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Date Posted: 16:19:24 11/13/01 Tue
Author: Nell
Subject: Re: Looking for some help :)
In reply to: Nell 's message, "Looking for some help :)" on 15:58:52 11/13/01 Tue

Fanfic is one of my guilty pleasures...it helps keep LFN and its characters alive for me. But every now and then a fanfic, like some of the discussions the episodes used to evoke on Susan's message board, reveals a deep strain of hostility toward Nikita from some of the fans

This hostility, to be frank, creeps me out. Always has. Now I don't want to try to change anyone's mind - no one has to like her just because I do.

But I would like to try to understand WHY this creeps me out so much, and that's where I hope, some fellow LFN fans might be able to help me out.


Thanks,

Nell

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Replies:

[> [> looooooooong answer... you'll have to forgive me. I didn't spell check this. -- Shirleym, 02:08:20 11/15/01 Thu

Well Nell, I'm a DON, DOM, DOP (defender of Peta) AND a DORF! (defender of Roy forever) LOL :P
I can only write from my own perspective and I'm sure that others have their own strong opinions on the subject, so I'll just tell you how I see it.

When Peta and Roy first started this show and before Surnow and the gang got their womanizing claws too far into it, everyone was fresh and excited. Peta had never done a TV series before. Roy had already done Scoop. He had a lot of acting under his belt and on top of feeling very secure about himself as an actor (and being very stubborn about what he feels is right for a character :P), he thought his part would be a small one, so he (as usual) did exactly what he wanted with it against the better judgment of Joel and God knows who else. Peta was carrying the whole show and was "green" and very, very grateful for the job, so she did her best to do what they wanted her to, which meant toning herself down a LOT.

Her energy and spirit really shined through in that first season - so did Roy's, and it was magic. About the beginning of the second season the producers and writers started screwing with the characters in the usual L.A. ways. (The woman is stupid, carried away by her emotions to a point where any woman says, "GIVE ME A BREAK!", the woman is victimized incessantly, the woman always needs a man to "save" her.) That just got worse and worse as the show progressed.

I can't imagine that any of that is in Peta's character and it must have been very hard for her to see a character which she obviously felt a strong connection with, turn into milk toast. By the third season, they were giving her a lot of bad lines and almost nothing to do, but swim around in a pool till her skin probably looked like milk toast too. (Do I sound a little bitter?)

We've all heard that Roy was adamant about what his character would and wouldn't say, do, etc. and I'm sure there were many times he let things go because you can't nit pick about everything, but I don't think Peta had that luxury. First of all, she's not a man (big strike against her when dealing with L.A. people) she was new and as a woman, from what I understand, if you make a fuss about things, you're labeled as "difficult to work with" and although you may make your character in the show really good, you find it very difficult to get work after that. So she probably swallowed it all and her character suffered greatly under the hands of male idiots, as did her spirit, I'm sure. Who could feel good about what she had to do?

Then, when you take the schedule they had and Peta's probable inability to manage her energy well (she seems to run non-stop at full speed ahead all the time) and you're pretty much headed for disaster. I think she got completely burned out.

The thing that I think people were so angry at her for, was that she let Nikita lose that wonderful spirit that she had in the beginning. Yes, I understand that Nikita was supposed to have gone from a kid to a woman, but *I've* gone from a kid to a woman and been through some very hard times, my trust and beliefs tested and at times completely depressed for long periods of time, but I never lost "me" and Nikita wouldn't have either. I think perhaps people felt that that was an unforgivable thing for an actor to do (although I have to say that Roy, IMHO, lost the character of Michael in season 5 too). As he said, it felt wierd to come back and do Michael after he'd already said goodbye to that character and I thought it showed. That was unproffesional too - and that from a consumate proffesional. But people are just people. They can only give so much.

I don't blame Peta for what happened. To be honest, I'm surprised she made it through the whole thing. But people really cared about the character of Nikita. In a way, she represented us all (women) and I understand why people were upset at what happened to her. I do have to say though, that when Roy directed Peta in season 5, all of a sudden, we saw again of what Nikita used to be. Nikita in the action scene on the roof of the building in the snow... Nikita storming into section... the scene with her with the gun and Ops, and the kiss from her father (I think that was the same one?.. not sure). I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

So that's how I see it. If Roy could bring back that much of Nikita's spirit in one episode, it shows me that none of the PTB were in Peta's character's corner. Certainly not Joel Surnow.

As I said, I'm sure other people have completely different opinions on this subject and this is ONLY my opinion. I have no inside intel to back up my thoughts, just what I've "seen with my own eyes". I hope this helps a little. :-)


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[> [> Wow - ! ITA (r) -- Nell, 12:27:27 11/15/01 Thu

With alot of what you wrote about the progress of the show - male idots running things who couldn't imagine what to do with strong women (I include Mad Maddy, Adrian, Carla and others in this) and so, pretty much, destroyed them (they even went so far as to turn Adrian into a frozen vegtable!) over the process of the show - and much as I was shocked by the S4 ending line, I decided it made sense and was in some ways true(er anyway than some other options) to some of the main premises of the show. And I didn't care for much of S5 at all, though there were some bright spots, as you said the ep Roy directed wasn't bad at all.

But, if it was just anger that Nikita lost her spirit that would be understandable, it upset me to. But then, the whole show got a lot grimmer and less spunky as time went on, in some ways more interesting for its dark vision....(but what ever happened to the terrorists they were supposed to be fighting? even more than losing Nikita, losing the SOTWs was, marginally, even worse I think for the show....)

But to tell you the truth, I'm sure in part because I didn't find the web LFN community until sometime well into the second season, the anti-Nikita-ites were already out in full force by then, and it seemed to me that some of them NEVER liked her or admired her or felt for Nikita/Peta and her/their struggles in a totally male dominated universe.

But what disturbs me is that so much of that anger directed at Nikita for losing her spirit, if it is that anger, comes across as anger that Nikita didn't spend more time mopping Mikey's tortured brow, that she continued to have her own committments to the just and the good, that she stayed angry with Michael (Karl Peruze?! who wouldn't be angry about that! LOL!) over time and, unbelievably to me anyway, anger that she tried to free him from Section and from their tortured relationship - in short, angry that she wasn't more conventional, more classically the 'girlfriend' of the hero rather than a complete character on her own.

I remember that someone, I forget who, said at the end of S4 "well, I never believed she loved him anyway" and went on to say (I am paraphrasing and could be conflating, probably am conflating lots of people's posts) that all along they believed she had been lying and using and manipulating him. So - when did these people ever like her? Did they? Or were they hostile all along to the idea of a female lead who did not transform herself immediately into a subserviant girlfriend?

And, why do I care so much?! LOL! That's the freaky part. This is a TV show, the characters were fiction and the fans react how they will, why am I so concerned? I have no idea!!

Thanks for your long answer Shirleym - I really appreciate it.


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[> [> Re: Looking for some help :) -- genie1, 11:38:49 11/16/01 Fri

Nell, ShirleyM

I wholeheartedly agree with both of you. Thanks for posting this. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way.
cheers you guys
gina


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[> [> Here's My Take... -- SCC, 00:54:31 11/20/01 Tue

Shirleym really covered most of the ground -- and then some --in terms of what I observed (she is far more insightful than I re: the big picture).

I have noticed that people sometimes hate their own kind. If you're Jewish or Black or whatever, when you see people of your own heritage doing things that don't make you feel good, you can actually dislike them more than someone who was just a simple stranger to you.

I think that some people were hostile toward Peta because she is a woman and people watching the show wanted her to be and do things that made them, as viewers, feel good. So in any given episode, these viewers might have been jealous of Peta's natural beauty and physique or overwhelmed by her energy. They might have wished so badly that THEY were in the scenes with RD that they couldn't stomach anything Peta did. They might have felt letdown or deserted because Nikita didn't do things the way they had hoped she would (as Shirley wrote, most likely because of the Los Angeles influence).

Perhaps the reason this all bothers you is that you came to the LFN realm full of good feelings, and the negativity of these hostile viewers beats you down and makes you feel bad. Perhaps their angry words color your perspective when you watch the show or perhaps their views invade your fantasy LFN world.

I think that each of us created a world in our minds about the show, the characters and the people who created the show. We all have our own images and impressions of what we actually saw in various scenes and what we imagined happened in between scenes, among the show's characters and among the real people working on the show.

When people with negative feelings come into our fantasy world, they wreak havoc with it. So perhaps that is why you feel so upset: people you don't even know are wreaking havoc with your special world.


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