River Tam really does not belong there. The 'insane badass' thing was not an aspect of her character presented initially, and she was just presented as someone fragile and mentally disturbed who, yes, needed protection. The badassery was hinted at through the course of the series and then was fully revealed only in the movie, which was the final installment. She was never presented as a 'feminist symbol' to begin with, so saying she was a failed one is pretty goddamned stupid. Which isn't to say that she wasn't a good character because she was, just that what they were saying was completely offbase.
Yeah, uh, I'm pretty sure she is either brain-damaged or was not watching the show. This part is probably the most blatant bit:
The next scene is set in the present. Mal, Jayne, and Zoe are floating about in space. They come into some danger. Mal gets all panicky.
Zoe says, “This ship's been derelict for months. Why would they -”
Mal replies, (in Chinese) “Shut up.”
So in the very second scene of the very first episode, an episode written and directed by the great feminist Joss, a white man tells a black woman to ‘shut up’ for no apparent reason. And she does shut up. And she continues to call him sir. And takes his orders, even when they are dumb orders, for the rest of the series.
1. He tells her to shut up because they're trying to avoid detection by the big Alliance cruiser floating overhead. No, sound doesn't carry in space, but the transmissions between their space suits do.
2. She listens to his orders because she is a soldier and he is her superior officer.
Eowyn: Plus that book was written in the fifties. I think people need to take the original works into account when they try to analyze things like that.
Pademe: Ehhh... I'm iffy on this one. On the one side I can understand her staying behind because she's pregnant and it was practical. On the other hand ow she died was just a cop out. It was sad, but it was a cop out and just ruined her character--trauma or no trauma.
River: The girl has had her brain cut up by crazy scientists. She's surprisingly strong considering all of that. It even says right there that when her brother couldn't protect her she protected herself and everyone else instead.
Catwoman: Hit my overall problem with her right on the head.
Elizabeth Swann: I thought she was cool in the second movie, but the third one killed it. Honestly, Pirates was one of those things I thought was entertaining, but given the subject matter and what pirates actually do I couldn't really get into it.
Aladdin: How about them changing the story from one that's Chinese in origin to
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I'm a Whedon fan but I do think he has problems with feminism sometimes, rather in the same way Mark Twain wrote an anti-racist book that's still not an accurate portrayal of blacks in the 1830s. Not that I associate myself with Blogger McCrazy overthere, but. Agree that River was never meant to be a feminist symbol the way Buffy was, for example.
I do really hate Elizabeth Swann, though. :/ I'm sure there are more I could put on that list if I really thought about it. Hmmmmmm. Wonder Woman has been problematical since her inception, to say the least. But most comic book characters have long, dark periods of fail, so that's no surprise.
It's hard for me to incriminate comic characters because they fluctuate so much with their writers, but I've never liked Wonder Woman and I've never found her satsifying as an "icon." I'm not sure that inklings count for much.
The problem with Wonder Woman as an icon is that she's never had a stable metaphor to ground herself in. Batman and Superman have mostly stable origins with set themes and mythos that have been added to and subtracted from over time. (So there might be a crappy Batman run, but the idea of Batman is still safe!) But Wonder Woman gets her whole context remade every few years, it seems. This is probably because originally Wonder Woman was an elaborate bondage metaphor and that really can't fly for a feminist icon.
Really though, I'd rather evaluate characters as characters rather than how well they're presented as strong females. I am definitely a feminist, but I'd rather read about a character with interesting and compelling flaws than a textbook set of strengths. Not that I want to watch females just wait around to be rescued and have no emotional depth whatsoever, but.
THANK you. I was arguing that point earlier. I'd rather see a good female character who is a spineless doormat than another badass action chick who takes no guff and shoots her gun whenever she damn well pleases, but apparently has no other personality traits.
I think what changed with Eowyn is that she was made a grr-girl-fighter. Book!Eowyn didn't choose go to the battlefield to be badass and help her people, no, she was a broken woman who only wanted glory. She couldn't marry Aragorn (whom she never loved) as a ticket to glory, so she thought it was a cool idea ABANDON her post as defender of her people back home who were STILL at war to cross-dress and ride to a glorious battle and die there. No hint of idea of going against a girl-fighting.
Marrying Faramir didn't make her drop the sword, either. IMO, it's obvious that Faramir assumes a female role of a healing force that makes the jaded warrior feel better. Like women do to men? She just forsakes that despair and hopelessness because she realizes she was wrong. Faramir so bottoms and is yes-dear, IMO. Isn't he a scholar-oriented character?
But yeah, this would be completely lost in the film version because her characterization is changed.
So I read that report. They hit the nail on Movie!Eowyn problem (which overlooks her flaws while in the book didn't). I thought it was pretty creative for Tolkien use the tragic glorious hero token character from old legends and made the typical male role a woman's. Those heroes who never marry/settle down died tragically in heroic quests (without finding their Healing True Love). Tolkien wasn't undermining Eowyn's gender, but making a classic happy ending for the character type she belonged. Every single character stops fighting once the war is over because war in Tolkienverse IS wrong. Building and healing, the trees, the soil, etc. That's what matters.
I give you Tolkien wrote more about boys, but his greatest "couple"/self insert (Luthien/Beren) had a man who messed up a lot and the lady who rescued HIM all the freakin' time and they are supposed to be the end of the end of True Love in his 'verse. So he wasn't particularly sexist to me (rather he couldn't write about women). He's got a lot of powerful girls (Haleth! How I wish
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And that blogger they quoted is just insane.
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The next scene is set in the present. Mal, Jayne, and Zoe are floating about in space. They come into some danger. Mal gets all panicky.
Zoe says, “This ship's been derelict for months. Why would they -”
Mal replies, (in Chinese) “Shut up.”
So in the very second scene of the very first episode, an episode written and directed by the great feminist Joss, a white man tells a black woman to ‘shut up’ for no apparent reason. And she does shut up. And she continues to call him sir. And takes his orders, even when they are dumb orders, for the rest of the series.
1. He tells her to shut up because they're trying to avoid detection by the big Alliance cruiser floating overhead. No, sound doesn't carry in space, but the transmissions between their space suits do.
2. She listens to his orders because she is a soldier and he is her superior officer.
3. She calls him sir for the same reason.
4. Are you serious5 ( ... )
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Pademe: Ehhh... I'm iffy on this one. On the one side I can understand her staying behind because she's pregnant and it was practical. On the other hand ow she died was just a cop out. It was sad, but it was a cop out and just ruined her character--trauma or no trauma.
River: The girl has had her brain cut up by crazy scientists. She's surprisingly strong considering all of that. It even says right there that when her brother couldn't protect her she protected herself and everyone else instead.
Catwoman: Hit my overall problem with her right on the head.
Elizabeth Swann: I thought she was cool in the second movie, but the third one killed it. Honestly, Pirates was one of those things I thought was entertaining, but given the subject matter and what pirates actually do I couldn't really get into it.
Aladdin: How about them changing the story from one that's Chinese in origin to ( ... )
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I do really hate Elizabeth Swann, though. :/ I'm sure there are more I could put on that list if I really thought about it. Hmmmmmm. Wonder Woman has been problematical since her inception, to say the least. But most comic book characters have long, dark periods of fail, so that's no surprise.
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Really though, I'd rather evaluate characters as characters rather than how well they're presented as strong females. I am definitely a feminist, but I'd rather read about a character with interesting and compelling flaws than a textbook set of strengths. Not that I want to watch females just wait around to be rescued and have no emotional depth whatsoever, but.
Reply
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Marrying Faramir didn't make her drop the sword, either. IMO, it's obvious that Faramir assumes a female role of a healing force that makes the jaded warrior feel better. Like women do to men? She just forsakes that despair and hopelessness because she realizes she was wrong. Faramir so bottoms and is yes-dear, IMO. Isn't he a scholar-oriented character?
But yeah, this would be completely lost in the film version because her characterization is changed.
Reply
I give you Tolkien wrote more about boys, but his greatest "couple"/self insert (Luthien/Beren) had a man who messed up a lot and the lady who rescued HIM all the freakin' time and they are supposed to be the end of the end of True Love in his 'verse. So he wasn't particularly sexist to me (rather he couldn't write about women). He's got a lot of powerful girls (Haleth! How I wish ( ... )
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