On the day before...

[selenak]

Since I have a few new people on my flist, let me repeat last year's pimping of In the Bleak Midwinter as one of my favourite Christmas movies. Directed and written by Kenneth Branagh but not starring him, about a Christmas production of Hamlet in the provinces, featuring the usual Branagh suspects as the ensemble, witty and despite stern

Comments

[zahrawithaz]

The more I think about this the more it disturbs me. Because it's not like this fandom isn't obsessed with romance, and that speaks to some weird internalized self-hatred on top of (and as part of) the need to dismiss and belittle female characters-and you're dead right on that too. Seriously disturbing.

Any argument that implies there's a right way to be a strong woman depresses me.

Yes. And holding up physical abilities in particular as the only acceptable form of strength is one more way to burden women with impossible standards, and shows how very thoroughly traditional (and narrow) forms of masculinity have been accept as the only standards worth adhering to. (Besides which, I would also argue that in many cases resorting to violence is often a sign of weakness.)

Yes, yes, yes! re S1 Gwen. Her blossoming, and gaining of strength from very difficult circumstances, is one of the best-written and -acted arcs on the show, and that sense of her transforming before our eyes is one of the reasons I loved S2 so much. You can really see her become more and more her own person, and it's lovely.