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[elle_white]

mekosuchinae linked to a particularly awful and fail-filled female character flow chart that was completely counterproductive and missed the point. www.overthinkingit.com/2010/10/11/female-character-flowchart/

My instinctive reaction to this was, "can we please stop putting down female characters in the name of feminism." Things like this are one of many

Comments

[astridv]

I just saw that too. How I loathe that kind pseudo-feminist concern trolling. Funny how no one ever thinks of making one of these lists and flow charts for male characters... but then they might have to notice that their beloved guy characters can all be reduced to basic tropes as well.

How can they not realized they are part of the problem, by perpetuating and encouraging these double standards? This shit is so not helping.

This is even more of an incentive to finish those lady love posts I was doing.

Yeah, I've been thinking about doing a new version of my Fuck You, she's awesome post: this time a whole patchwork of dozens of icons of all the women on tv and in books and in comics that I adored throughout my life. I think I'll call it something like "No good female characters my ass!"

[elle_white]

No, I can't imagine someone doing lists and flow charts of this nature. If they did, I can't help but feel there would be a huge backlash to such a thing.

The double standard in their behaviour should be clear, but unfortunately, I think internalized misogyny plays a big part in it.

That would be wonderful! I would love to see that!

[genarti]

I would love to see that post!

[astridv]

I put it near the top of my list of "stuff to do once I've finished my big work project". I feel like making A Statement. :P

[sakanagi]

...So they're doing things such as having multiple "slut" character types and having a picture of Uhura from Star Trek for the "useless girl" category. It looks like some sort of bad parody. And they want it to be genuinely used to help out people on their quest to write a "strong female character". Good grief, reducing all those varied characters to stupid narrow tropes, and then acting as if it's a wonderful learning aid to avoid them.

The very idea that there's a magical formula which will produce the supposedly rare and difficult creature that's the "strong female character" is actually really awful.

Looking at that person's other articles, I'm surprised they wrote something like this one. I think I remember seeing one of their other articles some time ago and thinking it seemed pretty good. In those articles, they even praised some of the characters who were shoehorned into tropes for the flowchart. And now they make something like this and call it a companion piece. Disappointing.

[elle_white]

Yes, it is actually very disturbing to think this was some sort of guide for how to "properly" write female characters.

I read another article by that person earlier today, and while their were many things I agreed with, I thought they also missed the point in a few cases and were ... rather condescending.

[sakanagi]

I think I'll have a read of those articles. Since they're missing the point this much in the latest thing, you're probably right on there being problems in the older articles too.

[elle_white]

See, she talked about the problems with female characters in Hollywood and how they are often objectified. That while they are outwardly portrayed as "strong and competent" they're also unrealistic and ultimately there for the sake of the male audience. There are certainly many, many problems with how women are depicted in Hollywood, but I felt the writer was being far too narrow in their judgment, reducing characters to stereotypes when they were actually more nuanced than that. They used the word "weak" to describe how a female character "should be," which is one that's flawed.

They praised the handling of the female lead in The Dark Night because she was fallible and needed rescuing like many others in the film. However, the way Rachel was fridged to give Batman angst was pretty terrible. While I like a lot of Christopher Nolan's films, there is quite a bit of gender fail in them.

[yukinoomoni]

Wow. Just. Wow.

That chart? I do not want.

And wow, calling Azula a Girl Hitler? what

[elle_white]

Yeah, that was really, really offensive. BTW, your icon is brilliant.

[yukinoomoni]

All credit goes to blue_lacquer!

[havocthecat]

I feel the need to make my own rage-filled post now.

[morgeil]

*sigh*

Now, I want to go do that "30 Days of Awesome Chicks" meme that I keep procrastinating on...