timeofyoursong:

Okay tumblr, can we please have a talk about how fantastic and dynamic a character Colette Valois is, and how frustrating it is to see her reduced to her romance story line all over my dashboard? No? Too bad, I’m going to talk about it anyway. I realized today as I was surfing through the Karine Vanasse, Pan Am, and Colette Valois tags how dumbed down the tumblr population tends to make her - I found one post, out of dozens, that was devoted to her as a character and not just “that cute French girl we ship Dean with.”

Which is a fucking shame.

For starters, let’s talk about all the awesome things about Colette:

• She’s a survivor of the Nazi invasion of France - her parents abandoned her at three without a look back, and she struggles with PTSD because of it. She is troubled and upset in Berlin, but manages to hold her own with German diplomats. She’s fascinating because she wasn’t the target, just someone by the wayside, and how it affects and defines her life isn’t in her control, but she is able to give the appearance of it being in her control.
• She’s sex-positive in a time where it still was a new thing for a woman to be sex-positive. She sleeps with a (not to her knowledge) married man during a layover and is composed and kind and takes it all in stride when confronted with his wife and child.
• She’s a Pan Am stewardess - contrary to popular belief, she’s not just walking eye candy. Pan Am hired the most intelligent, driven, forward-minded women they could find to steward their clipper fleet. She’s educated, composed, and has an undeniable independent streak - she jets across the globe on an almost daily basis, which was almost unheard of for women before the era of Pan Am.
• Her dream is to fly. Maybe that’s my personal “I’ve dreamed of being a pilot since I was seven” bias talking, but your average woman doesn’t dream of sitting at the controls of a 707 clipper.
• And oh man, this latest episode. In the latest episode, she a) is the only person aboard her aircraft that is able to talk to Haitian airport staff, getting them to turn the runway lights on at the last minute to keep Dean from overshooting the runway, b) she talks down her captain into letting her drive off into a guerilla warfare engulfed area in order to find a doctor for a passenger having a heart attack, c) finds said doctor and convinces him to help them, d) rescues a 17 year old girl whose entire family was just killed by the taciturn government, demanding a spot on the flight out of Haiti for her and throwing down with Dean over it, and e) immediately owns up to her decision to the woman prepared to fire her for breaking protocol, because there was no way she was going to leave that girl behind the way she had been left behind.
• In general, she is the shoulder to cry on for the rest of the girls in the crew. She’s grounded, and if she is in the position to help, she is going to.

Now, I absolutely do not have a problem with her being a romantic interest for Dean, or vice versa. To the contrary, I love it. I love that they are keeping this strong, dynamic character from falling into the impossible niche that most do. But it is frustrating to see her character fall to the wayside to her romance. In an episode where she is flying, her dream, it is seen not as a woman fulfilling a lifelong desire, but as a vessel for shipping. In an episode where she is undeniably brave, saving the life of another orphan and defying Dean, Pan Am, the in shambles government of Haiti, and the Department of Immigration to do so, all tumblr pays attention to is her pecking Dean on the lips at the end of the episode.

Like, really fandom? You’re looking an amazing gift horse in the mouth. Colette is one of the most dynamic, interesting characters I have seen on television in a long, long time. She is a strong, competent, intelligent, capable woman, and seeing her reduced to her romance by a website that is, generally speaking, full of young women that tend to long for characters just like her is really fucking depressing and annoying. Come on, tumblr. Prove me wrong.

Also, whoever is in charge of Emmy nominations, you should probably just give one to Karine Vanasse already.