Superchick BFFs FTW
I was reading an entry today about the Bechdel test, that famous test for stories where by you ask if the female characters ever talk to other females, and if so, do they talk about a man? jlh raises some really good points, though, about how this test really doesn't work when applied to romance, since romance is the plot of the story and everyone is usually talking about it, including the men. In an action movie we're sadly often likely to find men talking about their jobs, their cause and their mortality while having a romance on the side with a female character who doesn't exist outside the romance. But in a romantic comedy you're just as likely to find the male characters discussing romance as the female ones, and since the romance is the main plot it's not that disempowering to be talking about it. In some movies it's all they talk about--men as well as women.
Anyway, people started bringing up TV shows, especially, that do often effortlessly pass the test. Some people felt these shows unfortunately were types they didn't like, like Grey's Anatomy--I've never watched this show, but I assume they basically mean soapy. Others, though, pointed to shows like Bones that feature female characters talking about any number of topics with each other.
So I started thinking about having people recommend their favorite female friendships, or friendships they think were shown to be valid, in fictional shows, books or movies. Anyone want to pimp some of your favorites?
I'll throw out three. Not necessarily because they're my top three, but I do think they show an interesting friendship between individuals with a specific history etc. that get to develop and be interesting. These were the ones that just came to my mind when I asked myself the question, and some of them surprised me. It would be great if the way people do those ship manifestos if people could write about what's awesome about their favorite female friendship!
House of Eliot
I will pretty much always grab any chance to pimp this show. It's about a couple of sisters whose bastard of a father dies and leaves them with nothing and they start a fashion house in the 1920s. It has a fairly large cast that's mostly women. Romance is woven in and out but career always edges it out as focus. And when I say career I don't mean making money or power, but finding security and a chance to be creative and getting validation for your work. It was co-created by Jean Marsh, btw.
One of the things I love about the show is how almost all the characters turn out to have different sides to them, good and bad, and I always wound up rooting for them as women in a man's world even when they were wrong, negotiating society at the time and trying to be happy. I just seriously think this is one of the best shows about women out there. And while, as I said, the women do have romances, they never fight over men.
I don't mention a single f/f friendship because there are so many of them. Where m/f romances are often the more explosive in terms of affecting people, the female friendships are constantly at work, and in fact often are the catalyst for far more enduring changes in the character's lives. When characters are in trouble female friendships are just as likely to save them as relationships with men (romantic or otherwise), and since their professional world is fashion women are the clients. The sister's relationship is of course front and center, and we always see the history there (the elder sister basically raised the younger).
Absolutely Fabulous
This was brought up in the other thread and I do think it deserves a mention. The main characters here are again all women. The central character is Edina, a 40-year-old single mother who likes to pretend she is and ever was much cooler than she is. Edina's mother is relentlessly cozy, always reminding Edina of the girl she really is (Edwina) and the unromantic past she really had. Saffie is Edina's daughter who stubbornly rebels against Edina's fabulous delusions the same way Edina rebelled against her mother's ordinariness, even while putting up with her. And Patsy is Edina's long-time best friend who's both the most glamorous and the most insecure and terrified of losing Eddie, the only person she's really got. It's not a healthy relationship and it encourages hostility in the other two, but it doesn't have to be.
Weird tangent here that has to do with why I like these characters. On the other thread there was a mention of Sex and the City, which people have said they watch pretending the characters are drag queens because they sense these women are really gay men. Now, leaving aside whether people agree with that (I have a love/hate relationship with that show and actually don't buy the friendship between the 4 women much but if anybody loves it feel free to say why!), that made me think of how when AbFab was on the air Patsy and Edina were popular characters for drag. And while I'm all for anybody dressing up like them I remember hearing a drag queen once say that "they totally are really drag queens" at the time and I thought...nyuh-uh. You got that one wrong. This is a show about mothers and daughters and girl bffs big time. There's not a man in the bunch of them. And the humor is very much imo bitchy female vs. bitchy gay male.
The Grand
This surprised me when it came to mind. It's another historical drama taking place at a Manchester Hotel in the 1920s. The friendship here is ironically one that gets cut off before it can really get strong, but I think it works just as well. It's between two chambermaids, Kate and Monica. They gravitate towards each other, but also disagree on the way they relate to the guests of the hotel. Monica aspires to be more than a chambermaid, something Kate just finds dangerous. Avoiding spoilers, Monica gets into some serious trouble. In one of their last conversations, Monica says "we could have been friends. We could have been best friends...." To which Kate replies, "We are friends, Monica."
And they're both right. Monica's lamenting that they always had this disagreement between them and now won't really get a chance to put it behind them. Kate's saying that despite all that's happened she is Monica's friend--meaning she's ally, and her defender. And in fact Monica continues to be loom large in Kate's life even after they're separated as a lesson and a person. Both of them see kinship beyond the disagreement.
And I like the relationship a lot because of that. It shows 2 women in the same life situation with very different views on it, but who respect each other for being different--without doing the extreme "she's a bookworm and she's a party girl-she’ll help her with her homework and she’ll give her a make-over!" type route. It's more like they both recognize in each other the same intelligence, ambition to survive and succeed in the system, and they're not made into rivals because of it.
I feel that sitcoms almost deserve their own category here because damn, have they mined this or what? Just look at all the great teams of female friends who got to grow and develop over the years on sitcoms:
Rhoda/Mary (Mary Tyler Moore), Lucy/Ethel (The ones who started it all on TV with I Love Lucy), Laverne/Shirley (Laverne and Shirley), Monica/Rachel (Friends), Blanche/Rose/Dorothy/Sophia (The Golden Girls), Robin/Lily (How I Met Your Mother). I always thought Shane/Jenny made for a really interesting friendship on The L Word, thought I didn't like them as a couple. There's the classic Cagney & Lacey and Xena and Gabrielle.
It's sad that I'm trying to think of middle grade fiction that focused on a particular female friendship and so many ones I loved I wind up with a male/female friendship! One that does qualify is The Changeling by Zilpha Keatley Snyder was one excellent example (as if ZKS wasn't always writing awesome character books!) And of course, Anne/Diana from Anne of Green Gables. I also think Scarlett/Melanie is a good one.
So does anybody have any girl friendships they find particularly interesting or loved? Even some of these, if there was anything you really liked about them? I feel like when people think of stories about female friendships they always think of a particular kind of movie like Steel Magnolias or Beaches that a lot of people just dismiss because they don't like that type of movie.
Anyway, people started bringing up TV shows, especially, that do often effortlessly pass the test. Some people felt these shows unfortunately were types they didn't like, like Grey's Anatomy--I've never watched this show, but I assume they basically mean soapy. Others, though, pointed to shows like Bones that feature female characters talking about any number of topics with each other.
So I started thinking about having people recommend their favorite female friendships, or friendships they think were shown to be valid, in fictional shows, books or movies. Anyone want to pimp some of your favorites?
I'll throw out three. Not necessarily because they're my top three, but I do think they show an interesting friendship between individuals with a specific history etc. that get to develop and be interesting. These were the ones that just came to my mind when I asked myself the question, and some of them surprised me. It would be great if the way people do those ship manifestos if people could write about what's awesome about their favorite female friendship!
House of Eliot
I will pretty much always grab any chance to pimp this show. It's about a couple of sisters whose bastard of a father dies and leaves them with nothing and they start a fashion house in the 1920s. It has a fairly large cast that's mostly women. Romance is woven in and out but career always edges it out as focus. And when I say career I don't mean making money or power, but finding security and a chance to be creative and getting validation for your work. It was co-created by Jean Marsh, btw.
One of the things I love about the show is how almost all the characters turn out to have different sides to them, good and bad, and I always wound up rooting for them as women in a man's world even when they were wrong, negotiating society at the time and trying to be happy. I just seriously think this is one of the best shows about women out there. And while, as I said, the women do have romances, they never fight over men.
I don't mention a single f/f friendship because there are so many of them. Where m/f romances are often the more explosive in terms of affecting people, the female friendships are constantly at work, and in fact often are the catalyst for far more enduring changes in the character's lives. When characters are in trouble female friendships are just as likely to save them as relationships with men (romantic or otherwise), and since their professional world is fashion women are the clients. The sister's relationship is of course front and center, and we always see the history there (the elder sister basically raised the younger).
Absolutely Fabulous
This was brought up in the other thread and I do think it deserves a mention. The main characters here are again all women. The central character is Edina, a 40-year-old single mother who likes to pretend she is and ever was much cooler than she is. Edina's mother is relentlessly cozy, always reminding Edina of the girl she really is (Edwina) and the unromantic past she really had. Saffie is Edina's daughter who stubbornly rebels against Edina's fabulous delusions the same way Edina rebelled against her mother's ordinariness, even while putting up with her. And Patsy is Edina's long-time best friend who's both the most glamorous and the most insecure and terrified of losing Eddie, the only person she's really got. It's not a healthy relationship and it encourages hostility in the other two, but it doesn't have to be.
Weird tangent here that has to do with why I like these characters. On the other thread there was a mention of Sex and the City, which people have said they watch pretending the characters are drag queens because they sense these women are really gay men. Now, leaving aside whether people agree with that (I have a love/hate relationship with that show and actually don't buy the friendship between the 4 women much but if anybody loves it feel free to say why!), that made me think of how when AbFab was on the air Patsy and Edina were popular characters for drag. And while I'm all for anybody dressing up like them I remember hearing a drag queen once say that "they totally are really drag queens" at the time and I thought...nyuh-uh. You got that one wrong. This is a show about mothers and daughters and girl bffs big time. There's not a man in the bunch of them. And the humor is very much imo bitchy female vs. bitchy gay male.
The Grand
This surprised me when it came to mind. It's another historical drama taking place at a Manchester Hotel in the 1920s. The friendship here is ironically one that gets cut off before it can really get strong, but I think it works just as well. It's between two chambermaids, Kate and Monica. They gravitate towards each other, but also disagree on the way they relate to the guests of the hotel. Monica aspires to be more than a chambermaid, something Kate just finds dangerous. Avoiding spoilers, Monica gets into some serious trouble. In one of their last conversations, Monica says "we could have been friends. We could have been best friends...." To which Kate replies, "We are friends, Monica."
And they're both right. Monica's lamenting that they always had this disagreement between them and now won't really get a chance to put it behind them. Kate's saying that despite all that's happened she is Monica's friend--meaning she's ally, and her defender. And in fact Monica continues to be loom large in Kate's life even after they're separated as a lesson and a person. Both of them see kinship beyond the disagreement.
And I like the relationship a lot because of that. It shows 2 women in the same life situation with very different views on it, but who respect each other for being different--without doing the extreme "she's a bookworm and she's a party girl-she’ll help her with her homework and she’ll give her a make-over!" type route. It's more like they both recognize in each other the same intelligence, ambition to survive and succeed in the system, and they're not made into rivals because of it.
I feel that sitcoms almost deserve their own category here because damn, have they mined this or what? Just look at all the great teams of female friends who got to grow and develop over the years on sitcoms:
Rhoda/Mary (Mary Tyler Moore), Lucy/Ethel (The ones who started it all on TV with I Love Lucy), Laverne/Shirley (Laverne and Shirley), Monica/Rachel (Friends), Blanche/Rose/Dorothy/Sophia (The Golden Girls), Robin/Lily (How I Met Your Mother). I always thought Shane/Jenny made for a really interesting friendship on The L Word, thought I didn't like them as a couple. There's the classic Cagney & Lacey and Xena and Gabrielle.
It's sad that I'm trying to think of middle grade fiction that focused on a particular female friendship and so many ones I loved I wind up with a male/female friendship! One that does qualify is The Changeling by Zilpha Keatley Snyder was one excellent example (as if ZKS wasn't always writing awesome character books!) And of course, Anne/Diana from Anne of Green Gables. I also think Scarlett/Melanie is a good one.
So does anybody have any girl friendships they find particularly interesting or loved? Even some of these, if there was anything you really liked about them? I feel like when people think of stories about female friendships they always think of a particular kind of movie like Steel Magnolias or Beaches that a lot of people just dismiss because they don't like that type of movie.