throwing a hissy fit; also days 3 and 4 of favorite female characters
How dare chaila43 steal my totally original meme* and then use one of my favorite characters for her post! This means WAR! I'm taking Sarah Connor and not giving her back! Take that, Chaila! Neener, neener, neener!
Okay, so I was already going to post about Sarah Connor next. And I'll still post about Meg Murry at some later point, because my thoughts are still nebulous about her. It's just really fun to throw around some fake indignation once in a while.
So, Sarah Connor... and Miss Parker. Two women who really don't care what you think of them.
The Pretender is an example of the devotion I'm capable of giving to some shows. I hated missing an episode. I taught myself how to program my VCR for this show.
Side note: no one on this show has two names. Jarod, Our Hero, has a first name. So does Sydney. Everyone else is given only a last name. So Miss Parker was known Miss Parker, Angel (by her dad), Parker, and a few epithets. I'm not sure why the show went this route, but it's sort of cool. In a weird way.
Miss Parker chases, Jarod runs away. That's her job--to recapture Jarod and return him to the Centre. It's not a pretty situation. if she 'wins' Jarod is basically a prisoner in a high-end facility that wants to exploit his genius.
Why does she do it, then? She does it because she has a job to do, because her daddy wants her to, because she wants to prove that she's capable. So as a character she's emphatically not on the side of the angels, but neither is she a one-note noir character. Parker wears form-fitting suits, very high heels and striking makeup, but she doesn't fit the role of villainness, even if her outfits seem to declare her as a femme fatale.
Related to that, Parker does have a softer side that we get to see. We know she cares very much about her family, and she also falls in love with a good, ordinary (as in not a genius nor a pawn or executive in a high-stakes game of life) man.
Hm. It's been too long since I've watched the later seasons of the show--I'm doing a rewatch of season one on hulu.com right now--but Parker gets more and more complex throughout the show's run. I wish I had her determination. And her panache. And her wardrobe, even though I don't have anywhere to wear it.
Moving on... Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, I still miss you!
Sarah Connor has some similarities with Miss Parker: as mentioned before, neither cares what anyone else thinks of them. Well--except for how that can be used. They're both aware of how to use being female as an advantage when needed. Parker dresses to emphasize both her femininity and her seriousness at all times in how she dresses; Sarah uses clothes as weapons to pick up and put down again.
Miss Parker and Sarah Connor both have driving missions, but manage to fit in a bit of sex and romance. I like this about their characters; so often women who are written to have an all-consuming purpose are, in fact, consumed by those purposes and never given any other plot. Although Sarah Connor ultimately chooses to sacrifice her love (for Charley Dixon) to the cause she's been given, she still had that time with him. (Also it gave us an awesome recurring character. Oh, Charley!)
Sarah Connor... here's where I get rambly about how I love the contradictions she displays.
She's tough, surviving training in the jungles in Central America, time in a mental institution, and a jump forward in time. Yet she's still ridiculously compassionate. In spite of raising the future leader of humanity, she never kills anyone until mid-season two.
Sarah is both idealistic (that part about not killing anyone counts as an example again) and pragmatic, as shown when she accepted the help of Cameron. She's also scary and unpredictable--remember that man she left in the mine field?
Her character was on the borderline between sympathetic and terrifying throughout the series. In short, she's one of the most compelling characters (of either gender) that I've seen on television.
*okay, so maybe not totally original
Posted at Dreamwidth: http://rose-griffes.dreamwidth.org/184482.html. Comment where you wish.
Okay, so I was already going to post about Sarah Connor next. And I'll still post about Meg Murry at some later point, because my thoughts are still nebulous about her. It's just really fun to throw around some fake indignation once in a while.
So, Sarah Connor... and Miss Parker. Two women who really don't care what you think of them.
The Pretender is an example of the devotion I'm capable of giving to some shows. I hated missing an episode. I taught myself how to program my VCR for this show.
Side note: no one on this show has two names. Jarod, Our Hero, has a first name. So does Sydney. Everyone else is given only a last name. So Miss Parker was known Miss Parker, Angel (by her dad), Parker, and a few epithets. I'm not sure why the show went this route, but it's sort of cool. In a weird way.
Miss Parker chases, Jarod runs away. That's her job--to recapture Jarod and return him to the Centre. It's not a pretty situation. if she 'wins' Jarod is basically a prisoner in a high-end facility that wants to exploit his genius.
Why does she do it, then? She does it because she has a job to do, because her daddy wants her to, because she wants to prove that she's capable. So as a character she's emphatically not on the side of the angels, but neither is she a one-note noir character. Parker wears form-fitting suits, very high heels and striking makeup, but she doesn't fit the role of villainness, even if her outfits seem to declare her as a femme fatale.
Related to that, Parker does have a softer side that we get to see. We know she cares very much about her family, and she also falls in love with a good, ordinary (as in not a genius nor a pawn or executive in a high-stakes game of life) man.
Hm. It's been too long since I've watched the later seasons of the show--I'm doing a rewatch of season one on hulu.com right now--but Parker gets more and more complex throughout the show's run. I wish I had her determination. And her panache. And her wardrobe, even though I don't have anywhere to wear it.
Moving on... Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, I still miss you!
Sarah Connor has some similarities with Miss Parker: as mentioned before, neither cares what anyone else thinks of them. Well--except for how that can be used. They're both aware of how to use being female as an advantage when needed. Parker dresses to emphasize both her femininity and her seriousness at all times in how she dresses; Sarah uses clothes as weapons to pick up and put down again.
Miss Parker and Sarah Connor both have driving missions, but manage to fit in a bit of sex and romance. I like this about their characters; so often women who are written to have an all-consuming purpose are, in fact, consumed by those purposes and never given any other plot. Although Sarah Connor ultimately chooses to sacrifice her love (for Charley Dixon) to the cause she's been given, she still had that time with him. (Also it gave us an awesome recurring character. Oh, Charley!)
Sarah Connor... here's where I get rambly about how I love the contradictions she displays.
She's tough, surviving training in the jungles in Central America, time in a mental institution, and a jump forward in time. Yet she's still ridiculously compassionate. In spite of raising the future leader of humanity, she never kills anyone until mid-season two.
Sarah is both idealistic (that part about not killing anyone counts as an example again) and pragmatic, as shown when she accepted the help of Cameron. She's also scary and unpredictable--remember that man she left in the mine field?
Her character was on the borderline between sympathetic and terrifying throughout the series. In short, she's one of the most compelling characters (of either gender) that I've seen on television.
*okay, so maybe not totally original
Posted at Dreamwidth: http://rose-griffes.dreamwidth.org/184482.html. Comment where you wish.