For Love of Hathor.
Originally published at tansyrr.com. You can comment here or there.
How have I been on the internet this long without discovering The Hathor Legacy?
Oh that old thing, you’re all saying? We knew about that.
For those of you who, like me, have managed to miss this awesome site, it’s a group blog which revolves around the portrayal of female characters in film, TV, books, games & assorted other media. It is also completely awesome. While there is a lot of reasonable critique about the getting it wrongness of female characters, the articles generally have a positive tone and in fact their mission statement is all about celebrating the awesomeness of female characters rather than being all doom and gloom.
I was first sucked in by an interesting little post on Amanda Redman, one of my favourite older British Actresses (Why has she not been in Doctor Who yet? Why?) and how cool it is that she doesn’t try to hide her obviously scarred arm, in any of her TV shows or even her recent wedding photos.
From there I dipped further in, following a link to another Redman related post, this one about how great her character Sandra is in New Tricks, and how rare it is to see a female leader who is allowed to be really good at her job, especially when that job involves giving orders to a bunch of men.
Next I found a brilliant, deeply affecting essay about Disney’s Pocahontas, and why telling fluffy bunny fairy stories to children instead of Actual History is not helpful at all, especially when that history is Not Pleasant.
I knew that this site was one that was for me when I read about how much SF they read, and why, and how SF has a greater responsibility to portray gender issues in non-sucky ways because, you know, the possibilities are ENDLESS, you’re not locked into antiquated human social conventions unless you really want to be.
Finally I ended up back at the beginning of the blog, with two posts about the film industry that actually made me shocked and angry while at the same time dismally unsurprised: how female audiences are consistently sacrificed so no one has to admit what a crapshoot the Hollywood financing system actually is, and how screenwriters are trained to produce scripts which do not pass the Bechdel Test because no one actually believes women have anything of import to say to each other if it doesn’t involve a male character.
So now I’m all cranky. But I have found a new favourite blog which has gone straight into my RSS feed, so I’m happy cranky. Let me know if any of these articles strike a chord with you too!