Writing Links

[naamah_darling]

In no particular order, things that are important or useful or fun.

The Omniscient Breasts, Kate Elliott

YOU CAN WRITE FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A FEMALE CHARACTER AND STILL BE WRITING WITH THE MALE GAZE

Comments

[virginia_fell]

I was a little offended because I thought the implication was I didn't get it because I wasn't a woman.

I've tried to be careful about speaking for anybody but myself, but it's my bad if I didn't do a good enough job. I think what I am trying to say is that it's not a coincidence that I am a woman and that I am bothered by these things. There'll be women who don't mind, and people of other genders who do, but for me my experience of being a woman is a major part of why this stuff is difficult for me to ignore.

And yeah, most of the characters were pretty flat. It just made me sad that the way to flatten a female character is to assign her a twu wuv who will determine her fate. That "Most guys do..." line toward the beginning of the movie gave me hope that she wouldn't just be the Final Girl, but it didn't really pan out. She'll fight her way home past Agents and do glorious revolutionary battling and make comments about how men don't even consider the possibility that a woman could be so good at what she does... and then it's like what they do with Bond girls, where all their competence and strength turns out merely to be a way of making them better prizes for dudes.

IMO, Trinity isn't badass because her character is badass; she's badass because it's how she is worthy of belonging to Neo. This is slightly better than getting there just by having the longest hair and fairest skin or whatever, but it feels a bit hollow. She has a thin smattering of traits that I like (no thinner than anyone else in The Matrix), but then there's this... this thing, this reminder that actually nope. Her destiny is to follow her irresistible pantsfeelings to the Chosen Protagonist and faithfully assist her twu wuv while he has plot.

[rickvs]

Thanks for jumping into this thread, virginia_fell.

You've given me a lot to think about, and a couple of new entries to my vocabulary :>

Have you, by chance, read John Varley's "Steel Beach"? Some of his writing-from-a-female-POV rang more true to me than, as you point out, Heinlein's, but I wasn't certain how much I should trust my judgment on it.