In terms of gravitating towards fictional women, (since I realized I should come back to that instead of just rambling on) though, I think that I've always kind of gravitated towards the badass ones and also fictional men. Part of that is what I had available to read / what I borrowed from my mother, but part of it is just kind of what I like, idek. Like I read Nancy Drew (who didn't) but she's not really...weak. She's a badass. (On that note, favorite: came across an old Nancy Drew movie from the fifties and she's with, idk, like, Bess, and she thinks she sees someone breaking in and tells whoever she's with to call the cops or something and says she'll hit the robber with a hammer. I can't remember the whole scene, but I remember that, and then the robber turned out to be her father who forgot his key. Like I said, badass.) And in terms book series I've read, there are a few with 'weak' female characters that are perfect and that's why I love them (see: Janet Evanovich), but the ones that are my favorites are very male centric (Robert Crais's Elvis Cole & Joe Pike novels) and that's kind of...what I identify with. Because I'm emotionally wonky and super withdrawn, and I found characters that are like that, and most of them tend to be male. In real life, we've got B and C, and I love them both to death but they are also emotionally wonky, in that I think of myself as not particularly talkative about personal things, and they make me look like...one of those people that talks about everything ever in her life, you know?
And because I should bring it back to television, because I think that's what I was originally going to write about, strong female characters or lack thereof is what made me gravitate towards male characters. I grew up on Law & Order, you know? And they're all about not talking about personal lives but also letting little bits peak out, and the men were always so much more realistic than the female characters, in some ways, because they had more screen time, more written for them, so we got more insight into their flaws and strengths and what made them human. Had that less, with the women. That's part of why I love The West Wing, because I think they do (did) a wonderful job of that with CJ. I want to see female characters who are like me, or who I think I could be like in thirty years, you know? And it's hard to find that, oftentimes, on television. CJ's strong and wonderful, but she also gets all stupid and girly over Danny (a sort of girlish, I suppose, thing, or whatever it is that her line is, I know that's close), and i have this love for that, and that's why I loved her and Danny so much, because she's acknowledging that it goes against who she seems to be but it's also something that is very much a part of her and there's nothing wrong with that.
And because I am on such TGW kick that I cannot not talk about that in this, that's why I love the show so much. Because Alicia and Kalinda and Diane are these wonderfully, wonderfully written female characters (every single time I've gone to write female I've tried to write femail. this is probably a problem.); and there's this duality to them that is lovely and real and wonderful and in some ways I identify a hell of a lot with Alicia and a hell of a lot with Kalinda and I just find that really interesting and I have more words on that one that probably relate nicely to this but this is a super long comment, so. I am going to stop typing. Truth.
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Date: 2011-07-09 11:32 pm (UTC)And because I should bring it back to television, because I think that's what I was originally going to write about, strong female characters or lack thereof is what made me gravitate towards male characters. I grew up on Law & Order, you know? And they're all about not talking about personal lives but also letting little bits peak out, and the men were always so much more realistic than the female characters, in some ways, because they had more screen time, more written for them, so we got more insight into their flaws and strengths and what made them human. Had that less, with the women. That's part of why I love The West Wing, because I think they do (did) a wonderful job of that with CJ. I want to see female characters who are like me, or who I think I could be like in thirty years, you know? And it's hard to find that, oftentimes, on television. CJ's strong and wonderful, but she also gets all stupid and girly over Danny (a sort of girlish, I suppose, thing, or whatever it is that her line is, I know that's close), and i have this love for that, and that's why I loved her and Danny so much, because she's acknowledging that it goes against who she seems to be but it's also something that is very much a part of her and there's nothing wrong with that.
And because I am on such TGW kick that I cannot not talk about that in this, that's why I love the show so much. Because Alicia and Kalinda and Diane are these wonderfully, wonderfully written female characters (every single time I've gone to write female I've tried to write femail. this is probably a problem.); and there's this duality to them that is lovely and real and wonderful and in some ways I identify a hell of a lot with Alicia and a hell of a lot with Kalinda and I just find that really interesting and I have more words on that one that probably relate nicely to this but this is a super long comment, so. I am going to stop typing. Truth.