Still cranky...

[lyssie]

Fandom is why we can't have nice things. Like strong female characters.

Fandom loves cock. Fandom does not like girly bits or women... Fandom claims to like women, and yet, when female characters appear, they're dissected down to their bones and called all sorts of things from 'boring' to 'unrealistic' to 'Mary Sue'.One of the things the recent

Comments

[hergrace]

This opens up an interesting stream of thought for me. I have never been a big fan of slash. I prefer a nice, hot, het-sex fic myself. And when I write fan fic, it tends to be that. The other thing I find myself grinding my teeth over is the fact that, with many fics, as soon as the action starts to get hot and heavy, SHE is just rarring at the bit to give HIM a blow job. Does he return the favour? Does his compliment her on the beauty of her c*nt? hell, no. If she stops before he comes, he just hefts her up on the nearest handy surface and starts banging away. If she helps him come up, she's just pleased as punch to gobble up all that "yummy" semen. *FEH

[lyssie]

HAH. And you know, as lucyparavel once pointed out to me, I tend to not even remember blowjobs. otoh, I'm all about the cunilingus in het fic. I suspect it's a mostly conscious bias against men getting lots of attention. Hrm.

It's funny, I wasn't thinking about this in terms of femslash. It actually stemmed from catching a comment from someone saying Elizabeth in Pirates was a Mary Sue, followed by fandoms hatred of Gwen from Torchwood. And they're not the first female characters I've seen tarred and feathered for not being some perfect ideal (which, if they were perfect, would STILL get them tarred and feathered) of womanhood that female fans want.

[lyssie]

*nods* And the thing is, if we want equality and balanced portrayals, we need to have the stupid women and the happy women and the sappy women and the dumb women and the egotistical women and the ones you want to slap before they even open their mouths, too. They can't all be ball-busting feminists, because, I'm sorry to say, they aren't in real life.

And you're right, though. Because if a woman is actually all of those things, she'll still get nailed--Sam Carter, from SG-1 has this problem. Now, a part of that was because the writers only had her for a canvas, so they painted her with broad strokes and tried to make everyone happy.

[lyssie]

Write EVERYONE well. Yes, exactly.

I will not go ballistic. In all honesty, I really do need to give the man a chance. (also, there are people irritating me in fandom that are far more annoying than he). Oh, oh, and I love how everything comes back to Paul Cornell, in some way. BUT. (actually, and I know I'm tangenting horribly now, which I blame on being tired, now I want to pick up his X-Men run. Hrm. *makes note to troll library*)

And your last point is also correct. (no more tangents for me)

[hergrace]

First I want to say how much I'm enjoying reading the comments you've started generating. The discussion is opening my eyes as a writer as well as a reader. I try to keep all my characters well-rounded. I have a real problem with stereotyped, one-dimensional characters at any time (with the possible exception of the Daleks; though heaven knows they get waaaaaay overused.)

Now den --
It actually stemmed from catching a comment from someone saying Elizabeth in Pirates was a Mary Sue, followed by fandoms hatred of Gwen from Torchwood. WTF??!! Elizabeth a Mary Sue??? Getoutahere! I *love* Elizabeth. She's a gutsy, brave, headstrong (and I mean that in the best way), and self-assured woman living in a time when women were not supposed to be any of those things. And not only that, she's *gorgeous*. In a film that, with the exception of her, is all-male, it's good to have a strong female character the little girls can identify with. *sheesh

[lyssie]

Yeah, as Geoff pointed out, really, we just need everyone written well. It's just that there's a dearth of women being written at all in fandom. And when they are, there's a tendency to marginalize them, or stereotype them (I cannot count how many stories out there have Sam Carter as the weeping Heroine who Needs to be Saved) in some way that devalues them as characters.

The Elizabeth is a Mary Sue comment made me froth. I don't even know who originally said it, anymore. I just know I came across it at some point, and wanted to hit things. Seriously. What else do they want? Her tied-up, needing to be saved? Her dead? WHAT?!?

They probably are those same people who complain.

Torchwood is... wacky. They've got a decent cast, and three men to two women is NOT a bad mix. And secondary characters tend to fall out equally, iirc.