Swell!

I'm re-watching the first dvd I ever owned - Pleasantville - which I haven't seen in years.

and it's freakin' cracking me up.

not because it's so funny, but bc

1) the logo swish at the beginning of the dvd is for "New Line Home Video"

2) there is no sound on this dvd until the movie starts

3) I'd totally forgetten about Reese Witherspoon and Don Knotts

4) didn't that syrup just spill onto the table?

5) omg! Paul Walker!

6) and Marc Blucas!!!!!

7) how did I miss that lack of toilets in the restroom all those other times I've watched this movie?

8) why does Pleasantville even have a lover's lane? (I guess even Pleasantville needs something to caution their kids about)

9) kids screwing causes a king sized bed to appear at the department store?

10) the portfolio

11) ha! the townspeople that make up the crowd are arranged in neat rows when "Bud" gets his medal

12) dude! Jonathon!

(I always hated how he explained Huckleberry Finn)

13) Pleasantville Public Library - the sign is color!

14) Big Bob is pinning George :)

15) ok, so, the make-up explains the skin, but how did the hair go back to b&w?

(I love that when she asks if it looks ok, he doesn't answer yes, he says that it looks like it did. i also love that Bill is more interested in the impressionists and abstract paintings than the naked people)

16) and David explains the movie to the stupid people in the audience

17) so....the kids don't know what rain is - but the adults do?

18) so.......the national anthem isn't allowed (if it's recorded)?

"Across the Universe" is such the perfect song to end on .....and it makes me want to re-watch Across the Universe

overall, I love the unsubtleness of it all. anvil-sized metaphors and themes to be sure, but back in the dark ages before the internets - before finding people who I could discuss tv and movies with - (and in the absence of any decent media literacy in school) I must admit that I kinda needed the anvil-sized metaphors to help me see that movies could be more intellectual than Sneakers. that's part of why i love Buffy, too. that show taught me more about film as literature than just about anything else out there.

The Bad, More Bad, The Good, and The Messy Aftermath

So, this crap annoys me. Obviously.

******

Also, regarding the idiocy found in this article (linked to in the comments of the post above) about how they just don't make kids like they used to -

Who cares if kids nowadays don't yet know what an old-fashioned trolley is. Do you think I knew what one was when I was 5? Do you want to know how I learned what one was? By going to Disneyland every year. So, really, I think Disneyland of all places might just survive having some old-fangled machine that kids don't recognize right away.

******

However....

.....this? Is just so cute its completely distracting me from all my justified annoyance.

Help! I don't know what to do or how to feel!

(and I'm a little worried that I'm a bad person for thinking it's cute. the cultural appropriation smells a bit too fishy to me to completely pass the sniff test.

but..but...but...they remind me of those key rings they sell at my local comic shop! how cool is that? plus...her ears are crab claws. OMG!!!! I think my brain just exploded from the sheer awesomeness of ears that are crab claws!!!!!!!!)

Random Thoughts on Christy

Was I really already in high school when I first watched this? I didn't think I was so old.

Wait, high school? God, I was so young back in '94.

Speaking of being young, it's really weird watching it now and getting what the doctor is saying from the start, rather than agreeing with Christy all the time. I mean, I get where she's coming from too, but he seems like less of a cynic/stick in the mud this time around. And not just because I know how it ends.

Watching the scene where they talk about the moonshine in the pilot episode is very different when one has yet to ever drink, versus watching while drinking a White Russian (with ice cream, yum). As a member of Friday Night Live, you are pretty much just thinking "alcohol bad!". As the Kalua drinker, you mostly just feel bad that they had to make do with moonshine.

I find it intersting that this is hailed as such a Christian show. I know it's mostly because the book is (books?) but this particular adaptation? Aside from Christy's internal monologues and her conversations with Alice, not a resounding endorsement for organized religion. There's a reason Christy picks the doctor over the preacher.

Also, there's just too many parallels between the doctor's arguments in favor of the moonshine and the situation of the modern poor, whether it's farmers in Afghanistan growing poppy or kids in "inner cities" that get involved in selling drugs. That's not really a perspective that the bulk of those that speak for American Christians and "family values" really get behind.

Wow. I can't believe I liked the preacher more than the doctor the first time. He's so young! Oh wait, that makes sense. And Christy is really young too.

Wow is this a surprisingly feminist show.

No wonder why I liked it. Now I feel less bad that I completely missed Buffy when it first aired. I'd recently abandoned fantasy/scifi for romance novels and historical fiction, and horror would not be on my list of things I liked for several more years. Buffy completely passes me by until the sixth season or so when I caught a rerun of Hush on FX. But Christy was totally on my radar.

Why is it feminist? Well, aside from the part where Christy not only says that she wants to do more with her life than keep home and have babies, the show lets her qualify that statement by explaining that it's the lack of purpose of being a female member of (high?) society that feels pointless to her, not the raising kids part. The mothers in Cutter Gap are all shown sympathetically (if at times cowed) and often as important members of the community, albeit not officially.

Most importantly though, there is Christy's relationship with Alice, which is just awesome. How often do we get to see older women mentoring younger women? Especially when the women are not related? This is a professional mentoring relationship, which grows to include the spiritual and emotional. I just love it so much. In no small part thanks to the fact that Tyne Daly is perpetually awesome. And Tyne Daly with a shotgun, more than awesome.

(Oh, wait, I need to add Cagney and Lacey to the list of dvds I need. I think I'm going to forgoe getting cable - or even any kind of broadcast television - when I move, and just spend the money on buying shows on dvd instead.)

And Christy's friendship with Fairlight? Very cool as well. I mean really, how many shows that aren't about Housewives or girlfriends in the City (and their relationships) do we have on now that center around a female character, her job and the people around her, with half of the main people around her being female?

Yes, sadly, there is a reason why it was shortlived. And Kellie Martin's sophmore acting wasn't it reason. (I think Kellie Martin can act, but Christy was not her best work. Not the pilot anyway.)

I hated David's sister the first time I watched this. Now I just hate him. Manipulative, self-centered asshole. I doubt she had very many other prospects, and what kind of a bitch would people think of her if she left her poor brother to fend for himself in the wilderness? As I said, not resounding endorsement of organized religion.

PS - it's hot. I hate trying to get to sleep when it's hot.

Can You believe That One of My Friends Once Called Me Unromantic?

I was in the middle of a Buffy marathon (quite literally; I was about halfway through the fourth season) when what do I spy at Target?

Christy!



OMG!

I loved this show back in the day.

I was so pissed when they started making the preacher guy not the love interest, but by the end I was as love with the doctor as Christy was.

God, I loved this show.

(I just hope I still do.)

So...the Buffy marathon has been interrupted and the Christy marathon begins in it's place. :)

(now all i need is Avonlea, the Cadfael Mysteries and that Heidi sequel on dvd, and I can die happy)

Is Rainbow Brite Scifi?

(A question from this thread, via the Hathor Legacy)

The thing about "girls don't like [X]" is that they are always redefining what [X] is until that statement becomes partly true.

The Care Bears, My Little Pony, and Strawberry Shortcake are all very much fantasy stories, and, aside from a few fangeeks that are very into one and not the other, most people see SciFi and Fantasy and so analogous to be practically interchangeable. Certainly more interchangeable than Mysteries and Romance novels anyway.

Yet, somehow, I have a feeling that Rainbow Brite would not be on anyone's list of '80s scifi cartoons. I'm willing to bet it wouldn't even be on most people's lists of '80s fantasy cartoons.

Certainly there is a difference between ray-guns and the Care Bear Stare, but the biggest difference between "girl" and "boy" cartoons is not in the storyline or even the amount of action vs. drama (was any '80's cartoon more melodramatic than Robotech? Any 90's cartoon more soap opera-ish than Gargoyles?), but in who the story is marketed to. Which boils down to mostly window dressing and the number of times the weapon of choice is wielded by female characters.

This isn't to say that He-Man was really all that much like Strawberry Shortcake or vice versa, just that they both have equal claims to the fantasy genre, but only one gets used as an defining example of the genre. It gets to the point where The Smurfs and The Gummi Bears are not considered to by definitive examples of fantasy cartoons for kids either, despite the obvious untruth to that statement, simply because they are both less violent and less reflective of stereotypes of adult fantasy than Dungeons and Dragons.

Obviously, all of these strategically shifting definitions make for very circular logic when one then turns around and claims that boys are more into fantasy or scifi.

It's the same kind of effect we get from pretending that women played no part in history until we gained the vote. Ignoring girl's and women's experiences makes it really easy to flat out lie about what girls and women do and like.

Likewise, when one ignores or glosses over the connection between Lord of the Rings and Victorian fairy tales like The Princess and the Goblin, it's really easy to pretend that modern fantasy is completely disconnected from the princess stories my niece likes to act out. Which in turn makes it sound completely ridiculous to suggest that Rainbow Brite was Fantasy (rather than fantasy), much less science fiction.

Kind of the same way that ignoring scientific data makes it really easy to pretend that evolution is all made up.

And yet, aside from the flying horse, is there anything (other than gendered assumptions made by people that never watched the show) that cause us to define it as fantasy, rather than scifi? Or worse yet, fantasy-lite? What makes Teenage Mutant Turtles scifi for kids, but not Rainbow Brite?

Yes, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles featured a bit of comic book inspired* radioactive gook in their origin story (which itself is very much a rip-off of the magical elixirs and pools in myths, which is why faatasy and scifi are so often lumped together). But ignore for the moment the rainbows and the martial arts, ignore your prejudices that says that boy = scifi and girl = fantasy. Which of the two characters below looks like they belong in a fantasy? A science fiction story?




Which of these two characters lives on another planet? Cavorts with friendly aliens? Uses technological tools? Fight enemies that use technology as well? Whose story features intergalactic travel? Uses basic physics (light and color) as a thematic metaphor?

Which character uses weapons designed centuries earlier? Whose story features lots of mystical sayings spouted by a Wise Old Man? Who fights enemies that wield mysterious powers? Even the very idea of animals that talk is a very fantasy-like element - despite the scientific origin story.

I like action, adventure, and even violence. And I think that a lot of "girls" cartoons could have done with a bit more actual action and a bit less less running around. More importantly, the writers could have bothered to give their audience more credit for being intelligent. But lets not pretend that quality is what defines something as scfi or fantasy. (If it was, we could simply pretend that the Gor novels have no connection to the genre either.)

Most all, lets not forget that Gummi Bears was not only vastly better than Dungeons and Dragons but also a much better example of Fantasy cartoons for kids.

PS - if anyone feels in the mood to add some more arguments for why Rainbow Brite - or any other "girl" cartoon - was really scifi and not fantasy or anything else, I may feel grateful enough to go digging through old photos and find the one of me all decked out in the incredibly awesome Rainbow Brite costume my mom made for me in third grade. :)

*appropriately enough, since it was originally a comic.

They No Longer Spend Pitch Meetings Looking for the Button That Opens the Secret Trapdoor

You have no idea how much I wish I had a copy of the recording they did of the panel on Superhero Comics at the Festival.

Its not that I want to listen to it over and over again (it was funny, but not that funny) its that there were tons of hilarious quotes that I can't really quote 'cuz I'm not going to get them quite right. So as you read all the stuff below? Remember that it's being filtered through my crappy auditory memory. Take even the stuff in quotes with several teaspoonfuls of salt. Also, I make no claims to accuracy when it comes to the order in which things were discussed.

With that said, here goes:

The panel was kicked off with each creator being asked to describe how they got from Comics to Hollywood. Mignola and Niles had fairly similar stories. Someone fairly influential liked their comic and wanted it made into a movie. For Niles, it was Sam Raimi. For Mignola, it was Benecio Del Toro - not that Del Toro got things going, more that he kept them going and made sure that things went well. Both at this point and throughout the talk, both Niles and Mignola were very emphatic about having a powerful ally working on the project who was also a fan of the comic itself being essential to it being a decent movie that still resembled their work. Or something like that, anyway.

Loeb said that it went the opposite way for him. He had always loved comics, but started out in Hollywood instead (didn't think he could make a living at comics) and then one day DC called him up and asked him if he would like to write a comic for them.

Before I continue, (1) Loeb is an awesome oral storyteller; I very much fear that my recap will fail to do any justice to his talent. (2) I'm sure there was more to this story than he let on. See #1

Loeb said "of course!" and "Can I write Superman?" "Um, we already have someone for that." "Batman" ditto and on down the line. Turns out they wanted him to do The Challengers. (and yeah, that story is even funnier in retrospect now that I'm more familiar with his resume)

The second question had to do with graphical nature of graphic novels and whether that made them easier to translate into film. All said yes. Having pictures helps studio people visualize what you are talking about, especially when those pictures closely resemble storyboards. Loeb (or Mignola?), mimicking execs internal diologue: "Oh, so you meant this really cool spaceship, not the pencil shaped thing that was in my head." Niles also mentions that, when originally pitching 30 Days, the studio people probably pictured scores of vampires running across the snow in Bela Lugosi capes.

The next question (I think) had to do with whether or not it's easier to pitch Superhero movies now than it used to be. Everyone's reply can be boiled down to "duh - you have seen the figures for the Spiderman movies, yes?" (I kept thinking, don't forget LoTR! It's success certainly helped as well. Geeks Unite!) Someone - Mignola or Loeb, I think - pointed out that time has helped as well, that it it's not just a single hit, but several successful movies, and people getting used to the idea of Superhero movies, untill finally Superhero movies are treated as just another genre rather than an unknown. (File this thought away, it will come up again later.)

They said that it was still hard to pitch comics as movies, especially if you aren't pitching one of the big names (Spiderman, Superman, Batman) but that "It used to be that they seemed to be looking for that secret button that open the trapdoor under you." Not anymore.

One of the other things that helped, obviously, has been the advances in cg. There was talk about how they used to say that movies would never replace comic creators, because there was stuff they could do that would just look dumb in movies. You could never get Spiderman to swing from a web and make it look real! Loeb: But then (?) and I went to the screening of Teminator 2 at Comicon. Beforehand, we weren't really sure what it was going to be like because Schwarzenegger actually had to talk in this one. We left the screening and I turned to him and said "we're screwed."

They still fuck everything up, though, apparently :) (shocker, I know) Niles talked about some guy who was working on 30 Days in the script stage. Nobody seemed to get why the Vampires were in Alaska. (wha?) So this one guy suggested that maybe Vampires were searching for a diamond that was buried underground in Alsaka. (wtf?) A diamond that would make them daywalkers! "He doesn't work there anymore. Not because of that, but I think he tried pitching the diamond idea for every movie." There was also mention of certain people wanting to call the Hellyboy sequel HB2 Instead. (why, exactly would one want to do that?)

This is where my memory gets a bit fuzzier, but the conversation at some point turned to DVD sales, what is still hard about pitching Superhero movies, and how much money movies actually need to make. The gist of that part of the conversation was: studio people don't pay enough attention to DVD sales because DVDs and movie production are different divisions, but it's getting better. They always want to change lots of things, some of which needs to change because comics are so much longer than movies, some of which is completely in opposition to the heart of the story, and some of which is necessary in order to appeal to a larger audience. "The truth is that even the best selling comics only have a fraction of the audience that movies need to make money." Or something like that.

I don't remember when or why, but the topic of what terms people prefer came up (ie, comics, graphic novel, etc.) and they all agreed "comics." Niles joked about Raimi referring to comics by some complicated term "graphical something or other." Someone (Loeb or Niles) made the amusing remark to a studio person that it was ok to call them comics, "graphic novels was the term we made up for you guys!"

It was also established that we were all "geeks." "You all know the difference between geeks and nerds, right? All of you in this room right now, you're all geeks, not nerds." (I beg to differ, but then I'm the idiot that didn't even know he worked on Heroes before he mentioned it, so I think he'd make an exception for me.)

At some point Loeb told several amusing stories about working in Hollywood:

The first movie he worked on was this low budget film called Teen Wolf (cheers from the crowd) While working on it, he'd tell people about it and mention who was in it and people would say. "Oh, that kid from Silver Spoons, right?" But then two things happened, Family Ties was moved to directly after The Cosby Show and Michael J. Fox was picked to be the star of a little movie called Back to the Future. heh.

That lead to the story about the movie thought he was going to be able to retire on: Firestorm. It was starring Howie Long. No reaction from the audience to that name, prompting Loeb to say that we obviously weren't football fans. That prompted some laughter. :) He explained who Howie Long was and that the great thing about Howie Long was that you knew he could talk. Anyway, things were going well and it was getting closer and closer to the release date, and then an Important Studio person broke the bad news. The studio had just finished making the most expensive movie ever made. And it was going to completely flop. Loeb knew he was telling the truth because people were literally packing up their offices in cardboard boxes and leaving. It was going to be that bad. So they needed to release a bunch of other movies at the same time to cover their losses. Firestorm was moved from fall to January. That's ok, Loeb thought, it should still be ok.

So, the flop? Was Titanic.

His last story was about the call that got him working on Heroes. A Hollywood buddy of his called him and said he needed some advice. Loeb figured that he was buying a vineyard and retiring or something, 'cuz he couldn't think of what this person would need his advice for. So they met and it turns out that this buddy had the brilliant idea of doing a Superhero type show and needed to talk to someone who knew Superheros. They spent hours talking, with the guy pitching ideas and Loeb responding by saying, that sounds fantastic, but you can't do that, it's (insert name of character) Marvel/DC will sue you. Repeat for several hours.

That's it. that's all I remember. Recordings will be available in a few weeks, I might try and clean this up when they are released for sale.




Oh, wait.......you were wondering why I was left yelling (well, muttering, really) Wonder Woman.

Yeah, so, at some point near the end - it might have been during the questions - Loeb or Mignola made some comment about Superhero movies needing to appeal to non-comic readers in order to make money. Loeb added "like how do you get women to go see your Superhero movie?" (Or something like that anyway.) To which I muttered Wonder Woman! and started ranting in my headspace about how the arguments made earlier about Superhero movies and needing to let people get used to seeing them as just another kind of movie and not a fluke can just as easily be applied to movies with female action heroes.

Ditto for non-white (and non-kung-fu-asian) action heroes, as well, of course.

Personally, I still think Runaways would make a kickass movie. The ending is a disappointing in terms of racial diversity, but it's still a step in the right direction. (Especially if it does well enough to warrant sequels.) Plus, I think it would not only appeal to a larger audience, it would appeal to that teenage audience studios are so hung up on. Provided it's done right, of course. That's always the catch. But seriously, while the point about comic sales being only a fraction of what the movie needs is valid, better-selling is better than not-better-selling. And better-selling to a wider audience (ie, bookstore patrons, not just comic store patrons) has got to be huge plus as well. So here's to hoping Twilight is the insane success I think it will be, and to studios everywhere mining the YA lit for ideas.

Introducing Super K!

Work? What's that?






And no, that's not me. That's my big sis.

PS Since I do actually have work to do, I won't be changing the typos anytime soon, so y'all will have to live with them for a while.

Now I'm Never Going to Get Any Work Done

Thanks, Lyle

Btw, when you sign up (which you don't have to do to play, just to kep a record of your scores), the choices for gender are:

M
F
MTF TG
FTM TG
Not sure

Than it asks

What is your sex

Which is a fill in the blank question

I'm guessing it's mostly there as a joke, but it's kinda nice to see something besides "male or female" in any case. And hey, I'm all for smart jokes that point out that "sex" and "gender" are not the same thing.

Oh, yeah, and, I don't know jack.

16th Feminist SF Carnival

Welcome to the 16th Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans!

Before we start, I have a confession to make.

I like science fiction, I really do. Fantasy too. I like the world-building and the hypothetical plots, the technology and the magic. All the things that make it science fiction and/or fantasy instead of something else.

But I have to admit that part of my love for scifi/fantasy is really a love for action heroes. More specifically, female action heroes. I spent a lot of time as a kid looking for adventure stories that featured - or at least included - girls, and a lot of them ended up being science fiction and/or fantasy stories. Women with swords, girls with magical powers, heroines with blasters. For some reason, leaving this world behind and building another made it easier for writers - and their audiences - to wrap their head around the idea that girls could love action and adventure.

When I was younger, the main obstacle to finding girl heroes seemed to be the relative lack of them. As I got older, I kept running into the uspoken and rarely broken rule that, when they existed, action heroines must be sexbots first and action heroes last. So when I stumbled across the Ask.com commercial featuring "chicks with swords" (via The Hathor Legacy), I knew that had to be the theme when I hosted the carnival.

So without further ado, here is the 16th Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Fans, chock filled with sword carrying women and all kinds of other great - or not so great - stuff.


It's a bird. It's a plane....it's Supergirl!

My thoughts on the new incarnation of Supergirl lean towards gibberish along the lines of "Pretty. Shiny. Me like. Me want more."

Fortunately, others have been much more loquacious than I.

First off, ami at Super Cute Rants of DOOM XD (totally the best blog title ever) writes about why she loves Supergirl:

Why do all heroes have to be angsty and mean? Why do they all need "reasons" to be heroes?

Can't we have some heroes who are just good ppl and dun have to become good ppl?

Why do girls need to be abused or live on the streets or be hookers in order to be heroes?

Can't they just crash land on a planet and be a hero? :D

...

Aren't we even allowed a few happy heroes? :)

Indeed, why must heroes always have "motivation"? I like characters with depth, but I don't think that means their reason for being good always needs to be complex.


Anyway, back to Supergirl.

Kalinara is one of the many who loves the latest issue of Supergirl:

Yes. Thank you.

That's what a real teenaged girl looks like. That's even what a real teenaged girl wears....She looks amazing.....Bedard's character is one I want to read about. Guedes's is one I want to see.

Brown Betty's praise is simple but oh so true for oh so many of us:

I just look at it and *siiiiiiiigh* with happiness.

A lot of the gushing over Guedes' art and Bedard's writing has happened in the forums, so I thought I'd include a few quotes from the ones hosted by Girl-Wonder.org (which I'm not sure is technically allowed, but I love this Supergirl so much I don't care!):

I have all-around feelings of joy for this issue. ^^

At last, fantastic artwork (only one upskirt shot and it didn't feel like fanservice because of the shorts!). And Supergirl actually tried to do something to fix her mistakes instead of just wallowing in it.

-Linkara

I loved this issue so hard. Supergirl - and the other characters! - looked human, and instead of sulking about her mistakes, which were so very much those of a superpowered teenager with a lot of naivety, she tried to do something about them.

-KPhoebe

For sure, the art in this was WONDERFUL. And I love how Supergirl and Wondergirl, despite both having blue eyes and blond hair, actually LOOK like two different women.... I really like how Supergirl is obviously a very young girl who is trying really hard to be a good hero.

-Caribou23

Which brings us to the very sad news that a new creative team has been announced for Supergirl (via Occasional Superheroine)

Crash! SMASH! KABOOM!

(sorry for the interruption, that was my house blowing apart from the sheer amount of despair and rage inside my brain)

However, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't still write to DC (if you haven't already) and tell them how much you are loving Guedes' and Bedard's Supergirl. Occasional Superheroine has some tips. (If you do, please keep in mind that Guedes' and Bedard's run was always meant to be temporary. Their departure is not (necessarily) a reaction to the idiots who think that Guedes' Supergirl is fat.)



Hermione is always right, unless she's being emotional.

(needless to say, do not click any of the links unless you've finished the series or don't mind spoilers.)

Over at Capitalism Bad, Tree Pretty, Maia hones in on one of the main complaints I've been hearing about Deathly Hallows:

'I'm going to leave you because I'm putting you in danger' is my least favourite relationship device ever.....What I find so frustrating about this, is that limiting women's choices for them is portrayed as a romantic act....Loving someone shouldn't mean limiting their agency.

*e, at A Blog Without A Bicycle, ponders the newest movie villian and brings up a good point:

"...I just wish that it wasn't her (overly) stereotypical "feminine" traits that made [Umbridge] so memorable. What if a female villan was just...villanous?"

I'll admit to being one of the many who enjoyed Imelda Staunton's Umbridge, but it does bring up the classic feminist dilemma when it comes to femininity: how does one analyze the limitations created by traditional femininity, or create a feminine villian, without bashing femininity itself? Hopefully with more finesse than the movie manages to have.


Sara of Sara Speaking discovers that sometimes gems do lurk within Amazon forums, after stumbling across this excellent question about power and gender in Potterverse:

I can understand how men would be better at physical fighting than women, but simply waving a wand in the air using spells based on pure intelligence….??? Hello?????......Where was the female equivalent of Dumbledore?

Sara adds:

I find it a very valid question, especially since it’s a fantasy book. Why should it have to conform so closely to the male-dominant standards of the society we already have?....And why, oh why, is it called the wizarding world — when there is a clear gender-based differences between wizards (men) and witches (women)?

I think that fireeyedgirl sums up a lot of feminist fans' feelings towards the series as a whole when she writes that

I don't hate the Harry Potter books because of [it's treatment of female characters], I just am sad because I feel like there was potential in this series, written by a woman who is also the mother of a daughter, for a rebel girl heroine who breaks rules and succeeds.

All of which makes it that much sweeter to learn (via Jessica at Feministing) that Emma Watson, the talented young woman made famous by her role as the always clever Hermione Granger, considers herself to be "a bit of a feminist."

And on that note, Sara also points us to an illustration by makani of one of the few showdowns between female characters in the series.



"No....there is another."

There's a great article over at Jive Magazine about why "Star Wars fans hate Star Wars."

Never is this more true than when it comes to feminist fangirls who love Leia. (ie people like me) The knowledge that Leia was capable of becoming a Jedi, and yet was not the one who brought about the Return of the Jedi epitomizes why being a feminist SF fan is often a bittersweet experience.

Princess Leia was My First Idol, my first hero, the kind of princess I've always wanted to be.

She didn't just wait around and pray to be rescued.....[and] She told the scary bad guy that had us all quaking in our boots to fuck off.

And guess who else loves Leia:

“Outta my way, nerf-herders. Guess it’s up to me to save our skins—again! ZAP!”

- from the always amusing mind of Meg Cabot.

No wonder why Mia is such an awesome princess.


Also, fellow Star Wars fan Sarah (Still Life With Soup Can) made some cool shirts for herself at Cafe Press and was surprised when other people bought them. I'm not surprised that the most popular are her Girl Revan shirts mocking "LucasFolk['s decision] to go and ruin the fun by declaring "Canon Revan" to be a light side male." Revan being a playable character in various Star Wars games, for the two people other than me who are unfamiliar with the name.



"It Slices, it Dices, and Makes Julienne Preacher." - And Other Sharp, Shiny Objects

Yes, I know Buffy's signature weapon was a wooden stake, but let's face it, we all loved her best when she was wielding something sharper than the pointy end of a picket fence. Which may be why Grace's summation of the best and worst of Buffy at Heroine Content features Buffy with a sword, not a stake. Like me, Grace

didn't watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer when it was first aired...[does]not believe the show deteriorated when it moved to the UPN.... [and] loved it from start to finish...

she adds

All that being said, I've never seen anything on television so in need of feminist and anti-racist analysis as Buffy. The show gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "so close but so far away."

At 100LittleDolls, Shions_Glasses also reminds us that sexism often goes hand in hand with racism. (warning: spoilers for Rogue Galaxy within)

Of course the only woman of color in the game has to hail from a "backwards" tribal jungle planet. .....On top of that, her bow is pretty worthless in combat.

Obviously, Lilika deserves better clothes, a better backstory, and a better weapon. XD

A sword, maybe? ; I


Amber Night finds yet another fantasy game with sword-wielding women sporting unlikely armor.

in the world of WAR, do they just go for the legs? ....You could make an entire suit of normal armor just out of her leg armor. Which…you know…probably would have been a good idea, given that her guild seems to be short on armorers able to craft from the crotch up.

Meanwhile, Tekanji uses a picture of a sword carrying girl to demonstrate (at Shrub.com) the dangers of assuming that your good intentions will mean your message is clear, even when the context is ambiguous. (I'm not going to quote the posts because it's more of an audience participation experiment. Just follow the links. It will take you to the girl and her bloody sword and explain who she is.)


"We rule Terabithia, and nothing crushes us!"

Alice, at Wonderland gives us some pictures of the incredibly awesome woman who won BlizzCon's costume contest, and her kickass getup.


BomberGirl (Girl in the Machine) talks about why she loves Heather from Silent Hill:

Throughout her story, we come to root for Heather. She's not perfect; she has flaws, from her short temper to the freckles on her face. She stands as my most favorite video game character of all time (just take a look at my icon!). And here at Girl in the Machine, game developers hand us so much to be negative about, and it feels wonderful to celebrate the positive aspects of women in games.

Kotetsu gives favorable reviews to two recent anime movies, Paprika and Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo. Regarding the former, she writes:

One thing that I love about Paprika, however, is the heroine....Like in all of Kon's movies, a woman takes center stage. Sure, there are lots of male characters, and sure, they're important - but they're only important in the sense that they interact with and support the heroine. It's almost the complete opposite of most Hollywood (and Japanese) movies.

Lyle, at Crocodile Caucus lets us know about an interesting possibility on the upcoming season of Supernatural:

Unfortunately, one thing that’s always kept me from fully getting into Supernatural is the show’s WiR-ness......Now, an interview with series creator Eric Kripke gets me excited about Supernatural for the first time. There’s no money quote, but, at the least Kripke shows an awareness of the problem and seems like he’s looking to correct the course.

Lastly, I'm apparently not the only one that adored Spider-man, Fairytales #1. Pervyficgirl writes:

I love this comic. Possibly I read it six times. Possibly I will be sharing with my eight year old niece. Something I dearly wish I could do in good conscience with Black Canary or current Wonder Woman.

Also, it is implied that Peter is going to make his Spider-costume out of the remains of MJ's red hood. Awwwwww. I love you, Peter Parker. You wear your strong woman's clothes.

"It's just so illogical, you know, about being a Smurf... what's the point of living... if you don't have a dick?"

The latest version of the Smurfette Syndrome is brought to us by the new Transformers movie. Ragnell eloquently rants:

Why is being a girl so fucking special? Why is it that every other fucking robot has a male fucking voice and no one questions why they have gender coding but the fucking second you bring in a female voice and god forbid you put it in a feminine color you have to suddenly explain why everyone has gender?

Amen!



And the next time someone tries to argue that it's all because girls don't like action and explosions and the like, feel free to spit out the stats from a recent study that says otherwise. Mighty Ponygirl (from Feminist Gamers) summarizes:

While the numbers still show that boys play more videogames than girls, the gap is not as wide as people would like to believe: while 2/3 of boys reported playing a violent video game at least once a week, so did a full 1/3 of girls interviewed. This means that even the remaining 2/3 of girls who play videogames may still play violent videogames, just not as often as once a week.

On a more "high-brow" note, Eleanor at Ambling Along an Aqueduct has some thoughts on why there don't seem to be as many female SF writers:

I think there is a double prejudice operating here. One is a prejudice against the life sciences as opposed to physics and engineering.....

The other, of course being that it can't really be "hard" SciFi if it was written by a woman. (Women being soft and gooey and all, I guess.)


Charleanders at She's Such a Geek! asks us to help Free Julie Delpy!. She also asks:

Why does Steven Spielberg get to make dozens of increasingly braindead films, when Julie Delpy doesn’t get her shot?

Good question!



On a similar note, while the statistics are not about Science Fiction/Fantasy in particular, gillpolack points us to some interesting, but depressing, stats on gender in movies:

72% of speaking character parts are male;
83.5% of crowd scenes are male;
83% of narrators are male.

Ouch. I can't imagine the stats are better when one looks at just scifi/fantasy.

(note: the link to See Jane's research seems to be broken. Their site is currently being reworked, and that may be why. I'll try fix the link when/if I can.)


At Feminist SF - The Blog! lizzard let's us know that

Juno Books’s Paula Guran is looking for stories for Warrior Women [a reprint anthology]...Amazons to warrior princesses to space cadets—strong women who meet the challenge of fighting the good fight.

If you have any suggestions - send them in!


I'll admit that I don't know much about LiveJournal, and many of the postings about the recent controversy over LJ banning various fandoms and fanfiction journals has left me more confused than enlightened. However, Mastor Erestor has some strong words to say on the subject:

"Obscenity" is the perfect tool to weed out everything that doesn't fit in a nice, clean, straight, male-dominated and preferably white world.

(sigh) Isn't that always the case.


Ahh! Curse Your Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal!

Bellatrys, at Nothing New Under the Sun, takes one for the team and reviews the first two Gor books. Her reason?

After about the fifth or sixth reiteration of the (usually-male-made) claim that "the first ones weren't so bad, the misogyny and male dominance stuff didn't come in till later," I resolved, in my Chaotic way, to challenge this dogma and put it to the test.

What she finds is scary in so many ways.


While I'm sure everyone knows by now just why the lamentable Gor series is getting more dicsussion lately, it should also be noted that, as J. E. Remy (Die Wachen) points out, apparently

Dark Horse feels it not only appropriate to support the subjugation and victimization of women by republishing this long out-of-print work, but to market it to “all age groups.”

(emphasis mine)

Remy's posts critiquing Dark Horse's decision also include all kinds of contact information in case you want to write letters to the parties involved.



Because I cannot end this on a bad note, I leave you with 1) Space Invaders Against Sexism!

(Yes, it's from kotaku - but it's space invaders against sexism! - and it's via Jade Reporting. I think......It's been a long couple of days.)

And 2) a reminder that Ragnell is still looking for someone to host the 17th carnival.

That's all folks, thanks for coming!

Wherein I Get Sucked Into the LOLCATS Phenom

Kitteh has broken an axle.

(no, none of these are mine, they just cracked me up.)



going to chambr of sekrets brb





pow pow power wheels





poysin mouses





align right

(sigh)

"Feel it, Hear it..."

I'm watching the movie version of Phantom of the Opera for the first time - I saw the musical three times in LA as teenager and loved it - and I can't help wondering if Schumacher bothered listening to any of the lyrics at all.

Right now, the Phantom and Christine are singing "Music of the Night" in his caves underneath the opera house, and the whole thing is brightly lit. Not harshly, it's all nice and warm and gold with soft shadows that give it texture without making it dark or hard to see. But that means that when the Phantom is singing about darkness stirring the imagination - he's standing in this gold glow, with everything behind him perfectly visible. And instead of the light being cold and white and "unfeeling" when he sings about her turning her face away from the "garish light of day" the light around them is all warm and welcoming. The only thing that's "garish" in the scene is the way his caves are decorated.

To which I can only say wha?

Ah, well. I'm also less enchanted by the story than I used to be. I think it's because rather than seeing the Phantom as merely a tragic villain, I can't help seeing him as a proxy for Weber himself. Not that I know much about him, but based on things like what happened with Evita, I can't help but picture how Weber must view all the women who have played his Christine's and Evita's when I hear the lines "I am the mask you wear/It's me they hear" and the like. (Yes, I know he didn't write the lyrics, but my mind keeps making the association anyway.) Granted, Christine ends up with the only person who argues that her talent is her own, but since the the story starts with him alone, the ending isn't a completely happy one either.

Besides, I love Minnie Driver's acting and I get annoyed with the way Hollywood always manages to write so many parts for new undiscovered ingenues but rarely has anything worthy of it's most talented, established actresses. This time around, I'm finding myself rooting for Carlotta.

My First Idol

When I was in preschool, and my brown hair hung all the way to my waist, I used to beg my mother to make my hair like Princess Leia's.

If I was lucky, she would agree and braid my two pigtails and loop them up in an approximation of Leia's Cinnabraids.



If I was very, very, lucky, she would braid my hair and pile it on top of my head.





Long before I met Gertrude.....



...or Oracle....



.....or Kitty Pride.



Long before I met Buffy....



.....or River......



......or Alice.



Long before Kaylee....



.....or Ellie.....



.....or even Penny......



.....and Gadget.



Long before Alanna or Val or Gemma.

Even long before The Beggar Queen, Charlotte Doyle, or Meg.

Even before Anne....



.....and Princess Sara.



There was Leia.



I get nostalgic for VHS ghosts of Luke on Tatooine the way some people talk about the crackling on old records. I can remember the smell and texture and weight and look of all my Leia action figures better than I remember most of the things I've done in the last decade. My earliest memory of going to the movie theatre is not of a Disney movie, but of going to see Return of the Jedi. I was six and we had Burger King afterwards because they were the ones selling the movie cups.

When I applied to work in my college's computer lab, I wrote about stealing Star Wars files off the internet and setting my "alert" sound to Chewbacca's growl. When I decorated the bulletin board on my dorm door, Han and Leia took their place beside Emma and Mr. Knightly.



When I ditched my friends during senior week to go see Episode 1 on opening night in NYC, I brought with me a flashlight, empty Sprite bottles, and packing tape. Because real Jedi make their own.

So it bothers me when people say that Leia's slave girl outfit is her most iconic, because despite having wanted to be her for as long as I can remember, I rarely ever think of that outfit. And when I do, it's usually because That '70's Show is making a joke about dressing up for sex play, Wizard is turning Leia into a Sexy! Zombie!, or Comicon is trying to sell itself - to people who apparently aren't me.



Ewan McGregor once said that girls didn't like Star Wars.* When I first read that quote it sounded so ridiculous to me that I thought it was a joke at first. I bought the damn magazine for no other reason than because it had Star Wars on the cover, didn't I? I kept having to re-read the lines that followed because they didn't make sense - until I realized that he was being deadly serious.

This is the fandom in which Leia as Jabba's fucktoy is the representative image of her: the fandom in which real women are invisible.

"But, but but!" you say. "That's not fair! It's not just iconic because it shows the most skin, it's also iconic because she kills Jabba in that outfit!"

Bullshit, I say.

Princess Leia Organa Solo was a diplomat and high ranking leader in a military rebellion.

She didn't just wait around and pray to be rescued. She had the foresight to not only send word for help, but to make sure that vital information was passed onto the rest of the Alliance - despite her capture.

She told the scary bad guy that had us all quaking in our boots to fuck off. She told the creepy general to fuck off too.

She withstood torture.

She found a way out of the mess Luke and Han made of her rescue (with R2D2's help) and did her fair share of shooting at Stormtroopers. She did not stay inside the Millennium Falcon while Han when out to investigate. Neither did she stay on the sidelines during the Battle of Endor.

She faced down Jabba the Hut with a bomb in her hand and completed the most important part of her mission: unfreezing Han.

And she did none of this while wearing a metal bikini.



"But, but but!" you say. "It's women who dress up as slave-girl Leia at comic conventions. You don't speak for all women! You obviously don't even speak for most women!"

Most women wear make-up. Why don't you go ask a few of them if they always do it because they really enjoy putting gunk on their face every day or if sometimes they do it just because they are afraid of how they will be treated if they don't. Now, I'm sure plenty of them will simply liken it to bathing regularly and there are more than a few that do so because it can be fun. The point is though, that while Kirsten Bell is fully capable of making her own choices and speaking for herself, her decision to wear a metal bikini and not a long white, baggy dress is not uninfluenced by how she will be treated in each outfit.



In fact, Kirsten Bell happens to be wearing that outfit for a new movie called Fanboys. Which brings me to the point that while many women are dressing up as slave-girl Leia for their own amusement, they generally aren't the ones making and buying all the drawings, statues, etc. of Leia as Jabba's slave. I'll bet they're not even the ones uploading and downloading most of the pictures of women dressed as slave-girl Leia.

Pictures of Leia in her metal bikini makes up the vast majority of the first page of links that come up in a google image search of her name.** But to say that makes the bikini outfit the more iconic is just as ridiculous as saying that this (note: probably NSFW) is what comes to most people's minds when you say "american girl."

Let's not ignore that this (note: definitely NSFW!) in fact comes first before this in the above search. Let's also not pretend that anything other than rampant, malicious sexism (dare I say misogyny?) is the reason why a naked Leia being shown her home planet blown to bits beats a flirty but fully clothed Leia holding a gun. At least not when a google image search for Han Solo gives us no naked or nearly naked images of Harrison Ford. (It does eventually give us several more of Leia, however.)

Leia's slave-girl outfit is cool and I completely understand seeing as it as a symbol of women rescuing themselves from their aggressors. (plus, it's literally cool, which I can see being A Very Good thing in San Diego in July.) But, unfortunately, that isn't the only reason why Leia in her metal bikini is such a popular image. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's not even the biggest reason.

Remember too, that we're not just talking about women.



The kind of widespread and hardcore fandom that Star Wars enjoys usually only happens when most of the fans are introduced to the story and it's characters as children or teenagers. Most die-hard Star Wars fans are children of the '70's and '80's. So we aren't just talking about women, we are mostly talking about now grown up girls and their childhood idols. To say that Leia will always be remembered most as a scantily clad sex slave turned killer is to say that Ewan McGregor was right, girls don't like Star Wars.

Women may want to look like Sexy Leia. They may even admire her strength. But little girls don't want to be slave girl Leia - Jabba killer or not. Little girls generally don't choose to picture themselves as chained to creepy monsters and they only choose to picture themselves in bikinis if that actually is the character's most iconic image.



You'll note that while Leia in her metal bikini is featured on the posters for Return of the Jedi, Mattel didn't make an action figure of her in that outfit.

I like the Comicon cover (mostly). (It's Star Wars! duh, of course I like it.)



I think having the characters pose for pictures as if they were just people dressed up as Luke and Han and Leia was a cute idea and was mostly well-done. I think that it was smart to try to reference the movie posters as well by having the appropriate background behind them.

I think the not as well done mix of the two ideas is the weakest part of the cover. Such as Han just looking like Han, while the other two are posed like fans in costume. I think that, whatever the artist's feelings and attitudes on the matter, the sexism that is still quite present in sci-fi fandom contributed to the bad mix of the two; the homage to the actual movies is thwarted by the desire to realisticly portray Star Wars fandom - without daring to question the sexism within it. Having all three movies represented by outfts from all three movies was cute; the fact that this gives justification for Leia not wearing her iconic white is not. And as far as the silly argument about color contrast goes, Leia in white and Luke in his black outfit would have solved the problem just as well (better, even) - and kept the three movies/three outfits bit going.

It hardly reaches the "yes, why don't you go and piss off your fans so much that they no longer want to give you money" moment that the Ewan McGregor quote achieved. In large part because Adam Hughes made sure to have Leia hold the chain in a (semi) aggressive way. But it is another little reminder that I'm often invisible. And the defensive reactions to my pointing this out are an even stronger reminder.

And yeah, I'm not looking forward to going to Comicon as much as I was before I heard the stupid argument that this is not Leia's most iconic outift.



However, I'll probably now be wearing Cinnabraids if I do still go.

*Sorry, I don't have the exact quote, it was from a British magazine article the year before Phantom Menace came out. I can't find it with google, and I obviously didn't drag the article back with me from Bristol.

**I started writing this weeks ago. Needless to say, several of the searches have shifted since then (not necessarily for the better) and one link isn't working. The now not working "american girl" link was something along the lines of this (note: very NSFW), but with enough skin covered up for it to not be porn.

Me, I Was 12. And You?

Over at Dr. Petra Boynton's blog, an interesting discussion of "The sex Education Issues Parents Worry About" (via the 27th Carnival to End Sexual Violence)

One of them is:

Teaching them about sex will encourage kids to experiment

I. Do. Not. Get. That.

Especially since it's generally girls that are more worried about having sex than boys.

Comprehensive sex ed teaches kids that sex can be dangerous. It gives kids facts that they can then spit out at their ignorant peers. Not a fool-proof method of deterring peer pressure, to be sure, but a decent tool to have, nonetheless.

Even something as riske as being exposed to positive images of sex (by virtue of the fact that they tend to not ignore female pleasure quite as much as as the negative ones kids see all the time do) makes it less likely that teen girls will fall victim to the modern day version of "How little that which thou deniest me is." They are much less likely to see it as "no big deal" and more likely to experiment in ways that minimize risk and maximize the possibility of pleasure.

Oh.

I take it back.

That's why sex ed scares parents so. They can handle the idea of little Johnny masturbating - they make jokes about it all the time in movies - but they can't handle the idea that little Janey might want to as well.

Eulogy

(This is days late because that's what happens when you don't read the regular news)

I'm not sure if I've ever made this clear, but the title, blog address and screen name I use are all taken from two of my favorite characters. I picked them in part because Sara Crewe, Meg, Anne Shirley and the like we're all taken - but also because they happen to be adventure stories, and I had such a hard time finding adventure stories featuring girls while I was growing up.

The True Confessions of an Hourly Bookseller is an homage to Avi's The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. A story about a girl who dresses up as a boy and stows aboard a merchant ship - and then ends up having to solve a murder mystery. I haven't read it in ages, but I have a very clear memory of her being "rescued" in the end, and her choosing to continue her life at sea instead.

Westmark is a series about a kingdom by that name. It was written by Lloyd Alexander, the author of The Black Cauldron series. I picked Mickle as my screen name not just because the more recognizable Eilonwy is both harder to spell and pronounce, but because I always liked Mickle more than Eilonwy. She is not the main character of the story, especially at first, but her character is both strong and interesting, and it's very clear throughout the series that she is not an addendum to the story or a plot point needed for Theo's character development. Westmark is more of a parable about democracy than it is a fantasy series, and Mickle's final act as the rightfully restored Queen Augustus is to step down so that the people may rule. Combined with the nature of her relationship with Theo and her actions during the invasion of her country, the end result is a character who has learned how to take charge when needed, but without letting her strengths and good fortune silence the voices of others.

Avi is still alive and well, but Lloyd Alexander passed away on May 17th. He will be missed, and we were lucky to have him for as long as we did.

Since When

do Thin Mints come wrapped in foil tubes instead of plastic ones?

And why is this bothering me so much?




Oh...yes, because after spending two evenings in a row hosting a teen game night, I really don't need anymore reminders of how old I am.


"Nintendo Gameboy Color! I remember when this was the coolest thing ever!"

"Super Mario Bros.! I remember when we got our first Nintendo!"


Yeah...I think I'll shut-up right about now.



(the game nights were super cool, though)