This is not yet a con report.

But I am home from muskratjamboree, and headed back to work after many excellent excellent days away.

And thanks to my mental review of the con in the shower this morning, I have "Eye of the Tiger" stuck in my head, and I can't remember who actually rocked Dean's entire dance routine, but I would just like to say right now, YOU WERE AMAZING.

*pops collar*

Demographics of Stargate SG-1, season one.

Inspired by beccaelizabeth's counting of characters in Torchwood, I decided to count characters in Stargate SG-1 while rewatching, to calculate percentages of female characters and characters of color. (SPOILER: the results were kinda depressing.)

Methodology: I counted the number of speaking characters per episode. Partly just as a matter of feasibility, I did not count: a) people who did not speak, b) people who spoke only in crowd scenes where it was difficult or impossible to determine who was speaking, and c) disembodied voices (which means that a couple of times I left Chevron Guy off the count for an episode he was in, which means in a few spots the stats should probably be worse). This also means that characters who appear at two different ages are counted as a single speaking character (characters who appear in two different universes/timelines/bodily forms are, however, counted twice).

Counting characters of color was, obviously, a judgment call. (I counted Sha're, Skaara/Klorel, all other Abydonians, Apophis, and Bra'tac, for instance, though I am not sure how all the relevant actors identify their own races.)

In addition to counting and calculating percentages, I tracked the Bechdel test (There are two women, who talk to each other, about something other than a man) and a race-Bechdel test (There are two characters of color, who talk to each other, about something other than a white person) for each episode. In a lot of cases this was also a judgment call, and scores range from 'Pass' to 'Pass?' to 'Fail' to 'FAIL'. Caps indicates that an episode included only one woman or one character of color who spoke.

I have my raw data sheet with comments on Bechdel and race-Bechdel pass/fails and lists of characters who spoke in the order they first spoke, if people want data to look at/quibble with/recalculate for their own purposes. I'm not posting it now because it's long and unwieldy, but I'm happy to share it if anyone wants it.

And with that: Results

( Table, which hopefully works. )

Conclusions: I am actively trying not to draw too many (or too sweeping) conclusions; in a lot of cases the numbers and passes/fails speak for themselves, I think.

One thing I did notice is that in the two episodes where Sam is the only woman to speak ("The First Commandment" and "Solitudes") the episode centers significantly on Sam. ETA: Just realized that's two of the three episodes in which Sam is the only woman to speak; she's also the only one in "Within the Serpent's Grasp" and has no special role there. In the eight seven episodes where Teal'c is the only character of color to speak, he generally plays a no more than usually central role; in fact episodes that center on Teal'c tend to focus also on his family and/or the Jaffa, so they tend to include other characters of color and pass the race-Bechdel test.

I also noticed that - while percentages of women and characters of color are mostly dismal across the board - episodes frequently manage to pass either the Bechdel or race-Bechdel test, at times alternating from one to the other over a string of episodes.

Also, I do not think I would have bet dirt, going in, that "The Broca Divide" would manage to be the best episode of the season in terms of the Bechdel and race-Bechdel tests. I guess it had to be good for something.

I briefly attempted to track the statistics on who died and who was shown in some degree of undress, but it became unwieldy and crazymaking, so I leave that to future inquiries by brave people who are not me, and move on to counting season two.

Supernatural 4x18

I have a stabbing tension headache radiating from my left cheekbone and jaw, and I have named it ( The Monster at the End of This Book )