My thoughts on Girrrrrrl Power (fictional female characters on television I like and admire)

[koalathebear]

Yesterday, I was giving someone some Supernatural fic recs and I went to make sure I'd recommended the correct author. While I was there, I noticed that the person had written a lot of posts about Bones in her journal. I was really delighted until I realised that she was only watching the show because of David Boreanaz and absolutely hated the

Comments

[koalathebear]

I agree with you, and I suppose the reason why I like it is that it is pure fantasy, along with a man being able to fly through the air with a cape, so and so having super powers. :D I studied judo for six years and when you're a kid, girls and boys are the same. Unfortunately, when I got to around 15/16 and the guys were all hitting their growth spurts and getting bigger - it was like you said, trained guy will be able to defeat trained girl. Martial arts help a woman when she's highly trained and against a man who is either not trained or who is less trained than her. If you pit a woman and a man against each other of equal training, chances are the guy will win unless the woman pulls a swift one on him. It's even the case for martial arts that were designed especially for woemn, eg wing chun. It's sad but true :'( Soooooooooo, i think it's my inner frustrated ninja that adores seeing kickass females on the screen who can whip a dozen guys with their awesome martial art powers ;) Guilty pleasure, unrealistic I know :D

I don't see it necessarily as implying a value judgment that a woman has to be better than a man to be as good as a man. I think I just find it cool to watch :D

[alexandral]

I don't see it necessarily as implying a value judgment that a woman has to be better than a man to be as good as a man.

But why then we have so many kick-ass heroines? What I think - many people they only like heroine if she is able to be able to do this. How many heroines are out there who are not exceptionally good at marital arts but who are an exceptional person whom the young girls will want to follow, to make their idol? How did this happen? What happened to being a good mother?? To the inner-qualities? The media of today is trying to masculinise female characters, IMHO. If it was more balanced I could have liked it, may be. But not all the time.

For example - from the top of my head I can't remember any heroine in the recent Western media who is not "better then a man in a man's field" and who creates a cult to follow. Women are either objects of possession for men, or they HAVE to be better to be noticed.

[alexandral]

I apologise so much - I got carried away!! It is really one of my bee-in-the-bonnet things. :D

[koalathebear]

Don't apologise, I love this topic and want to reply but will need to do it later after I finish my boring document and have seen Confession of Pain :D

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack! :D

[koalathebear]

Well, I suppose for creators of a show they want to make the heroine quite unusual. What about Medium where the main character is a mother and doesn't have kick ass kung fu abilities? :D How about Prison Break where Sara Tancredi doesn't have any particular abilities except that she's smart, brave and compassionate? I think it's usually quite important that the hero/heroine is unusual though - whether it be an intellectual or a physical unusualness, simply because tales of ordinary people are only really that interesting if eg the ordinary person is put into extraordinary circumstances. If you just have ordinary people doing ordinary things - well then it would be like reality tv or something :D I think my point is that when I watch something for entertainment, it's quite nice to have heightened reality. Someone will sing and die dramatically in Moulin Rouge and it would be weird in real life, but it works on the screen. For me, the same goes for kick ass heroines. Chances are in real life you'd find such kick ass heroines really rather annoying - but they're cool on the screen. For me anyway :D

Re: I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaack! :D

[alexandral]

EEEEEE! Was "Confession of pain" good??

I agree about Medium (and this is why I like this otherwise missable show). But I have to "agree to disagree" about Sara. She started quite good, but in the season 2 for me she turned into the "doormat" variety. This is why I stopped watching the show.

And I have to disagree about the fact that the creators only try to make their characters different. In the case of kick-ass heroines I believe there is a chunk of ill-understood feminism there as well. And I object about MY feminist issue to be represented like that. If someone always carries their equality as a BIG BANNER around, it totally defeats the object IMHO.

I don't actually object to kick-ass heroines (they are one of my guilty pleasures), but to what they represent (that ill-understood feminism). It is like with coca-cola or Starbucks - I don't like that they represent a Monopolistic conglomerate, but I do have them sometimes as a guilty pleasure.( I happen to like coca-cola :D)