There was that article a while ago about how people seemed to be interpreting "strong female character" as a female character who has some kind of strength as a personality trait and it was so weird for me, because I always thought what everyone meant by "strong female character" was "a strong character who is female" -- a character that's well-written and consistent, with good and bad qualities, etc. etc. Anyway, basically I get your confusion! And I relate to a lot of what you said as well. The one thing I'm thankful to that feminist wave for is that people are less quick now to hate on characters who are typically girly -- in my fannish history, I have loved a lot of those characters, because that's how I relate to fiction, and for the longest time I just found myself with a list of favorite characters that got ridiculous amounts of hate for being whiny, or weak, or annoying, and it never occurred to me until these discussions started happening that a lot of those characters were dismissed because of the ridiculously high standards people hold female characters up to.
The weirdest thing for me personally about the 'political correctness' thing fandom has going on -- the weirdest way it has affected me -- is that -- and this is not a complaint; I'm glad I'm more aware of things now -- I'm pretty sure I didn't think about characters in terms of, this is a woman/character of color/some other minority, I should make an effort to like her. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't change anything because I've always been inclined to like female characters, but it's still odd, sometimes, to be watching something and be struck with a non-emotional desire to like certain characters more than I do, or worry when I'm enjoying them less, solely because of their gender or race. And it makes me feel bad because I feel like I shouldn't pay so much attention to those things, and at the same time it's not something I should practically ignore like I used to, and I want to find a middle ground but it's hard. I think part of it is just that I've started thinking about things more critically even as I'm watching them, but it's still odd to have a marathon of a show like Leverage and suddenly think, "I haven't been enjoying Hardison as much as Parker and Sophie in the past few episodes, is this bad?" (This actually happened.)
And, I don't know where I'm going with this! I actually really like all the isms discussion that's cropped up lately, and I think I'm lucky in that I have a friendlist and a tumblr dash even who actually put their money where their mouth is. I love Cary but I actually see a lot more talk about Kalinda and Alicia, in that order. When people love minority characters, they don't come off as though they're forcing themselves to do so -- they're passionate about these characters they love, they talk and write and make graphics for them. These days I only hear about female character hate second-hand. So, I don't know, in an ideal world this would be the rule -- there wouldn't be any gross patterns of fandom hating female characters who are in any way "girly," etc. etc. -- but those patterns do exist and I appreciate that they're being talked about.
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The weirdest thing for me personally about the 'political correctness' thing fandom has going on -- the weirdest way it has affected me -- is that -- and this is not a complaint; I'm glad I'm more aware of things now -- I'm pretty sure I didn't think about characters in terms of, this is a woman/character of color/some other minority, I should make an effort to like her. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't change anything because I've always been inclined to like female characters, but it's still odd, sometimes, to be watching something and be struck with a non-emotional desire to like certain characters more than I do, or worry when I'm enjoying them less, solely because of their gender or race. And it makes me feel bad because I feel like I shouldn't pay so much attention to those things, and at the same time it's not something I should practically ignore like I used to, and I want to find a middle ground but it's hard. I think part of it is just that I've started thinking about things more critically even as I'm watching them, but it's still odd to have a marathon of a show like Leverage and suddenly think, "I haven't been enjoying Hardison as much as Parker and Sophie in the past few episodes, is this bad?" (This actually happened.)
And, I don't know where I'm going with this! I actually really like all the isms discussion that's cropped up lately, and I think I'm lucky in that I have a friendlist and a tumblr dash even who actually put their money where their mouth is. I love Cary but I actually see a lot more talk about Kalinda and Alicia, in that order. When people love minority characters, they don't come off as though they're forcing themselves to do so -- they're passionate about these characters they love, they talk and write and make graphics for them. These days I only hear about female character hate second-hand. So, I don't know, in an ideal world this would be the rule -- there wouldn't be any gross patterns of fandom hating female characters who are in any way "girly," etc. etc. -- but those patterns do exist and I appreciate that they're being talked about.