*is trying to think of examples of strong female characters who don’t adhere to hotness and not-quite-as-kickass-as-male-characters standards*
*is failing*
🙁
Well, I do think Black Widow manages to be more kickass than many male characters, and an easy equal for most of the Avengers even without being a super, at least in the recent films… but she still spends more time looking sexy than being kickass.
Also, a single character wouldn’t really make the point.
Boo.
This comic is very much on target. Buffy and Xena are two examples who are, yes, hot, but also at least as kick-ass as Angel or Hercules.
The vast, vast majority of heroes of either gender are, of course, hot, but schlubby “everyman” protagonists who always get the hot girl are indeed a fantasy that only men get to have on screen. And a strong female character may never upstage her boyfriend, even though the opposite happens all the time.
tl;dr: Go to TVTropes, and Action Girl is a trope, but Faux Action Girl is almost as big. And Non Action Guy is much, much smaller.
Ah, good point… though I was specifically thinking of comic characters and they’re all originally (with the possible exception of Aeon Flux?) from different media… or history.
Buffy was stronger than Angel. He even said so at one point (it’s an aspect of her nature that always bothered Riley which was only one of the reasons he was all wrong for her). She even beat Angelus when he was fighting her even though he had her on the floor and came at her with a sword when she was unarmed. These are reasons why I really detested the last two seasons that showed her being co-dependent and locked in an ugly relationship with a soulless demon.
I definitely think that’s a logical opinion. I’m not down with the whole “co-dependent” thing either. What I do like about those seasons is that she’s rebuilding from the lowest point in her life, and still manages to get the job done, despite the emotional/mental issues. I like that her character works through “weakness” (I don’t really think of emotional instability as weakness, so much as something to work through), even though she is physically strong. If you haven’t picked up the comic, do so! They just finished season 9, and she’s in a much better place than she was at the end of season 7. Still got a serious and distracting thang for the men in her life, though… I think she probably always will.
I don’t bother with the comics. The last two seasons turned me off vampires in general and the series entirely in particular. I also don’t have the money to spend on such things. Besides, I don’t think she was suffering from emotional “weakness”. She was severely depressed, to the point where another person would have been in a mental home under heavy medication. Remember, she told Giles and the others that it felt like she was dying after she came back from the dead. Those aren’t words to describe emotional weakness. I don’t think it’s a coincidence either that she started bumping uglies with Spike a mere week after Giles left. Her father left her, Angel left her, Riley left her, her mother died and then Giles took off as well. Face it, she must have terrible abandonment issues! It makes a kind of twisted sense that she’d turn to the one creature who wouldn’t leave even if he’s the last person who should have been there. Yeeesh.
Was kind of a shame. I really liked, Marrow pre-Hawtness when she was mostly pissy, scrappy, and fearless.
Kind of like a Manic Pixie Dream Girl made of broken glass and nailbats.
I lost interest after she got “cured.”
Amanda Waller. Or at least the character she used to be, anyway.
Both Jenny Sparks and Jenny Quantum from the Authority series. (The Engineer, however, did up the hotness, partly because she could make her suit look any way she wanted, but was definitely no less kick-arse than anyone else).
Everyone in the Runaways. But then, they were more antiheros.
It’s a hell of a stretch coming up with these examples, btw.
Red Sonja is certainly sexy (though her hygiene is…barbaric, and it’s actually come back to bite her socially), but I don’t think she’d play second fiddle to any character, male or female.
I’m waiting for her to kick him and then flee. Why is she even talking to him?! He was irrational before he took that lethal potion. Does she actually think he’s going to listen to reason now?
To be fair, we’ve only know him for less than an hour of his life. Maybe they’ve been friends for a long time. Maybe he has several redeeming characteristics.
I assume he lost them when he got super-sexist, but she would still remember him as who he was, not necessarily who he is now.
Who doesn’t have an hour of their life that if shown to complete strangers would label them as a total douche.
Of course he could have always been a jerk. Just saying, its unknown.
He hasn’t transformed her yet, and who knows, he might just have misinterpreted her earlier feelings about her looks as wanting boobs. Maybe he’ll surprise us and respect her wishes.
I mean, this is a comic where we recently saw Gynostar fight a 50’s housewife mad scientist, her sorority sisters, her hyperintelligent fetus and her sarcastic roomba on the moon.
That would definitely be a surprise! After the way he objectified the ladies on the street, I get the sense we’re seeing a serious personality flaw that probably will supersede his integrity with his friend.
But seriously, the guy’s powers work by line of sight, so there’s no reason for her to think running away is a better plan. She could probably distract him long enough to get behind some cover, I suppose. (This is why supporting characters without superpowers who have to face supervillains always end up talking them down or tricking them: it’s the only way they can possibly be relevant.)
Right! She could say something like, “Thanks for the offer bu–hey, where did the little purple guy go? Is he making off with one of your women?” Then when he looks around to check she can make a break for it. (Actually, where IS the purple guy? If he’s supposed to be a supervillain he’s waited long enough to make his move.)
Gosh, she’s so ungrateful! It’s like she doesn’t want to be GazeGirl, his sidekick/love interest/decorative accessory!
Still, when she’s almost as powerful as he is, but not quite, she’ll quickly change her mind.
Women, amiright?
(The preceding comment was brought to you by sarcastic parody, and does not reflect Jerden’s actual views.)
Anyway, it’s a good job I saw an advert for Gyno Star, because I’d resigned myself to never reading any more of this hilariously thought provoking story.
One of the reasons why SciFi often receives much love from feminist fans is that although they aim to put the most attractive women they can on the show, they often get to give orders, shoot and blow up things too, without skimpy outfits. (Obviously I’m referring to the later Star Trek series and Stargate, etc, etc, rather than say Cleopatra 2525 or whatever it is.)
I’d also like give a shout out to Drowtales: http://www.drowtales.com/index.php
I was surprised to find a medieval flavored manga where women going into battle do so in full plate armor and not mail bikinis. ;D
I was also going to say something about strong females characters, but this comic has basically covered it already. (Covered… female characters… Heheh, I haz dirty mind.) I have been thinking of trying to write a SciFi novel with a majority of female characters and, man, if you can’t swing a stick and hit a million badly written “string female characters” out there.
For the record, none of my female characters will be wearing anything but normal military and paramilitary outfits. They will not be swooning over the male characters (well, one of them might fall for a guy, but I am certainly not going to have her falling at his feet like one of the old Bond girls). The two highest ranked military characters will be women and will be shooting up bad guys and calling the shots, while two of the scientists will also be women and in charge of the civilian matters.
No high heels will feature in the story at all, even though Hollywood has made them mandatory for all female badasses in movies. None of them will be described as statistically improbable beauties, nor will they all be young and “hot”. (Main scientist is a woman in her 60s with a tire around the middle and plenty of wrinkles. She ain’t got time for Botox and Photoshop, she gots to save the team from certain alien technology related death.) Men will be discussed by female characters as normal every day relationships as I have observed in real life. I.E. Coworkers, husbands, etc, not like airheads on a teen angst show. I WILL pass the Bechdel test, repeatedly.
However, I will be going for a “just accept it, this is the way it is” style. Characters will be taking this all as a matter of fact, not making stands and speeches about “strong female characters.” Realism will be maintained. The gung-ho six foot four male Marine will be the go-to guy for the heavy lifting. (Though for combat he is a young newbie who doesn’t realize he isn’t quite the hardcore SOB he thinks he is, as compared to his two female superiors who are veterans and will not be choking when the bad guys come knocking.) No Buffys with superpowers here. I don’t want to try to achieve some sort of agenda. I feel a view of women just being characters with flaws and strengths same as the males better than intentionally aiming for “strong female characters.”
Hmmmm… Considering what I have written here (which is not the best way to explain it, since I just started writing random points and throwing them in paragraphs), does anyone have any suggestions?
No suggestions here, Bob. You seem to have it covered. Of course, I think Marion Zimmer Bradley already covered strong women with her Free Amazons of Darkover. But that aspect of her ficiontal world was dedicated to shutting out help from men. Presumably, your creation will have men and women working side by side. I look forward to finding it on the shelves if it ever makes it to publication. (No high heels, yay!)
There’s a solid and practical reason to have a majority of female characters in a sci-fi series set in space, btw: efficiency. Specifically, the effect that can be achieved with the minimum amount of meatbag biomass. Every pound of human flesh you have to fly to space, clothe, house and feed is a massive drain of resources. Couple this to it being easier to design spaceship quarters if they only have to fit a narrower range of body sizes than is found down here on planet earth.
Women are, on average, shorter and lighter than men.
Design your spaceships to fit only the shortest 30% of the adult human population, and maybe the lightest 50% of that 30%, and you save a lot of resources, while still having 15% of all humanity to choose from. And most of that 15% will be female.
Discussion (31) ¬
*is trying to think of examples of strong female characters who don’t adhere to hotness and not-quite-as-kickass-as-male-characters standards*
*is failing*
🙁
Well, I do think Black Widow manages to be more kickass than many male characters, and an easy equal for most of the Avengers even without being a super, at least in the recent films… but she still spends more time looking sexy than being kickass.
Also, a single character wouldn’t really make the point.
Boo.
This comic is very much on target. Buffy and Xena are two examples who are, yes, hot, but also at least as kick-ass as Angel or Hercules.
The vast, vast majority of heroes of either gender are, of course, hot, but schlubby “everyman” protagonists who always get the hot girl are indeed a fantasy that only men get to have on screen. And a strong female character may never upstage her boyfriend, even though the opposite happens all the time.
tl;dr: Go to TVTropes, and Action Girl is a trope, but Faux Action Girl is almost as big. And Non Action Guy is much, much smaller.
Ellen Ripley, Katherine Janeway, Evelyn Salt, Aeon Flux, Ryan Stone, Elizabeth I, Nikita
Ah, good point… though I was specifically thinking of comic characters and they’re all originally (with the possible exception of Aeon Flux?) from different media… or history.
Buffy was stronger than Angel. He even said so at one point (it’s an aspect of her nature that always bothered Riley which was only one of the reasons he was all wrong for her). She even beat Angelus when he was fighting her even though he had her on the floor and came at her with a sword when she was unarmed. These are reasons why I really detested the last two seasons that showed her being co-dependent and locked in an ugly relationship with a soulless demon.
I definitely think that’s a logical opinion. I’m not down with the whole “co-dependent” thing either. What I do like about those seasons is that she’s rebuilding from the lowest point in her life, and still manages to get the job done, despite the emotional/mental issues. I like that her character works through “weakness” (I don’t really think of emotional instability as weakness, so much as something to work through), even though she is physically strong. If you haven’t picked up the comic, do so! They just finished season 9, and she’s in a much better place than she was at the end of season 7. Still got a serious and distracting thang for the men in her life, though… I think she probably always will.
I don’t bother with the comics. The last two seasons turned me off vampires in general and the series entirely in particular. I also don’t have the money to spend on such things. Besides, I don’t think she was suffering from emotional “weakness”. She was severely depressed, to the point where another person would have been in a mental home under heavy medication. Remember, she told Giles and the others that it felt like she was dying after she came back from the dead. Those aren’t words to describe emotional weakness. I don’t think it’s a coincidence either that she started bumping uglies with Spike a mere week after Giles left. Her father left her, Angel left her, Riley left her, her mother died and then Giles took off as well. Face it, she must have terrible abandonment issues! It makes a kind of twisted sense that she’d turn to the one creature who wouldn’t leave even if he’s the last person who should have been there. Yeeesh.
Callisto and Marrow of the X-men. Of course at some point they both curiously became Hawt so…
Was kind of a shame. I really liked, Marrow pre-Hawtness when she was mostly pissy, scrappy, and fearless.
Kind of like a Manic Pixie Dream Girl made of broken glass and nailbats.
I lost interest after she got “cured.”
Amanda Waller. Or at least the character she used to be, anyway.
Both Jenny Sparks and Jenny Quantum from the Authority series. (The Engineer, however, did up the hotness, partly because she could make her suit look any way she wanted, but was definitely no less kick-arse than anyone else).
Everyone in the Runaways. But then, they were more antiheros.
It’s a hell of a stretch coming up with these examples, btw.
Red Sonja is certainly sexy (though her hygiene is…barbaric, and it’s actually come back to bite her socially), but I don’t think she’d play second fiddle to any character, male or female.
Booooooobs
waiting for his kick…
I’m waiting for her to kick him and then flee. Why is she even talking to him?! He was irrational before he took that lethal potion. Does she actually think he’s going to listen to reason now?
To be fair, we’ve only know him for less than an hour of his life. Maybe they’ve been friends for a long time. Maybe he has several redeeming characteristics.
I assume he lost them when he got super-sexist, but she would still remember him as who he was, not necessarily who he is now.
Who doesn’t have an hour of their life that if shown to complete strangers would label them as a total douche.
Of course he could have always been a jerk. Just saying, its unknown.
He hasn’t transformed her yet, and who knows, he might just have misinterpreted her earlier feelings about her looks as wanting boobs. Maybe he’ll surprise us and respect her wishes.
I mean, this is a comic where we recently saw Gynostar fight a 50’s housewife mad scientist, her sorority sisters, her hyperintelligent fetus and her sarcastic roomba on the moon.
Nah, too implausible.
That would definitely be a surprise! After the way he objectified the ladies on the street, I get the sense we’re seeing a serious personality flaw that probably will supersede his integrity with his friend.
But seriously, the guy’s powers work by line of sight, so there’s no reason for her to think running away is a better plan. She could probably distract him long enough to get behind some cover, I suppose. (This is why supporting characters without superpowers who have to face supervillains always end up talking them down or tricking them: it’s the only way they can possibly be relevant.)
Right! She could say something like, “Thanks for the offer bu–hey, where did the little purple guy go? Is he making off with one of your women?” Then when he looks around to check she can make a break for it. (Actually, where IS the purple guy? If he’s supposed to be a supervillain he’s waited long enough to make his move.)
I like how even in his freakishly hulky form, he still gesticulates and behaves like a nerdy manchild. Perfect acting.
I think it’s endearing.
his body language is spot on!
Gosh, she’s so ungrateful! It’s like she doesn’t want to be GazeGirl, his sidekick/love interest/decorative accessory!
Still, when she’s almost as powerful as he is, but not quite, she’ll quickly change her mind.
Women, amiright?
(The preceding comment was brought to you by sarcastic parody, and does not reflect Jerden’s actual views.)
Anyway, it’s a good job I saw an advert for Gyno Star, because I’d resigned myself to never reading any more of this hilariously thought provoking story.
One of the reasons why SciFi often receives much love from feminist fans is that although they aim to put the most attractive women they can on the show, they often get to give orders, shoot and blow up things too, without skimpy outfits. (Obviously I’m referring to the later Star Trek series and Stargate, etc, etc, rather than say Cleopatra 2525 or whatever it is.)
I’d also like give a shout out to Drowtales: http://www.drowtales.com/index.php
I was surprised to find a medieval flavored manga where women going into battle do so in full plate armor and not mail bikinis. ;D
The great thing is that technology makes physical differences irrelevant. Regardless of gender we can all be equally awesome IN SPACE.
I was also going to say something about strong females characters, but this comic has basically covered it already. (Covered… female characters… Heheh, I haz dirty mind.) I have been thinking of trying to write a SciFi novel with a majority of female characters and, man, if you can’t swing a stick and hit a million badly written “string female characters” out there.
For the record, none of my female characters will be wearing anything but normal military and paramilitary outfits. They will not be swooning over the male characters (well, one of them might fall for a guy, but I am certainly not going to have her falling at his feet like one of the old Bond girls). The two highest ranked military characters will be women and will be shooting up bad guys and calling the shots, while two of the scientists will also be women and in charge of the civilian matters.
No high heels will feature in the story at all, even though Hollywood has made them mandatory for all female badasses in movies. None of them will be described as statistically improbable beauties, nor will they all be young and “hot”. (Main scientist is a woman in her 60s with a tire around the middle and plenty of wrinkles. She ain’t got time for Botox and Photoshop, she gots to save the team from certain alien technology related death.) Men will be discussed by female characters as normal every day relationships as I have observed in real life. I.E. Coworkers, husbands, etc, not like airheads on a teen angst show. I WILL pass the Bechdel test, repeatedly.
However, I will be going for a “just accept it, this is the way it is” style. Characters will be taking this all as a matter of fact, not making stands and speeches about “strong female characters.” Realism will be maintained. The gung-ho six foot four male Marine will be the go-to guy for the heavy lifting. (Though for combat he is a young newbie who doesn’t realize he isn’t quite the hardcore SOB he thinks he is, as compared to his two female superiors who are veterans and will not be choking when the bad guys come knocking.) No Buffys with superpowers here. I don’t want to try to achieve some sort of agenda. I feel a view of women just being characters with flaws and strengths same as the males better than intentionally aiming for “strong female characters.”
Hmmmm… Considering what I have written here (which is not the best way to explain it, since I just started writing random points and throwing them in paragraphs), does anyone have any suggestions?
No suggestions here, Bob. You seem to have it covered. Of course, I think Marion Zimmer Bradley already covered strong women with her Free Amazons of Darkover. But that aspect of her ficiontal world was dedicated to shutting out help from men. Presumably, your creation will have men and women working side by side. I look forward to finding it on the shelves if it ever makes it to publication. (No high heels, yay!)
There’s a solid and practical reason to have a majority of female characters in a sci-fi series set in space, btw: efficiency. Specifically, the effect that can be achieved with the minimum amount of meatbag biomass. Every pound of human flesh you have to fly to space, clothe, house and feed is a massive drain of resources. Couple this to it being easier to design spaceship quarters if they only have to fit a narrower range of body sizes than is found down here on planet earth.
Women are, on average, shorter and lighter than men.
Design your spaceships to fit only the shortest 30% of the adult human population, and maybe the lightest 50% of that 30%, and you save a lot of resources, while still having 15% of all humanity to choose from. And most of that 15% will be female.
This guy clearly has not read enough “Slayers”. Lina doesn’t even need her magic to clobber most enemies. She has a sword and knows how to use it.
Hee hee ” Power Pillows”