More thoughts on Fem. In Kill Bill
Since, I am so new to LJ, for the time being I am going to be putting my comments from other "communities" onto my personal page as well so those visiting can get a full understanding of my thoughts on these matters. This following entry was in response to a comment on my first KB piece, which was initially posted elsewhere.
Sexy Power Ladies are People First
ourperspicacity
2004-04-29 07:34 (link) Select
My ideas on this began from a discussion I had been having with some very ignorant male acquaintances that saw passivity as an attractive quality in a woman. A woman who is pro-active, whether sexually or vengefully, or merely even reactionary is somehow stepping out of the proscribed ideal of femininity, according to them. It seemed, that once a woman took on "agency" she had lost that which made her alluring.
Yes, most strong women in contemporary media representations are both exceptionally and conspicuously gorgeous, in addition to being strong and I would respond to that in two ways.
1) I am happy that the two are not presented as mutually exclusive; as I said before, possessing strength and will does not detract from desirability in these presentations of women. Their strength is something to be revered and only enhances whatever physical superficial beauty was there anyways. A woman's emotional and physical power should be elements that only serve to make her more, not less, attractive and these representations support and bolster that notion.
2) It has the potential to be a fetishizing force in the collective understanding of women and detracts from the "complexity" I argued for in my original post. The personhood I spoke about means that women are legitimate, fully realized human beings with all the complex psychological issues that affect and motivate men to do what they do in life and the idea of the long-limbed frisky feline seductive killing machine is somewhat of an objectification in of itself. If she's going to be strong, then she has to be this highly sexualized tomcat, rrrrr! That's unfortunate, for sure. This makes me think of the Linda Hamilton character in Terminator 2 who was more or less a normal woman. She, as I've been arguing, had her will and motivation and acted upon that (re:agency), but the appeal of her character was located mostly in her blind determination and not in linking her strength to her sexuality.
Sexy Power Ladies are People First
ourperspicacity
2004-04-29 07:34 (link) Select
My ideas on this began from a discussion I had been having with some very ignorant male acquaintances that saw passivity as an attractive quality in a woman. A woman who is pro-active, whether sexually or vengefully, or merely even reactionary is somehow stepping out of the proscribed ideal of femininity, according to them. It seemed, that once a woman took on "agency" she had lost that which made her alluring.
Yes, most strong women in contemporary media representations are both exceptionally and conspicuously gorgeous, in addition to being strong and I would respond to that in two ways.
1) I am happy that the two are not presented as mutually exclusive; as I said before, possessing strength and will does not detract from desirability in these presentations of women. Their strength is something to be revered and only enhances whatever physical superficial beauty was there anyways. A woman's emotional and physical power should be elements that only serve to make her more, not less, attractive and these representations support and bolster that notion.
2) It has the potential to be a fetishizing force in the collective understanding of women and detracts from the "complexity" I argued for in my original post. The personhood I spoke about means that women are legitimate, fully realized human beings with all the complex psychological issues that affect and motivate men to do what they do in life and the idea of the long-limbed frisky feline seductive killing machine is somewhat of an objectification in of itself. If she's going to be strong, then she has to be this highly sexualized tomcat, rrrrr! That's unfortunate, for sure. This makes me think of the Linda Hamilton character in Terminator 2 who was more or less a normal woman. She, as I've been arguing, had her will and motivation and acted upon that (re:agency), but the appeal of her character was located mostly in her blind determination and not in linking her strength to her sexuality.