why do i use so many colons omg

[elapses]

book_babe emailed me this article this morning ('A Plague of Strong Female Characters: Tough, Cold, Terse, Taciturn and Prone to Not Saying Goodbye When They Hang Up the Phone'), saying she figured I would appreciate it. Um, understatement! It is a fantastic read, an article about the conundrum of the "strong" female character which basically states how I have been feeling about that whole thing forever much more eloquently stated. Here is a v. long excerpt, but really you should read the whole thing:

“Strong women characters” are a canard. They refer to the old-fashioned “strong, silent type,” a type that tolerates very little blubbering, dithering, neuroticism, anxiety, melancholy or any other character flaw or weakness that makes a character unpredictable and human.

The absurdity of the strong-female-character expectation becomes apparent if you reverse it: Not only does calling for “strong male characters” sound ridiculous and kind of reactionary, but who really wants to watch them? They sound boring. In fact, traditional “strong male characters” have been almost entirely abandoned in favor of male characters who are blubbery, dithering, neurotic, anxious, melancholic or otherwise “weak,” because this weakness is precisely what makes characters interesting, relatable and funny.

Just to give an idea how entrenched, pervasive and distorting this idea can be: A few weeks back, I was in the car listening to Elvis Mitchell interview Paul Feig, the director of “Bridesmaids.” Mitchell remarked that “Bridesmaids” seemed an unlikely project for Feig to have taken on. Feig replied that he had wanted to do a project for “strong women characters” for a while and pointed out that, after all, “Freaks and Geeks” was Lindsay’s — a teenage girl’s — story.

Funny, Mitchell remarked, Kristen Wiig’s character in the movie didn’t exactly strike him as particularly strong — she actually seemed like kind of a mess. Feig conceded that, yes, she was kind of a mess, but it was O.K., because they had made sure to establish in two scenes that, before she was temporarily derailed by the recession, she was a talented and successful business owner and would soon be back on top.

I don’t really believe that Feig, whose movie is the first in a while to feature women who sound a lot like women, thinks that the reason that we feel empathy and not contempt for Wiig’s delightfully, deliriously, awesomely messed-up and pathetic character is because she used to own a bakery. I think he meant it in the other sense, in the sense that he meant to do a story told strongly from a woman’s point of view. Either that or what happened was that he felt himself pulled into a discussion that’s been so distorted by this pervasive and stifling either/or fallacy that confronting it actually makes people get nervous and say weird things. I’m sure he’s perfectly aware that the movie has struck a nerve because its female characters are such a jumble of flaws and contradictions. Wiig’s not likeable despite the fact that she never gets her brake lights fixed and thoughtlessly hurts someone even as she herself is experiencing the pain of being hurt; or despite the fact that she’s jealous of her best friend’s happiness or of her best friend’s new best friend’s money and apparent perfection; or that she lingers in a destructive relationship with a guy she knows is treating her like dirt; or that, unlike the protagonists of the average romantic comedy aimed at women, she is forced to live with weirdos, who treat her miserably, and she doesn’t live in an adorable downtown loft complete with a pale blue refrigerator that retails for $2,000. (Nice touch, “Something Borrowed.”) We don’t relate to her despite the fact that she is weak, we relate to her because she is weak.

If you will indulge me while I talk about myself: I was my parents' first child, and as two young, liberal, Austin hippie-types in the very late 80s/early 90s, they had all kinds of lofty ideas about how I would be raised. They prepared for me with gender-neutral toys like Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys and large, ambiguous blocks. They vowed never to buy me barbies and anything else that might expose me to beauty standards. My television and movie choices were heavily screened. When I was two, my dad would take me to the park to watch the girls play soccer, in hopes that I would imprint on them or something and turn into a soccer star.

I didn't, though. In fact I aggressively pursued every stereotype of femininity: as soon as I was old enough to have a say in what I wore, pants were out. Dresses and skirts only, and the "spinnier" they were the more worthy of attention they were. I took, at various points in my childhood, ballet, violin, piano, figure skating, and gymnastics, and did my best to avoid anything "sporty". I only wanted to watch movies about princesses and balls. I had zero interest in socializing with boys, other than a brief "romance" with a boy named Chance when I was three. I decided I wanted barbies, so my grandparents bought them for me (actually though my dad did too, just once: my fifth birthday party, he went against all his principles and bought me the thing I wanted most: Happy Birthday barbie).

I'm 21 now, but I am honestly not that far from the four-year-old that I was. My favorite way to broach small talk is "I love your shoes!" I like chick flicks so much more than I like action movies, 98% of the time. All of my truly strong friendships have been with other women. My favorite topic of conversation is gossip. My wardrobe is so aggressively skirt-y that I tend to own one pair of non-sweat-or-pajama pants at a time (my identity in high school was "that weird girl who always wears dresses and heels"). I suppose that there are still some ways in which I differ from the absolute feminine stereotype: I'm not particularly overemotional, I was good at science and math, and I tend to be a bit of a commitment-phobe. But I am, and have always been, like 95% there. Girliest of girly girls, what can I say. And it is dumb but I feel a sort of automatic connection to other girls: I mean, I don't know, however different we are, we probably went through the same insecure teenage years. There are stupid shallow girly things I can (usually) say to them that I can't say to boys: and I need that sometimes, I mean both the last text and the last email I sent out were related to me painting my nails. (On that note I can specifically remember the last four conversations I had with boys my age because I always have to reach for topics, and they were: physics vs biology, indie music [which is actually hard with boys sometimes because they never want to talk about poppy british indie, just like the boring rough stuff], MBTI typing/birth order psychology, and Star Trek. BUT LET'S BE REAL I EVEN WATCH STAR TREK THE 'GIRLY' WAY, cannot be tamed). There's a whole conversation to be had about how "girly" stuff is sociologically coded as "bad"/trivial and "boy" stuff that is just as trivial is coded as worthy/superior, and how so many girls pat themselves on the back for not being into "stupid" girl stuff, and how even smart, intelligent, self-identified feminists will walk into a bar and comment on how many "sorostitues" are out tonight, or see a pack of 15-year-olds shopping together and say "they look annoying". But no, that article was about fictional women, so let's bring it back to that.

The point is that I have always had this general tendency to gravitate towards women, in life and also in fiction. When I was little I liked to read books about girls, like Anne Shirley and Alanna of Trebond and various members of the Babysitters' club. And when I got into tv it was much the same: sometimes I was fond of boys, but I was always fondest of fellow females. (I think it is in everyone's nature, especially when they are younger, to want to see characters that are like them in fiction: whether that means physically or emotionally or situationally, and it's hard to find "people like me" who are male. Which doesn't mean I like characters only because I identify with them: a lot of my favorites are not like me at all. I just, you know, it's there.) Which ends up meaning I spend a lot of my internet time mad at the universe because no one ever wants to talk about the things I want to talk about. And in a lot of ways the newish-but-not-really-anymore wave of fandom feminism/general political correctness has helped because people are at least aware that girls should be paid attention to too, but a lot of times it's also just. Awkward, I don't know. Because people have "lady shows" and they feel obligated to like "lady characters" and also I feel like when I express frustrations (like WHY DO PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT THE GOOD WIFE ONLY TALK ABOUT CARY) I sound snotty or something? It's like this weird attitude that liking girl characters makes us better people or something weird like that. I don't know. Sometimes I have a hard time with my own reactions, because there is a lot I will excuse from female characters that I won't from male characters (see: my reaction to manpain vs my reaction to ladypain), and that is just the way I am, and is it fair to judge l if other people are the same way but then opposite? Okay with manpain, not okay with ladypain? Because if it is then it's like I'm asserting I'm a better person just because of the way I intrinsically am. And I don't think I am. It's just hard to figure out where everything fits, because there's something awkward about everyone forcing themselves to pay attention to characters because they are girls or because they are characters of color, but at the same time we DO need to do that, we do all need to learn to check our privilege and wonder about the ways society shapes the way we view gender and the way we view race. But the fact is there are people out there who will go on about their favorite female characters when they want to make a specific point about what great feminists they are (but meanwhile all the omgsqueeing is still about boys, LIKE JUST OWN WHAT YOU ACTUALLY LIKE), and other people who will defensively assert that they like boys because women "just aren't written well". And sometimes they aren't! And that needs to be discussed of course, but the point is that, in life and in fandom and everything, women are held up to these weird imaginary standards that men aren't held up to. Even self-purported fandom feminists will do it: use pseudo-academic language to tear down a female character because she doesn't measure up to their standard of what a "feminist character" should be.

Is that really what we want? All the women in fiction to be stoic scientists who know how to work a gun and don't ever want children who are supernaturally gorgeous but don't ever embody feminine traits outside of their appearance? Because sometimes I totally love that. But I also wish we were ready to broach insecurity and motherhood and sexual confusion and fear of growing up and body image and all all the weird little things that make us flawed. But instead it's like we just want to gloss over the parts of these hbic-y or whatever female characters that are flawed and interesting and different, and just talk about how "flawless" they are all the time. Sometimes "strong female character" really just feels like a stupid buzzword meant to tell us which girls are and aren't worthy of our time. And then there's the diversion into how we are definining "strong", because it is basically used to mean one of three possible things: a) a female character who is physically strong/masculine, b) a female character who has strength of mind/character, c) a well-written female character, and no one ever specifies what they mean. Kara Thrace may be a and c, but she is a MESS, and River Tam is a but is she b and c? WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN WE TALK ABOUT THEM, OR ANYONE THAT WAY?

Anyway: I think we spend too much time talking about who qualifies for a and b when we should really be asking for c. And in that way (AND EVERY WAY) I think that the NYT article got it perfectly right.



God I talk a lot, AND DO I EVEN SAY ANYTHING??!?! Rarely.

Also I feel like I should note that I cannibalized some/a lot of this post from an email I sent thecolorbetween a couple of months ago, HI CLAIRE

Comments

[care-says.livejournal.com]

I want to respond to this!!!!! I have a lot of thoughts. But first I got distracted that you were talking about MBTI and I wanted to be like, "OMG I LOVE TALKING ABOUT MBTI!!!!!!!" So...yeah.

Also, I think I should do more on the interwebs, so here goes...you know, commenting on friends' LJ entries.

[elapses.livejournal.com]

MBTI IS LIKE MY FAVORITE THING TO TALK ABOUT, the degree to which I like typing randoms is... well, it is. What type are you?

[care-says.livejournal.com]

ISFJ. I have gotten ESFJ once, but I think it might be a fluke.

WHAT ARE YOOOU???

(Ohmigod, I have done like two workshops on MBTI and taken a million different tests and I could basically talk about it FOREVER.)

[elapses.livejournal.com]

I'm an INTJ! Kind of an INTX, I'm pretty borderline on the J/P scale. I'VE NEVER DONE WORKSHOPS THOUGH, or studied it at all academically, I just like talking about it. Actually that specific conversation was about how that friend had cross-referenced all the MBTI types with that enneagram test, which kind of sounds super cool but also sounds superfluous, idk I feel like MBTI is such a good way to describe people that I don't even usually remember what I get on other types of personality tests.

[frey-at-last.livejournal.com]

See I've always felt like MBTI was kind of deficient (not to mention hard to understand), and I like the enneagram better. Even though, still, on the enneagram, I can't pick between two types that seem inadequate to fit me on their own. But. It is still way more obvious to me that I'm 1&5 than that I'm INTJ/INTP.

[care-says.livejournal.com]

You can be either one of those and still have characteristics of the other. I am very J, so that's hard to for me to say if I could be a P, but I do vacillate between E and I, but I connect more strongly with I so I go with it.

What parts of INTJ/INTP do you not agree with?

[frey-at-last.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's not so much not agreeing with parts of the profiles (which also change a bit depending on where you're getting them; it's been a while since I've read through them), but how they're schematized, or something. I don't trust the quizzes, for the most part, because I can't answer half of the questions without knowing more about the circumstance, so I've mostly read the profiles on both these systems. That said, the tests have put me basically in the vicinity of the ones I listed. ANYWAY, I think a lot of it has to do with the way that the enneagram links each type to the other, and especially the way it describes healthy and unhealthy stages of each type. The fact that the MBTI seems to just have static types (I haven't studied it or anything) is a big drawback.

AND I don't like how you choose between these polar choices in the categories - I or E, J or P, etc. It's way less intuitive and recognizable to me than enneagram clusters of traits all based around a basic fear/goal/etc.

[care-says.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the questions usually stress me out. I can spend ten minutes on one of them being like, "WHY ISN'T THERE AN IN-BETWEEN OPTION??? WHY WON'T THEY BE MORE SPECIFIC????" and then I'm all anxious about it. Which could just be that I'm neurotic, but. Yeah.

That's really interesting about the enneagram. I haven't known anything about it so I'm taking a sample right now to see how I do and what I get.

Some people do resent MBTI for that reason. I know quite a few people who are very resistant to it. I mean, it's a tool. I use it for work sometimes. My boss and I came to a realization that I am an S and she's an N only a few months ago and I think it was really eye-opening for both of us. But also when I did an all-day workshop on MBTI, it was much more clearly defined for me than it had been in the reading I'd done on my own.

[frey-at-last.livejournal.com]

SERIOUSLY, I can't handle all the lack of context and specificity in the questions. FACT: I recently failed out of a personality test to be hired at JC Penney as a sales person, so I totally get crazy about which... answer... really... applies! I guess mixing that with "which answer do they want to hear? and are any of the answers supposed to show that I'm just faking?" doomed me.

The other thing I hate about being asked questions about myself is -- they ask you "which do you value?" And I'm stuck thinking, uhh, which one do I end up doing, or which one do I VALUE? Or even worse, which one do I think I am, when I'm really that other one? I honestly don't see how people get anywhere with those tests! :)

Haha, even with the enneagram, I was introduced to it by someone who'd done a lot more reading on it. She's tried to type a bunch of people, so she was really surprised when I really couldn't fit into just one, or one and its wing (5 is not 1's wing). IDK, maybe I'm fooling myself and in another ten years I'll know which one is more accurate.

[care-says.livejournal.com]

I ALWAYS THINK THAT WHEN I'M FILLING OUT PERSONALITY TESTS. Less with MBTI these days, but with silly ones like those. They always stress me out. Do you also get really judge-y of yourself? Whenever it asks me things like, "YOU GIVE TOO MUCH OF YOURSELF TO OTHERS", I'm all like, what the fuck am I supposed to answer? I mean, if I say yes, I kind of sound like a douchebag, but if I say no, it kind of still makes me sound like a douchebag. Am I just doomed to douchebaggery?

If they have a scale, I more often than not end up in the middle because of my indecisiveness/anxiety.

Apparently I'm a 2, wing 1. Which kind of makes sense? I don't know. For me, the MBTI works remarkably well. I may have to do more reading up on the enneagram. But actually, haha, I love typing people in MBTI. Which really is just for funsies.

[frey-at-last.livejournal.com]

YES, EXACTLY. And questions like that are already conditioned by your personality - someone who is pretty insular might think, yes, I give too much of myself already, it exhausts me - so they say "yes," but maybe the question is weighted for that same personality-type to read it and think, "no, I really don't give too much, I stay within my narrow limits of how much I should give of myself," and answer "no." Then you could have the same confusion with a person who tends to over-extend themselves. SO DUMB.

[elapses.livejournal.com]

I don't think MBTI necessarily describes people the best (maybe enneagram is better for that) but I think it categorizes them really, really well. You and I sitting on the INTJ/INTP bridge together is the perfect example of it because I feel like we are different enough that no one would really describe us as especially similar people? But there's a degree to which we react to things the same way, sometimes I really relate to your introspection (like your last entry, for example, was exactly, precisely me). A couple of my best friends have also been INTJs, and I feel like even though we were widely variant as people there was always this underlying connection of similar thought patterns. So maybe it's that: that I like the way it describes the way people approach things, even if it doesn't necessarily always perfectly describe the way they are.

[care-says.livejournal.com]

INTJ! The Mastermind! You're super rare. =D Although I have met like four or five of you by now, so apparently you are not as rare in my life as one would think. But most of my friends are N's.

My best friend K (kindness_says) says that I am an S that wants to be an N, which I think is probably true. But despite wanting, I am very much S, F, and J. Sometimes I wish I had less feelings.

Have you read the Kiersey descriptors of MBTI personalities?

Also, I am Googling the enneagram thing right now. I don't think I knew about it!

[frey-at-last.livejournal.com]

INTJs run RAMPANT on the internet. I saw this post somewhere - I forget where or how - where people were being polled, and INTJs were, like, 50%.

[care-says.livejournal.com]

Now that you say that, it makes a whole lot of sense. But WHOA, 50%. I guess the interwebs are the safest place for INTJs though. They can interact with people through the safety of their computer screens and don't really have to deal with feelings (well, sometimes).

[frey-at-last.livejournal.com]

The internet is ideal for that, and for being Thinky and Judgey, all at once! Let me just tell you.

[care-says.livejournal.com]

Okay, so what's funny about this is that I think this sometimes when I watch shows and it's like "SHE'S SUCH A BADASS BECAUSE SHE'S SO UNFEELING AND SHE'S ONE OF THE DUDES" and...whatever. I lose interest pretty fast.

I also feel these things a lot in conjunction with my sexual/gender identity and what I'm presenting to the world at large. Because for the most part I dress like a boy and can be a bit emotionally slow (like a stereotypical dude would be, but maybe an unfeeling lady might also be?), but I love Pride & Prejudice and rom-coms and I'm afraid of spiders and horror movies. Like, what does that make me? Is there one mold I'm conforming to?

My ex-girlfriend E was super femme-y, but she was also totally badass. Like, she could drive a tractor and knew how to use power tools and spent a summer building bridges and maintaining trails in state parks. And she would kill bugs for me. So, you know, there was a lot about our relationship that was pretty butch vs. femme on our parts and a lot of it that wasn't (she is also an INTJ, so the T vs F thing sometimes was weird; I have a lot of feelings, apparently).

I don't even know if this comment made any sense, but. What I really want to say is YES. YEEEESSSS. Awesome ladies are awesome ladies are awesome ladies. I don't need my ladies stoic and gun-toting. They can wear kitten heels and pencil skirts and enjoy their fruity alcoholic drinks. But I don't want my women dumb; I want them smart and sassy. And if they wield a motherfucking gun while doing a hairflip, that's pretty hot.

Also, Alanna of Trebond was awesome. And so was the BSC.

[elapses.livejournal.com]

Ahhh see I love how both you and your ex both exemplify how most women are not all one way or all the other: because I think there's a lot of that missing in fiction sometimes! And really who is all one way? It's like a lot of the people involved in making movies and tv (I think books are more well-rounded here a lot of the time, although obviously not always) are so stuck in "feminine" or "not feminine at all" (except for the stilettos and makeup and hair of course) that they lose the contradictions in it that most of us have. It is just... variety would be nice. That's all, really.

But it totally made sense and that is what I want too! Smart, sassy, fun women who are woman-ly, whether that means feminine or not. AND ALANNA WAS AMAZING, and I am totally not-at-all ashamed to say Stacy McGill was my favorite babysitter, whatever, bratty snotty fashionable girls ~originally from New York~ are SOMETIMES THE GREATEST. (But no, they were all great.)

[frey-at-last.livejournal.com]

I think fandom will always have issues because it is half literature (which is half philosophy, half theology, half poetry) and half play. I don't want to fight off any pro-fic people - it's my more or less steady opinion at this point, after ten years in fandom, and being on the verge of thinking of fic as As Legitimate As Anything in the past but getting past that, so, I'm just saying that to bracket what I will say next, which is:

Liking characters the way we do in fandom is weird, right? For me, anyway, you end up identifying more with a character, entering into that character more, than you might in, say, James Agee's "A Death In the Family." I'm picking that at random because I know there is no fandom for "A Death in the Family." So it takes something a little more than "interesting" or "well-written" to give birth to a fandom. But the communal aspect is also inflammatory. Somebody else liking a character can make you see things about the character, enter into him/her more, or just chase after their experience and make it your own by liking that character.

That tangled mess is really why I've never gotten into dealing with the race/gender discussions about characters in fandom (other than commenting on how the show creators might treat those issues) because, yes, we can track statistical problems or focus on certain kinds of explanations that we think are disingenuous or just make excuses, but... we're playing. There has to be something free when we play. I don't mean "you are free to go on pretending you hate female characters because they are X and Y", but, if it's all pre-planned in accordance with political ends and social consciousness, it's not really what it was, anymore. You can teach kids on the playground about what is off-limits, the parameters of civility, but you can't write their lines for them; there has to be something unthinking, investing, PLAYful about it. They have to indulge the secondary reality for long enough to get the satisfaction from it.

So uh, that's a ton of blathering about just one of the things you mentioned in this post.

I am not "girly" and have trouble even interacting with basic girly things - but for me it's more about not being trivial. I have buckets of scorn for trivial male activities, as well. I'm basically the snob everybody hates. *g* No, that's not true, there are exceptions. I like baseball, inside jokes, knowing lots of details about a given thing... okay, my attempt to come up with things has ended.

But I love Liz Lemon! Her whole life is sort of trivial. Yay Liz!

[elapses.livejournal.com]

You can teach kids on the playground about what is off-limits, the parameters of civility, but you can't write their lines for them; there has to be something unthinking, investing, PLAYful about it. They have to indulge the secondary reality for long enough to get the satisfaction from it.
Oh hmm, I really like your take on this! Because you are so right about the underlying aspect of play, and that's where I think the upsprig of social consciouness in fandom goes wrong, because it starts to dictate which characters we should love and like and also at times shames people for not following that pattern, but the fact is liking someone to the degree that we in fandom tend to cannot be predicted or planned or changed. And when you're so busy trying to see things the "right" way it can definitely strip some of the enjoyment out of it. Ultimately I'm still glad it happened because think it's important that fandom became more aware of these things: fandom can be a pretty good example of the troubling way a lot of women look at/think of other women, but. Definitely a double-edged sword.

Hahah! Baseball/sports in general are what I was thinking of specifically when I mentioned male trivial things, but I didn't want to say it because I feel like because I'm not particularly interested in it it would come off as a slight to those who are: but no, I like that it's trivial, I think it's pretty healthy to like some trivial things as long as you can balance your life out with non-triviality. What bothers me is the perception of male-coded trivial things as less "silly" than female-coded ones. That is the perfect description of Liz Lemon though, love it.

[aliice.livejournal.com]

(like WHY DO PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT THE GOOD WIFE ONLY TALK ABOUT CARY) OMG SO TRUE. I like Cary and all but he;s actually just kind of boring.

Really like what you said here, I think it hits a lot of points that frankly sometimes I am ashamed of admitting or some things that I completely agree with you on. Honestly, in asian dramas.. they have often two characters - cute and helpless or beautiful and bitchy ex-girlfriend. Like ASDHALSKCALKSMDJNOWIERJLSDJFj. But I continue to watch for completely shallow reasons. And at some points I can totally relate to these women and their flaws. Even if as a feminist (in the vaguest terms), I don't want her to cry over some asshole, why can't she get over it, why is she weak etc!! But I know I have done that before so why can't she? So I agree, we need to embrace the flaws. I think sometimes self-purported feminists (definitely me included) really try to measure up women to our socially shaped standards of what a "strong" women should be and how can that work, really ever since there are still less women represented, less women writers, and a long history of the representation of women and etc. etc?

AND ALSO AGREE THAT WE ARE TOO FORGIVING OF MEN CHARACTERS. they can have all these weaknesses and flaws, but we can't? f that

anyway A+ entry!! I love thinking/reading about these things, sometimes we really get caught up in fandom and stop being critical about how we feel about characters.

[elapses.livejournal.com]

IT'S LIKE, I GET THAT HE'S LIKEABLE AND HIS ARC IS AT TIMES INTERESTING, but man he is so far from the most interesting character on that show!

Ahhh asian dramas! Yeah I've only watched a couple (and they were all kdramas, I haven't seen any Japanese/Taiwanese dramas so idk if this applies to them) but that is like a whole new level of gender discussion, I have a lot of trouble getting through a lot of them because the way a lot of the males are portrayed: usually the lead is really controlling/physically dominating. I get that they're often going for a love/hate kind of thing but sometimes it just kind of feels like borderline abusive behavior? And yeah a lot of the girls fit into those same two stereotypes (with the ex-girlfriends especially it's like a lot of the time they can't even be BOTHERED to make them two-dimensional). (Lol my favorite drama is SO SO TERRIBLE in so many ways but the reason I liked it so much is because it didn't play into those tropes at all.) Anyway that was a really good thing to bring up, dramas really good example because they do tend to present the same women over and over and that's ultimately the problem: what we need is a greater variety of women in all kinds of fiction. Strong girls, weak girls, girly girls, tomboys: everything. It's just hard when there's this general judgment we extend to any girl who doesn't fit the exact pattern of what "feminism" is or should be. We need to get over that!

[misters.livejournal.com]

this reminds me of an article i read a while ago where the author said that what the media keeps writing is female character: strong instead of strong character: female, and i think that's really accurate. so many "strong female characters" are considered strong because of all these stereotypically masculine traits: they drink and smoke and fix cars and shoot guns, and that automatically gives them ~depth. BECAUSE STEREOTYPICALLY FEMININE CHARACTERS ARE ALWAYS FLAT AND TWO-DIMENSIONAL, OBVS. idk part of why i loved bridesmaids was because it was so unapologetically feminine at the same time that it was realistic and something that dudes could watch too. (not that i particularly gaf about whether or not it ~appeals to men~ but you know what i mean.) and ia so hard on the whole pseudo-intellectual tearing down of female characters. it's like no matter how a character is written, she's not good enough. if she's cute and feminine, the author is playing into a stereotype; if she's "strong" and masculine, the author is revealing their sexism by avoiding femininity. which isn't to say that that can't be a legitimate criticism because ofc it can, but it's rare to see a female character be praised for being flawed and having a multifaceted personality.

also alanna for life

[elapses.livejournal.com]

it's like no matter how a character is written, she's not good enough. if she's cute and feminine, the author is playing into a stereotype; if she's "strong" and masculine, the author is revealing their sexism by avoiding femininity.
ahhh YES this is so good, because yes I remember that article too and ultimately the problem is absolutely that we always, always define female characters first and foremost by their femaleness. You can write a (white) male character pretty much any way you want and few will comment on whether it's "correct" or stereotypical or whatever, but with girls it's just so delicate. Like a month ago I stayed at a friend's house and I guess we were being loud at 2am because her downstairs neighbor came up to chat with us for awhile and apparently he was writing some scifi novel and the second-in-command on the ship was female? And he asked us, as females, how one might write a strong female character, because he just couldn't figure out her motivation. AND THAT'S IT RIGHT THERE, the female xo and the male captain are ultimately both just characters. If you can figure out his motivation, you should be able to figure out hers. What is cultural the brain block there?

[misters.livejournal.com]

that sort of question is so strange to me. like, think of a male character and come up with his quirks and flaws and dreams, and then just...make it a woman. i mean obviously that isn't the best way to go about creating a character since there are some female-specific (and male-specific) traits, but when you get down to it people really aren't that different. it's so frustrating how female characters are always, in some way or another, matching up with some negative stereotype while a male character is seen as being layered and complex.

also, an aside: have you watched the show necessary roughness? (it just started on the usa network) because OH MY GOD that is a strong, female character ♥___♥ you should definitely watch the pilot episode if you have the chance—i know it's available on comcast on demand, if you have that.

[elapses.livejournal.com]

Yes exactly! And I mean I do think there's some essential part of male-ness and female-ness that we all have if only because of socialization: it's doubtful that a girl and a boy with the exact same personality would have the same experience growing up because people would probably react to them differently? (For the same reason I think "colorblind" casting like they did for Grey's Anatomy is kind of weird: I mean on one level it's great, it just seems like people are... not defined by, but shaped by their race in some ways, so it's weird to create a character and then figure out their cultural background. But maybe not! I guess if you're writing a pilot you don't really get that deep into that stuff for the most part, and you can take all that into consideration later...) OKAY BUT YEAH, basically yes you can't completely do that, but it's not like women aren't ruled by revenge or greed or impulsiveness or whatever motivates your male characters? It's not that hard. But yes this: it's so frustrating how female characters are always, in some way or another, matching up with some negative stereotype while a male character is seen as being layered and complex. Because like, even though sometimes it is the writing, a lot of the time it's not really the writing, just the fact that almost everyone has this impulse to pick apart female characters looking for stereotypes.

I haven't even heard of it!! Thank you for pointing it out though, now I want to check it out.

[misters.livejournal.com]

i'm not familiar with grey's anatomy so i can't really comment on their casting choices, but yeah things like race and gender get tricky. because of course you want to represent a diverse group of people, but you also can't write a couple characters and then randomly assign race to them, at least not in this context. a black woman who's a doctor will have had to work much harder to get there than a white man (or possibly even a black man), and the way she conducts herself will be informed by that.

and as for the stereotyping thing, it's such a delicate balance that i think it's hard not to fall into it. i know that i do it, too, and whenever i catch myself wanting to dismiss a character because she's "stereotypical" i force myself to stop and think about what it is that i don't like about her, and whether that's a result of the writing or of my own internalized sexism.

[elapses.livejournal.com]

a black woman who's a doctor will have had to work much harder to get there than a white man (or possibly even a black man), and the way she conducts herself will be informed by that.
That is exactly what I was getting at! And yeah I actually haven't seen Grey's so I have no idea how they actually did it/fleshed out the characters, I just know the casting process for the leads (and possibly the guests/everyone actually I have no idea) is colorblind.

There really is such a fine line there!

[veils.livejournal.com]

Ugh why do you articulate things so well I love you. I want to save this post and show it to everyone who is wrong and also just read it a lot myself.

[elapses.livejournal.com]

Aw thank you, LOVE YOU TOO.

(SAM I RAN INTO A POLE LAST NIGHT AND IT HURTS)

[veils.livejournal.com]

How did you manage that, drunky???

[elapses.livejournal.com]

Well I broke my phone

And I was so sad about that I had to text Erin and say nevermind I would actually not like to walk back to the bar and hang out with the boys we'd met, and unfortunately I was walking at that moment and BOOM, beaned myself with a pole.

[veils.livejournal.com]

That is both unfortunate and lolarious.

BB I AM RLY SAD BECAUSE I JUST REMEMBERED IT'S ONLY LIKE TWO WEEKS UNTIL NO MORE HAPPY POTTER.

[veils.livejournal.com]

that typo was not intentional but i'm leaving it because it still makes sense

[elapses.livejournal.com]

It was extra sad and lolarious when I got home and couldn't figure out why it hurt to wear underwear

BECAUSE YOU RAN YOUR PELVIS INTO A POLE, ALEXANDRA, THAT'S WHY

LOL IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO FIND IT, that is a perfect typo. But I am sorry god it really is so soon :(

[summerstorm.livejournal.com]

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.

[elapses.livejournal.com]

Ah yes you hit on so much of what I feel! Like, ultimately I think it's hard to call the fandom wave of social consciousness a bad thing: it's made so many people (myself included!) more aware of the complexities of racism and sexism and sociology in general, even if only in passing, and that is important! It's fantastic that a lot of people are less quick to dismiss someone as whiny or annoying (those really are such big ones with the stereotypically female character).

I also definitely relate to your second paragraph and I think my Good Wife thing is a really good example of that: show talk on my flist specifically really was so Cary-focused this year (although I think that's shifting: so many new people are watching this summer! So I think I can look forward to being less of a grouchbucket) And while on some level it was frustrating to see discussion of a show with two fantastic, prominent female characters center around the cute white dude... there is nothing actually wrong with loving Cary the most! It's not like my friendslist is full of misogynists who never love girls, and it's not like people don't love Alicia and Kalinda, Cary just happened to be their favorite. You can't predict the way your brain is going to react to something, sometimes we just like what we like, and it doesn't tie back to race or gender. But it really is hard to be less aware now: man I felt SO WEIRD with myself when I came out of Parks & Rec and realized my favorite was dude, even though there's ultimately nothing wrong or bad about that. It's just hard to jump outside the mindset sometimes.

[irishmizzy.livejournal.com]

I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS POST!!!!

I also wish we were ready to broach insecurity and motherhood and sexual confusion and fear of growing up and body image and all all the weird little things that make us flawed.

I agree with this so hard. I don't know if it's because there was a dearth of female characters at some point (I grew up reading the BSC and Little House on the Prairie and watching shows like Full House and Buffy and I never felt like I was wanting for relatable characters until I was older, because I think the media has actively tried to make stuff that's accessible to younger girls for a while now) but the backlash against that seems to be the whole "strong female character" answer, where you get people like Kara Thrace and Buffy Summers and Sydney Bristow. And don't get me wrong: I love all those characters, it's just they are all variations of the same idea, which is: girls can kick ass, too! And maybe it's because one of those shows was successful so now there are hundreds of them, just like once we had one CSI we got 40. But after a point it gets lazy and less fulfilling and I wish we could have the important people in Hollywood recognize that what most people (I think? I hope) want is a "complex female character." Which was basically your thesis statement, so... yes, is what I'm saying.

The good thing is it's happening, I think -- Parks and Rec, The Good Wife, FNL, Pam Beesly before the writing got lazy, I'm sure other shows I can't remember/don't watch/etc -- but it'll probably be slow, and for some reason I think they're harder to find in movies than on TV, which is why Bridesmaids was such a ~cultural phenomenon ~ or whatever they're calling it. But now that it's happened I'm sure there'll be a tidal wave of "girl movies" where everyone's a mess, but if one in every ten is well-written and hits home the way Bridesmaids did for me, then A++.

[elapses.livejournal.com]

I never felt that way either, growing up! I didn't even think about it. But I think you're right about the media targeting younger girls: teenage girls are huge consumers of media and anyone who produces this stuff would be stupid to overlook that demographic. So maybe the problem is that once we're twenty-something or thirty-something, the higher-ups have no interest in catering to us specifically anymore because it's more profitable to put out something that will appeal to both men and women. And a gun-toting, ass-kicking, stoic woman usually does that (if she's hot). They're a dime a dozen now, especially in action movies and bad procedurals. And I love some (a lot!) of those characters and I am so glad they are part of media, but they are not everything and they should not be all we see. (Also of course Sydney Bristow fits the general mold but one of my favorite things about her is that when her life is a wreck and she feels sad and betrayed, she cries about it, but that doesn't take away from the fact that she is strong and steely and good at what she does.)

But yes you are so right, there are some really amazing ones. Pam is (was, really) the most perfect example because she is so regular and plain and imperfect and... I love that I can use those adjectives to describe why and how much I love her, rather than just saying she was "flawless". Because she wasn't a nuclear physicist and she didn't always feel like bothering to do her hair, but she still learned and grew and it was fabulous. Hopefully more and more writers and showrunners and producers will be able to see how all of the shows you mentioned worked in that respect and more of them will try to imitate them in that way. But Bridesmaids is almost a bigger deal because it is so very public in a way those shows haven't always been, so it can act as a trendsetter. Hopefully, anyway!

[jsharia.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed reading this post. I think it was very interesting what you brought up here. (but first, quick shout out to Alanna and the Immortals series, HOLLA!) I do tend to like those characters that people define as "Strong female characters" (be they a or b) but I think it is important to note their flaws. And I think it is the flaws that makes a character into someone I love. Do people really just talk about Cary btw? Cause that is stupid. He shows up in my convos, but mostly I spend my time waxing poetic about how Alicia is my favorite. Looking at her, I'd say she was definitely both b and c in your types of strong women. I think she is epic always, but it is the little cracks we also get to see that I think help me connect with her and I think that shows should NOT over look this so I agree with you 100%.

Just the other day I was watching a show and a guy did something I didn't like, but when a girl was about to do the same thing, I found I minded it far less. Of course, at this exact moment I paused the show and realized what I was doing and berated myself for letting myself hold such double standards.

Anyways, I am starting to babble. I really enjoyed reading your thoughts and agreed with many of them. BUT THIS:
All the women in fiction to be stoic scientists who know how to work a gun and don't ever want children who are supernaturally gorgeous but don't ever embody feminine traits outside of their appearance? Because sometimes I totally love that. But I also wish we were ready to broach insecurity and motherhood and sexual confusion and fear of growing up and body image and all all the weird little things that make us flawed. But instead it's like we just want to gloss over the parts of these hbic-y or whatever female characters that are flawed and interesting and different YES.

[elapses.livejournal.com]

I loved Alanna SO MUCH and Daine too but omg I couldn't finish the last book because of Daine/Numair, HE WAS SO MUCH OLDER THAN HER!! And don't get me wrong some of my very favorites are "strong female characters", in fact my very favorite (Dana Scully) in many ways fits the stereotype to a TEE. They are great! But sometimes they can be one-dimensional too, and they shouldn't be the be-all end-all of women in fiction. We need them, but we also need variety, and we especially need to recognize that strength doesn't just come in one package, and we're not "bad" if we're not strong. But yeah my flist mostly talks about him!! But yes Alicia is definitely b and c, SHE IS SO WELL-WRITTEN and she does have a ton of strength of character (she's my favorite too) but ugh I love how quiet she is too, that they write her as strong without falling into tropeishness.

But yeah I do the same thing tbh, specifically I JUST REALLY HATE WHEN MEN ARE ALL ~TORTURED BY THEIR PAST~ and meanwhile I... kind of enjoy it when girls are like that. We all have our things, I guess.

[torigates.livejournal.com]

Okay, first things first: sdjlfkdsjfdsjldjfskdjfjfjs THIS ENTRY I WANT TO DRAW HEARTS AROUND IT FOREVER! I am sorry I am commenting a bit late, I wanted to be in the right mind to really sort out my feeling. BUT SO MANY FEELINGS! Okay, let's do this:

There's a whole conversation to be had about how "girly" stuff is sociologically coded as "bad"/trivial and "boy" stuff that is just as trivial is coded as worthy/superior, and how so many girls pat themselves on the back for not being into "stupid" girl stuff, and how even smart, intelligent, self-identified feminists will walk into a bar and comment on how many "sorostitues" are out tonight, or see a pack of 15-year-olds shopping together and say "they look annoying". But no, that article was about fictional women, so let's bring it back to that.

Sorry to quote a whole PARAGRAPH at you, but YES THIS SO MUCH. I am so into this kind of semiotics and I feel like outside of hardcore academia no one really talks about it. SUCH A SHAME. But I think this point is super important, even if, as you say, it's not directly related to the topic of fandom. Except it kind of is, for all the other things you go on to talk about how we are striving for the physical/mental strength in our characters instead of the well-written character, etc. And I love your point about how a lot of characters can be strong in the first two ways that you mentioned, but how many of them are really "strong" in the third. AND IF THEY ARE then likely we're not talking about them, and why is that the case??

Even self-purported fandom feminists will do it: use pseudo-academic language to tear down a female character because she doesn't measure up to their standard of what a "feminist character" should be.

OH MY GOD I THINK I LOVE YOU. I'm not sure if you remember but a few weeks ago I posted a similar entry, basically asking what kind of endings we want for our female characters, and while a lot of people on my flist jumped on the "I DON'T WANT TRADITIONAL HETERONORMATIVE ENDINGS" not many people could tell me what they really DO want instead. It is my hugest annoyance with fandom lately that people are automatically against motherhood (among other forms of traditional femininity), instead of questioning WHY they are, or the ways in which these traditional forms are problematic. Because they can be and are, I definitely wouldn't argue otherwise, but shouldn't we be striving for more accurate representations then? ISN'T THAT WHAT WE ALL WANT.

BUT YEAH. This has already gotten absurdly long, but basically thank you for writing it. I relate to so many things you've said here, especially the bits about just GETTING other girls and women vs. boys. I don't get men at all. But I get and like ladies. SO YEAH. FEEL YA, SISTER. A+ POST.

[elapses.livejournal.com]

I DO REMEMBER THAT POST and ugh yes, I have seen people legit pretty much argue that female characters were "weak" because they were mothers, which is just... such utter bullshit. And like there's a part of me that gets the frustration with Brennan specifically I guess, because yes we do need to break away from the stereotype that all women want to ~settle down~ and nest and whatever, but... some women do want that! AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT AND WE SHOULDN'T SHAME THEM FOR IT. But also re: Brennan, is it really so weird that she would change her mind? People grow and change. I'm not sure I want kids and I have verbally said as much to people but... who's to say I won't want that, someday? I don't think it changes my strength as a person either way. It's just so stupid, the minefields we have for girls that just DON'T EXIST for men. I mean when has fandom EVER reacted negatively to fatherhood?

I am stuck on what you said about questioning why, because I think that's pretty much just the crux of this issue, it's like people are so focused on breaking some mold that they don't even step back to take stock of what's being shattered in the process.

ALSO LOL @ ME REPLYING TO YOUR COMMENT TOTALLY OUT OF ORDER I'M SO SORRY, but ahhh the specific way you phrased this: "And I love your point about how a lot of characters can be strong in the first two ways that you mentioned, but how many of them are really "strong" in the third." made me think about it in a new way, because really at this point it kind of is lazy writing to just made a head-bitch-in-charge type. It's like they sit down and say "well we need a strong woman" and just go to the default. I REALLY DO LOVE A LOT OF FANDOM'S ~FEMINIST~ HEROINES BUT AT THIS POINT COLD/SARCASTIC/TOUGH IS STARTING TO BORE ME?!? I JUST NEED BALANCE! Variety!

Anyway thank you for this lovely thoughtful not-too-late-at-all comment!

[book-babe.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of thoughts about this! I feel like i should reread the article and then what you wrote and thennn post, but whatever. I'm going off more of what you wrote here than what was in the article, because I find what you said really interesting, and I'm trying to figure out how to put my thoughts into, like, words.

I come at this from a weird angle, because I've legitimately come to realize that I don't remember most of my childhood, which somewhat scares me, but that's okay. But I had Barbies and dolls and all of that, and I think, in some ways, I am secretly more of a girly girl than I actually am. In terms of the fact that I used to love to try and paint flowers on my nails and that jazz, and I was always kind of envious of the girl who wore high heels and skirts in elementary school, though tbh I feel like I remember having conversations with my mom about how she was sort of a slut or something, idekkkk, lol elementary school drama, she was such a bitch to me. Getting sidetracked. The point is, like, I liked things like that, but I distinctly remember judging her for it. My favorite outfit was a pantssuit-ish thing I got at Marshalls that had leopard trim Iif I ever find a picture, I will share, I know they exist somewhere); but tha's also where things get sort of interesting, because I tended to lean towards pants and shorts and not really like dresses, and my best friend in kindergarten was Derrick, and we played with Tinker Toys and Legos and water guns, and like. Caitlin is not a girly girl, at all. When it comes down down to it, thinking it over, I'm pretty split between girl/guy best friends, but, like, in terms of people I consider best best best friends it's more guys than girls. And I feel like I have a lot I could analyze about that, because I - I tend to find guys more reliable, because I don't trust girls to always be there / not disappear on me when I need them. Lol family issues, maybe. But I'm with you on the ways that you're against the stereotype - I am most definitely not overemotional in the real sense of the word, I mean maybe I am sometimes when my life is all explodey, but I think that's acceptable and understandable, and while I have my personal brand of emotional crazy, it's not what I would think of as typical 'feminine' overemotional...ness. On the other hand, I couldn't get much more stereotypically ridiculously feminine re: Hans, re; C in the early stages of our friendship, re: B for parts of the past three years. SO....idk. All my other arguments might pale in comparison to that. But that's the thing and I feel like that's kind of the point re: female characters, is that they don't show both sides of that. They don't show that strong wonderful women are also weak and insecure as shit about some things. And so I think somewhere along the way it ended up making more sense to go for the male characters, to see their strengths and identify with them and project the insecurities onto them, to figure they probably went through the same things but didn't let us (their audience, their friends, the viewers, whatever) see. And that's kind of how I've always seen it, in some ways, I think. Is that there is all this stuff under the surface for them, but with a lot of female characters I just kind of feel like..."oh, okay, so you do the omg boy thing and don't do the strong thing", idk if that makes sense.

[book-babe.livejournal.com]

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.