Time travel, feminism and the 7th Doctor

[athena25]

I make no apologies. The 7th doctor is my doctor. I remember being terrified of the Happiness Patrol long before I was old enough to understand how terrified I should have been - as a milk-free child growing up in a Northern town - of Thatcher. Ace was everything I wanted to be when I grew up, she took no nonsense, went everywhere,, did everything

Comments

[littleonionz]

Did not like McCoy and co, but then I am an ancient eville mother and Tom Baker and Peter Davidson were my guys.

Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Buffy. Not terribly current but not bad given a faasand years of foot on neck;)

Alien. I wasn't old enough to see it at the cinema but when I *did* see it it blew me away. There were females who acted normally, like real people not those weird screamy crying things that did feck all except get in the way of the action in Sci-Fi and action filums (and books, slight side ish) and then there was Ripley and even the other one who was real enough that when she had a break down it was okay,because it was real and possible for any human just to stand and cry when faced with a big scary alien. Anyway yeah, Alien was the biggest breath of fresh air, closely followed by Aliens, which, although 'macho' the marines were pretty integrated and equal and gender wasn't an issue.

[stu_n]

Interesting that Ripley wasn't written as a woman, and when Sigourney Weaver was cast, the part was barely rewritten. Contrast that with Veronica Cartwright's part, which was written as female...

[littleonionz]

I'm not sure it is fair to judge on the basis of what was intended as opposed to what actually transpired as invalidating the reality of my own (minus fighting aliens) existence as a female type person. Both aspects of a person's character are very valid as I have personally experienced (as have all humes one imagines the fight or fight response) that one came about as a happy accident is like many such events rather fortunate. Luke Skywalker was intended to be a girl.

[littleonionz]

I prolly should have written more to explain myself in the above, but it is teatime and the troops needs feeding.
It may not have been intended for Ripley to be a chick, however; she was the most believable female I had seen up to that point in a Sci-Fi or possibly any film, for me as a chick she was close to real not just a plot device, not just an object there to help progress the hero's journey, she was the hero.

[littleonionz]

urgh still not explaining self well, sozza.

[stu_n]

Where did I say anything about invalidating? Ripley is an extremely happy result of serendipity; it works brilliantly that that particular character, in that particular film, is female.

[littleonionz]

See comment wherein is written 'Urgh still not explaining self well, sozza'

No you didn't say that, nor did you imply invalidation merely that it was a male character that got switched at the last minute.

[athena25]

I always find the Ripley example interesting. I think it's a good example of how writers often fail at female characters. They write them as female. As embodying all those tropes and stereotypes of womanhood that we are mired in up to our necks. Oftentimes, female characters are not really characters - they are plot devices or representative of something (the hero's reason for living, motherhood, sexuality etc).

Here, we have a woman who is "real" and yet was written as a man. She's more real than most Sci Fi ladies.

I think that her representation as a solid, exciteable and believeable female character has a lot to do with Sigourney Weaver's acting ability in tandem with having a script that wrote her as a person/character first (i.e. a man) rather than a woman.

[stu_n]

IMO it's not so much that she was written as a man, it's more that she wasn't rewritten when a woman was cast. There's no sexism in the way the rest of the crew react to her - they don't like her much, but that's because she doesn't cut them any slack, not because she's a woman in charge of men. I find that more impressive than the way she was written in Aliens, when she was specifically written as a woman, and has more stereotypically female traits (nurturer/protector of Newt, intended victim of nasty man in rape-analogue scene). Weaver still carries that off and is recognisably the same person as she was in Alien. Great acting.

[littleonionz]

'I always find the Ripley example interesting. I think it's a good example of how writers often fail at female characters. They write them as female. As embodying all those tropes and stereotypes of womanhood that we are mired in up to our necks. Oftentimes, female characters are not really characters - they are plot devices or representative of something (the hero's reason for living, motherhood, sexuality etc).@

It is the classic woman as object not as person (male) which is why they call cars and boats and fecking aeroplanes 'she' prized beautiful and sometimes powerful; but not the same, always 'other'

[athena25]

This makes me yearn for a varient on macho that isn't associated with masculinity. It's an action film, so you've got to have the guns, the running, the shooting, the sweaty vests. But "macho" is the wrong word, and so is "feminine" (because it's not just a "feminine" strength, which makes me cringe and die a little inside, it's more of a human strength)

I am also very keen on Aliens. Particularly that scene. And the woman/alien, woman/machine and all sorts of gender fuckery that it contains.

[wulfboy]

Is it alright to mention Vasquez in this context? Or is she hyper-macho because she's a woman in a primarily male environment? And if so does that make her less of a solid female character?

I hadn't considered Aliens vs Alien actually, and coupled with what stu_n was saying above its quite interesting given that they know Ripley is female for the sequel.

[athena25]

Vasquez sticks a finger up at ideas of "macho" and "masculinity" because she is a woman doing all of those things, she helps show the difference between sex and gender, between how we are born and what we can make ourselves into.

The only difficulty I have with her is that she is described in "manly" terms, but I think that's a problem of language.