the writers are fairly inept, although the basic premise of the show is interesting and it has good acting. Remember how sweet and beneficent, indeed almmost “angelic” she was when she first appeared, talking to jack at the end of whatever season that was? Then when she returned and was a total a-hole, I think it was just a clumsy way of showing how brutal it had been surviving the Others. An interesting possibility might be if the whole hell/purgatory thing turns out to be true, and the Ana Lucia on the island is somehow a devil or some other form of the woman Jack met at the airport, but not actually the same woman at all (I didn’t watch enough of that season to actually have any support for this theory).

    As for the abortion thing, I’m no physician, but I don’t know if you’d want to try an abortion without fairly specialized equiqment and the ability to sterilize them, and my guess/recollection is that they have neither on the island.

  106. Season 3 SPOILERS in this post

    Re: equipment: they may not specifically have abortion equipment, but “the others” have surgical equipment and the ability to sterilize it (hence Ben’s operation at the beginning of the season). Given that “the others” are super baby-obsessed, it’s possible that any suggestion of abortion equipment would be taboo, but at the same time, isn’t it possible that a place set up to do advanced fertility experiments (which is why Juliet is there) would also have the ability to do abortions if something went really wrong (er, even more wrong than a 100% mortality rate in the 3rd trimester)? I realize I’m way overthinking this, but at the same time, just accepting that your pregnancy will kill you seems really wild. I don’t know, I might try something not entirely safe in that situation…

    PS: one might certainly say the writers are inept or lying, but they have repeatedly stated that the island is not purgatory/hell and the survivors are not dead. This is, in my opinion, why they keep throwing in little tricks this season — Desmond saying that Charlie is already dead, the parachute woman (a new female character?) saying that the plane was found and there were no survivors, Locke’s father saying the only explanation was that they are in hell, etc. The writers may not always have known what they’re doing, but I am a total sucker for in-jokes like this. Although I sometimes hate what the show does to female characters and I do not feel a desire to sleep with any of the characters/actors, I still am addicted to the show and feel it is often clever, and almost always fun.

  109. You’re right, I forgot about Hurley. I’m not going to argue with you about the minorities — they’ve sidelined or killed lots of characters, but especially minorities and women. Fine, they had to kill off AL because the actor drove drunk. But they didn’t have to kill Eko, or Michael (unless the actor wanted off, which is possible), and there’s no reason that so many of the new characters had to be white, or that all the non-white characters had to be sidelined. I won’t argue about whether it’s the most diverse show — it’s still not very good about showing people who are not straight and white and Christian. (Yes, sure, there are a few examples here and there, but not really many.) I might be able to argue that Heroes has more minorities, depending on how we count main and recurring characters, though it’s been efficiently killing or sidelining them as well. But sure, Lost has a good percentage of non-white actors.

    I don’t think there is any way in which you can argue that the show is not misogynistic in its treatment of the characters and the island’s mythology.

  110. Ooh, I love this discussion. DHARMA brand condoms! Island abortions!

    SPOILERS…

    Well given Juliet’s flashback, it seems the others would really have good birth control – there are women Others, Juliet was shown in bed with Godwin (gasp!!), so they are clearly having sex with each other. Sabine *chose* to get pregnant knowing the risks, etc. So they’ve got to have the technology. Sun is pregnant, yes, but that’s the baby she always wanted with her husband. If Kate is pregnant I can see the unwanted pregnancy angle being brought up, but like Sun it will be the end of the series before it would kill her.

    And given that we don’t actually see the characters having sex, maybe they’re smart and just do oral? heh.

  111. According to some articles I’ve read, the actor who played Mr. Eko wanted off the show, so that’s why he was written off. As for Michael, I guess when the Walt storyline was no longer feasible due to the aging of the child actor, they got rid of both him and his father?

    And I don’t believe anything that Juliet says, so part of me thinks the whole “pregnant women all die” stuff is a red herring and that they’ve got other nefarious stuff planned for teh babies. I mean, the explanation that Claire was okay because she got pregnant off the island seemed a little convenient, didn’t it?

  112. (More spoilers)

    I think it was pretty clear Juliet was lying and actually set up the situation so she could be seen as saving one of them. But there is *something* going on involving reproduction and pregnancy. Given how the island heals people, it seems incredibly strange that it would kill pregnant women.

    I’m a little nervous to see how this plays out because of the misogyny that everyone else has pointed out. I don’t have much hope that they would ever bring up abortion in an enlightened way.

  113. Juliet was definitely lying about Claire (they put a device in her!) but the Others just can’t seem to reproduce. I put that down to them being evil fucks or something, so I personally think it’s an Others vs. Survivors split rather than an on-island vs. off-island conception.

    I think this would reduce the apparent misogyny in the island mythology…I don’t think the intent of the plotline is to position all of the women as self-sacrificing baby incubators.

  114. I am very, very tired of the gimp-phobia, especially the multiple uses of the word “cripple”, used without irony, as a noun. I don’t need that.

    I can’t imagine another such epithet (i.e. faggot) getting the network’s approval. Didn’t Don Imus just get fired for that shit? Nobody objects when it’s us, though.

    As for me, I have decided to boycott it from now on. Three years or thirty-three years in syndication, I don’t care how long.

    If somebody decides to object to the rampant, insistent, offensive crip-hating, I figure someone in Bloglandia will let me know.

  116. I don’t know…could you provide some examples of the “crip hating”?

    Did you not read what I just wrote?

    Using the word “cripple” to describe us, is regarded by most disabled people as being like the n-word, or the word “faggot”… do you think those words would be allowed on “Lost”? They have used the word repeatedly, last time was last week. I find it highly offensive. As a child, I found it difficult to concentrate for at least a few minutes after hearing it. (Do you care about the self-esteem of disabled children and teenagers, some of whom are watching with their friends?)

    Presenting a narrative in which a wheelchair (((gasp))) is a fate worse than death (literally) is not something I need in my life. I also don’t like one aspect of my identity exploited for the purposes of simply raising the stakes of a TV drama. It negatively influences the way people treat me the next day (for one thing, I am asked what I think about it all the time, in a way I doubt you are). I don’t like being used or exploited in that way, or treated like the boogeyman. Do you?

  117. I don’t think that being in a wheelchair was portrayed as a fate worse than death. I admit I come to this from an outside point of view so I might not be as sensitive to the implications.

    I think it would be unrealistic to portray someone who has become paralyzed in adulthood, especially someone like Locke, as content and well-adjusted to life in a wheelchair.

  118. Locke is also in a wheelchair because his father threw him out a window after stealing his kidney. So that might have something to do with it. Also, the people who use the word “cripple” are usually the bad guys (or Locke, when he’s feeling badly for himself).

    That said, I think Mr. Soul has a point. I had never considered that about LOST before. And I’m going to think about it and respond — as soon as I finish this final paper.

  119. Sawyer said “cripple” last week, same guy on your magazine cover. That is what precipitated my boycott. I don’t expect it to catch on, but I will feel better.

    Besides, I know my co-workers will helpfully keep me updated on everything Locke does. ((sigh))

  120. Presenting a narrative in which a wheelchair (((gasp))) is a fate worse than death (literally) is not something I need in my life. I also don’t like one aspect of my identity exploited for the purposes of simply raising the stakes of a TV drama. It negatively influences the way people treat me the next day (for one thing, I am asked what I think about it all the time, in a way I doubt you are). I don’t like being used or exploited in that way, or treated like the boogeyman. Do you?

    To add to what Mr Soul said: “Cripple” is an epithet in part because of what it connotes. When you present someone’s life as not worth living, as essentially damaged, all sorts of horrible conclusions follow: potential happiness, potential worth, potential autonomy. This is true even if you’re basing your conclusions on what feels like empathy. This is perhaps not hateful in the narrow sense you seem to mean, Thom, but it’s prejudice and it’s inaccurate and damaging. It’s the foundation of hatred.

    Are there any characters on LOST who do live with disabilities, or who suffer an injury and then manage to get past the point of reaction to catastrophe? Blue has written about the tendency to either end the life or end the disability, rather than show life with a disability.

  121. Though I’m definitely not going to argue that Lost is disability-friendly (hurray! the island healed you out of a wheelchair! now you’re wonderful and awesome and perfect, at least for one season), I didn’t know that cripple was considered that bad a term, and it’s possible the writers didn’t know either (I, on the other hand, did not use it in a major television show, while presumably they have things like fact-checkers who should check for these things).

    I am with Jill in that Locke has been portrayed as fucked up before he was in the wheelchair, which didn’t seem to make him much worse off. I mean, he was on disability before being thrown out of a window, while after that, he got a job and tried to go on a trek. Of course, then he got in a plane crash, got out of the wheelchair, and became even better.

    How do you think Lost could have been more disability friendly? It is weird about psychiatric disabilities, but not terrible (yet), as far as I can recall the Hugo/Libby storylines.

  122. I might have missed this, but this is something about Lost (which I quit watching 1/2way thru the 1st season) that has really puzzled me:

    If they’ve been ‘lost’ for x amount of years, how come the fat guy never gets any skinnier?

    Just askin’.

  123. You have to remember that the character Sawyer, who last used the epithet, and probably used it most of the other times, is a jackass of legendary proportions. His rude remarks and nicknames and how people react to them have been an ongoing part of the storyline since day one. You can’t have a rude, jackassy character without him saying rude, jackassy things.

    The fat guy not getting skinnier…. well they have only been there 70 or so days, and they have plenty of food.

  124. Yeah, but Mr. Soul is still right–there’s a definite limit to what rude, jackassy things the writers would let him say to the black or asian characters or any hypothetical gay characters.

    I don’t know that this makes the storyline any better in terms of how it presents disability, but the Locke-wheelchair thing was originally much more symbolical or metaphorical. He had somehow ended up in this wheelchair, and was trying to compensate for it by going on this outdoor nature trek, and although he was always a melancholy character, there was this obvious sense in which he was trying to prove his masculinity and show that he could control or overcome his disability (at least this is how I remember it, but it was a while ago, and I could be blurring things in my mind). Then when they got to the island, he became very intuitive and almost mystical. He was initially contrasted wtih jack, who was a doctor and the essential control freak, constantly trying to control everyone and everything on the island, and trying to “protect” people that way. It was an interesting conflict, but then the writers decided to pull an X-Files.

  125. ***Spoiler***

    Well, they killed off a white guy tonight, so that should make everyone happy, I guess. I guess that will be the end of the “cripple” jokes too.

    Jeff, they N word is obviously kryptonite, but Sawyer has been ethnically insulting to both Jin and Sayid. Not to mention the fat insults at Hurley’s expense.

    I am just saying, that if people are worried about what is flying out of the mouth of the character that is supposed to be an A***ole, they are looking at it the wrong way. Sawyer’s the negative example…he’s Cartman, you aren’t supposed to take positive social cues from him.

    And you are right, early on Locke and Jack represented faith vs. reason. Locke lost his faith late in season 2 after watching some film in a different hatch. And his disability being healed was what gave him his faith. It was all about the symbolism

  126. I am just saying, that if people are worried about what is flying out of the mouth of the character that is supposed to be an A***ole, they are looking at it the wrong way. Sawyer’s the negative example…he’s Cartman, you aren’t supposed to take positive social cues from him.

    Cartman is not an attractive, masculine man that women like. His photo is nowhere in this thread. He isn’t on the cover of MEN’S HEALTH. Besides which, he is a cartoon character, and damned FUNNY. He is a deliberately satirical character and intended to be FUNNY. Sawyer isn’t.

    I understand symbolism–I am not stupid. I am simply saying that at 50 years old, I am way-tired of being used as a symbol. I am a real person, and their symbolism impacts my real life. Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty were “symbolic” too, but feminists have strongly criticized that symbolism, and what those characters teach little girls about their social role. I am doing the exact same thing.

    I don’t exist as a “symbol” of faith vs reason, and I find the idea that I am not supposed to criticize that (or that I am too dumb to get it in the first place), pretty reactionary arguments to encounter on a progressive board.

    Thank you, piny. Eloquent, as always.

  127. Hi, MrSoul, I’m sorry if I came across as suggesting that you were too stupid to understand symbolism. I just wasn’t sure if you had watched the show (you may have made it clear that you did, but I wasn’t paying attention to what people were syaing about whether and how much they watch the show, just what they were saying about it). I also tried to be clear that using a wheelchair as a symbol isn’t necessarily any better, but maybe I should have been more clear. I do think it was a little more complicated than faith vs. reason: Locke had a purely intuitive, trusting attitude towards the island, while Jack was all technological control (though there wasn’t a lot of technology, that was his basic attitude, one of rationalist control of contingencies). Neither attitude was completely convincing or sympathetic (e.g., why did the island kill Boone), so I don’t think it was as simple as, “He was in a wheelchair, now he can walk and is all better.” I’m not saying your objections aren’t valid, just that there may have been the germ of something more nuanced than wheelchair = worst thing ever.

    And I definitely agree with you that Sawyer is a sympathetic character, and not just because he’s a hottie. He’s not really an a-hole so much as he is the cliched bad boy, though a little nastier than the cliche, who actually has a heart of gold (e.g., when he got shot trying to protect Walt). Part of the reason I stopped watching the show is the central dramatic conflict shifted from Locke and Jack to bad boy vs. emo Jack, with the prize being Kate, who, as we found out when she and Sawyer went swimming, is marching around the island in a black thong.

  129. Did you not read what I just wrote?

    Yeah. I did. You provided zero context, which is important. Sawyer, for example, is pretty much a prick. So, it makes sense that he would be insensitive.

    (Do you care about the self-esteem of disabled children and teenagers, some of whom are watching with their friends?)
    Actually, you are the first person with a disability I have encountered who actually had a problem with this aspect of Lost.

    Presenting a narrative in which a wheelchair (((gasp))) is a fate worse than death (literally) is not something I need in my life.

    And that’s fine. I did not say you were under any obligation to watch the show. Your discomfort does not mean the show is spreading “hate for the disabled”. You should not watch the show if you are not enjoying it.

    I don’t like being used or exploited in that way, or treated like the boogeyman. Do you?

    As an overweight person, I find we are often used mainly for entertainment value and laughs. But truth be told, it doesn’t bother me all that much. But I can be pretty jaded.

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