Thoughts on women's fiction/narratives, horror, and romance. Also, on Dollhouse.

[prozacpark]

I've been thinking about women's fiction, and women's genres lately, specifically in the context of horror and romance. I was initially surprised to find out that horror was considered to be a women's genre, but then it clicked that of course it was. It has two features that seem to be common to women's fiction: 1). It actually has women as

Comments

[prozacpark]

That's very interesting because we're both reacting to the same thing, but differently. This actually really disturbs me in terms of how many of our opinions are even our own and not influenced by/a reaction to all the crap female characters have been burdened with in fiction?

I can dislike it when women's issues are all attributed to insanity, but I find insane women themselves interesting? Admittedly, I also like insane men and suspect that I just have a thing for...insanity. ;)

I get so tired of being presented with some character who's entire motivation for being good at what they do is because of some deep, dark issue or wound in their psyche.

Yeah, ditto. Like, sometimes, it can work to a degree, but fiction never fails to go to the failed cliche places with this trope. I usually like them to have been good at something on their own, and the issue just adding another layer to it. Or, actually, I like the issues better when they interfere with whatever they're good at.

For me, I think it boils down to this: Fiction does have a tendency to present unconventional women, or untraditional women has having a form of insanity. It's not really always canon insanity, but these women are seen as being a bit off by characters within the canon or in the fandom. Kara being a good example, but Kara's childhood issues do disturb me, as much as I love her. Compare her to Nicki, who also has very many issues and is similar, but the show doesn't attribute them all to her having had abusive parents. It's a product of her childhood, but it's also pretty much who she *is*? Anyway, I like unconventional/nontraditional women, so I often end up liking the ones with issues.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of characters, male and female, that I like and could probably be considered to have a few loose screws, but I prefer it to be presented as part of the character's personality as a whole, rather than explicitly as "madness".

"Having issues" is actually what I meant by liking characters who are a little insane. So maybe we're actually not disagreeing? There's the "She's a little off" insanity which usually makes me like the character, and then there's the kind of insanity we saw with Cally on BSG, where all her issues got attributed to her insanity, which was disturbing on so many levels. Not that I disliked Cally...just the way canon treated her.

[prozacpark]

Yeah, I can't dislike Kara either and have insane amounts of love for her, but I am sometimes disturbed by the writers' perception of her, but my reading of her tends to be different. Ron Moore's take on Kara is disturbing, and I usually ignore it. And yes, Kara has so much going on in the present that her issues never bothered me. The episode where we found out in detail about her abusive mother was a bit much, and then they felt the need to give us one all about her father issues, too.

I wish I hadn't invested in the BSG plot ever. I would be much less bitter about the whole thing.

something tells me they would have let his behavior be explained away as "that's just how young men are" without associating it with emotional damage.

I'm entirely sure that that would be the case, yes. But Kara's sexuality and her issues all have to be explained because otherwise, people might not like her.

Nicki's damage is portrayed as disruptive and not something that adds to her appeal within the canon. I was kind of happy to see bits of Nicki in her daughter, as I see them in Adaleen, which makes me believe that Nicki would've been not very different even if she had grown up somewhere else. Of course, she's a different person because of what happened, but there're still bits of what she might have been there, and it's all mixed in her current personality in a way that really is awesome.

I do enjoy seeing people fall in love with Nicki. <3 I kind of don't get how anyone can not love her. She's so compelling and well-written.