"What we're engaged in is trying to distill whatever aspect of the human condition is appropriate for the story, and present it. I've always thought of acting as a kind of extra-dimensional anthropology. By which I mean we're in the business of people. People interest me: what motivates them; what inspires them and what makes them happy, what makes them sad. And we're all united by it, we're all united by it. We're all united by these feelings that we all feel at different times. The reason I became an actor is that I sat in the audience - in the cinema audience and also in audiences at the theatre, and I love it when you go to see something, and you enter as an individual and you leave as a group. Because you've all been bound together by the same experience."
Tom Hiddleston, on creating art
(Nerd HQ, SDCC 2013)
So I was driving home and something occurred to me that I want to write about real fast, because i am apparently incapable of experiencing moments of learning and NOT sharing it here.
I have been, over time, fond of making jokes about Kieron Gillen killing off Kate Bishop. To me, it’s a joke about cavalierly spoiling another writer’s work and filling that writer’s inbox up with concerned emails and asks. I do this because I love Kieron. He’s one of my dearest friends in comics and out and I am on any given day at any given time in awe of something he’s said or written somewhere. And because Actually Feeling Stuff is hard this is how I show affection. Or at least it was.
For whatever reason I was chewing it over in my head and I started to feel like Lucy with the football. I dunno about you or who you are or what you like but I don’t like feeling like Lucy with the football.
It doesn’t matter what I thought the joke was, it occurs to me that because Kate is Kate and not, say, Karl, it occurs to me that there’s another angle from which to view that joke from that makes it seem… well, mean-spirited. Because this is a thing that comics does to Kates. Frequently.
Which, uh, which is bullshit. And I’m sorry for not sensing that sooner.
So I’m not going to make that joke any more. And I promise nobody’s gonna off Kate so Clint can feel bad about it and do what needs to be done.
Not right now, I mean. Not while she’s carrying that baby.
KIDDING! KIDDING!
Okay, that was the last joke like that. I promise.
For those who don’t know, Kate Bishop aka Hawkeye (not to be confused with Clint Barton aka Hawkeye aka Hawkguy) has been featured pretty prominently in two popular marvel titles. One of them is Hawkeye which Matt Fraction (the OP) writes, which is about Kate and Clint being Hawkeye and what that title and role means (and also about pizza dogs and adorable things) and the other is Young Avengers, written by Kieron Gillen, which is about a group of young super heroes (and gay love).
What Mr. Fraction is saying here that is so awesome and so wonderfully insightful into the medium he is writing in, is that the jokes he makes about Kate being killed off in the other series she is in are far too reminiscent of a real problem in comics - the killing off of women for the pain and motivation of men - as he puts it, “so Clint can feel bad about it and do what needs to be done.”
The next line is a lovely jab at both plot twists and conservative politics, because Mr. Fraction is a wonderful man.
Even if death in Marvel comics doesn’t mean much, the idea that female characters, and the violence enacted on them are tools to further the plot of male characters is a problem, and it is one that Mr. Fraction clearly understands.
It just makes me really happy when people show awareness of the problematic tropes of their medium, and vow to work against them. Also of course that Kate will be around for a while longer.
Teen Wolf is often under fire around Tumblr for being as casually misogynistic as they come. The central women are all love interests or mothers. The female villains die horribly, where the male villains get backstories and development. Sometimes women seem to be gratuitously murdered just because. These accusations all may be true, but I think to call the show as a whole misogynistic is to miss one of the central themes of the show: matriarchy.
Teen Wolf, as far as I can tell, is about matriarchies. Specifically, it’s about matriarchy as an ideal and about the problems that arise when men grab for power that belongs by right to women. Which is to say, all the problems in the show.
This actually explains a lot. Everyone who’s raved about Frozen should read this.
Oh my god, this article. The writer of this article seems legit disappointed that the two mains of Frozen are not the Kate Beatonian “Strong Female Character.” While it doesn’t send me into belching globs of rage like I thought it might, I am tempted to waste the afternoon writing a strongly-worded rebuttal.
…but I won’t. Because today is sportsball.
Female characters that make mistakes = anti-feminist, ladies!
A good portion of what she writes is true about Frozen, but her strikes against it doesn’t have much to do with why I like that film. I like the film because, to me, it’s about escaping from your dumb well-intentioned-but-actually-friggin’-abusive biological parents and putting yourself in a place that you can heal. I don’t especially care if any other Disney movie managed to do that first. I like the way this movie did it, and it speaks to me and makes me feel stronger and less alone as a person.
Sometimes you just have to run away from everything, hide yourself in an ice castle, and learn that what you are isn’t terrible. Seeing this reinforced has made me a better, happier adult. The rest of the movie is just details.
Complaining that Elsa is a bad character because she doesn’t “take responsibility” both dramatically misses the point of her character arc completely and suggests to me a certain disturbing lack of empathy for people who actually deal with severe anxiety…
And saying that for Anna fixing her relationship with Elsa is a secondary goal because her second song is about love is… I mean… wow. Just. Wow.
Okay, kudos to everyone who got to the end of this piece of crap article. Wow.
This author, on top of whatever everyone else here said, clearly has no idea what theme and contrast are. What is Anna clumsy? because Elsa is too contained. They are contrasts. Duh? Like. What movie was this person watching?
Elsa doesn’t take responsibility? What - did she have to say those words on camera? Or does this author not know how to read emotion, motivation, or anything that isn’t stated.
And um. Love being Anna’s primary objective? Maybe this author was busy checking her watch when the conflict was resolved, what with the “true love” in the film being that between sisters.
But yeah, nothing outgrosses the fact that this author needs women to be perfect idealized “strong” characters with no flaws or actual traits.
Look at me, I am not a good female character (gender shit aside).
Oh, and the fact that they don’t think that showing that a male love interest can be predatory is important and a feminist message? Psh. John Smith was shown as nonpredatory. And Naveen, who came looking for money, ended up being a god guy after all.
More than half the questions I am asked are about the politics of the way I look. What it feels like to be not skinny/dark-skinned/a minority/not conventionally pretty/female/etc. It’s not very interesting to me, but I know it’s interesting to people reading an interview. Sometimes I get jealous of white male showrunners when 90 percent of their questions are about characters, story structure, creative inspiration, or, hell, even the business of getting a show on the air. Because as a result the interview of me reads like I’m interested only in talking about my outward appearance and the politics of being a minority and how I fit into Hollywood, blah blah blah. I want to shout, “Those were the only questions they asked!?
killing of women for a man’s pain is so lazy though, like it’s the easiest “character development jump starter” out there. it’s so formulaic. the woman—a daughter, a sister, a lover—dies. The man who loves her, be it her father or her brother or her husband or boyfriend, undergoes intense pain and radical change. Boring.
Instead of killing women, let them live.
Let Jennifer Blake survive Peter Hale and burn Beacon Hills down around them, forcing Derek to chose where his loyalties lie. Let her grow even stronger among the magic in Beacon Hills and slaughter anyone who would dare take what’s hers.
Let Andrea Harrison make it through Woodbury colder and harder and still stunningly compassionate; she won’t make the mistake of trusting a stranger again but she’ll also become a symbol, the woman who won a war with kindness and understanding rather than bullets.
Let Tara Knowles survive Gemma and fight again for her sons, and her husband, and her own life; force her husband to chose between his mother and the club that’s killed his fathers and his friends or his wife who will leave him and his sons. Let Tara live and put her life back together; let her raise her boys right, to be good and proud and strong.
Let Debra Parker outlive Joe Carroll and dismantle his cult by pieces; let her rescue the ones he’s taken and go out into the world and do it again and again and again.
Let Shmi Skywalker walk out of the desert unbroken; let her kindness save her son and spare the galaxy 25 years of darkness.
Let Padme Amidala rise from the ashes of Mustafar; let her fight a war with as much strength and fervor as her fallen husband; let her raise her children to be good and just and true but to never forget where they came from; let her triumph over the Sith and see her Republic returned to her.
Let Frigga slip past Malekith’s blade; let her see through Loki’s illusions and take her son in hand again; let her keep the nine realms safe and balanced through her wisdom and cleverness and magic.
Let Mary Winchester shove a magic knife through Azazel’s chest in their bedroom; let her drive away the hellhounds; let her raise her boys to normal, happy lives.
Let all the women who are murdered for their crime-fighting husbands live; let them defeat their would-be killers and put their angsty husbands to same.
Let all the superheroes’ girlfriends escape a villain’s revenge; let them dodge bullets and death rays and assassin’s knives; let them unmask those villains, let them talk those villains down, let them trample those villains to dust so they never, ever rise again.
Stop cutting women into pieces for a man’s tears. Stop hacking us apart to spur men into action. Stop choking us, stop beating us, stop slitting our throats in our sleep.
Be interesting. Let the woman live. Give her her own strengths and weaknesses and flaws and motivations instead of a knife in the back.
Just think, how much more interesting is the story if the woman’s out on the battlefield instead of stuck inside the refrigerator?
sometime I just think about how easy it would be to market superheroes toward little girls and I am filled with rage
like do these people not realize how fucking easy this shit would be
there’s the dazzler she’s like a popstar and a superhero do you know how many 4-12 year old girls would dig that shit
there’s the wasp and her superpowers are seriously like zapping jerks, flying, and being cuter than everybody else. also she’s a famous fashion designer. and she’s better than you. (like she shrinks and stuff too but mainly her power is being better than you)
she-hulk is like this nerdy chick with the power to get bigger and greener and be spontaneously tougher than everybody in the vicinity like I don’t even know a little girl who wouldn’t slit someone’s throat for the ability to be stronger than all the boys when they pissed her off
little girl likes magic? scarlet witch
little girl likes science? invisible woman
little girl likes spies? black widow
little girl likes aliens? karolina dean
little girl likes bionic arms? misty knight
little girl likes flying horses? wow. guess who has one of those? valkyrie. valkyrie does.
My point is that’s it’s so fucking easy so chop-chop, Marvel, get on it. Seriously, I went ten years of my life thinking superheroes were boys. That’s ten years of you not profiting off of my inability to refrain from buying even the crappiest merchandise you offer if it has a character I love on it. Little girls are an enormous market; they will buy all your shit if you just suggest to them that maybe they’d like to.
or you could just keep on not profiting when you could be making money selling literally any object that has enough space to plaster a female superhero’s face on it. that’s cool too.
how can you complain about “mary sue” characters when 90% of mainstream male characters are perfect strong heroes who save the day and “get the girl” but you can’t let a female character be the same without being mocked or having something fucking horrible happen to her you whiny fucking babies
I’m allowed to complain about Mary Sues because 1) I complain about those male characters all the time 2) those male characters are giving unequal depth to the female ones I’m complain about 3) Gary Stus are called out ALL the time - Batman’s Gary Stu-ness is an IN CANON JOKE 4) asking for well-written female characters is not anti-feminist like I can’t believe I even have to say this and insisting that we treat badly written women characters as equally awesome as well-written male ones will not help the cause.
Tell me again, what did you say about representation not being important?
This gifset goes perfectly with an article I just read. This is why media representation is so important. Because it brainwashes our children to not even see themselves in their OWN stories.
Just read Adichie’s new novel Americanah, which I highly recommend. Great book, and not too much weather in it.
Images: POC featured in shots from the crowd at Laketown in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Exposure of images has been altered to compensate for the low saturation point of 3D movie shooting as well as generally crappy cinematography.
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The second Hobbit movie was pretty terrible. I am not going to pretend otherwise. But this is not a post for me to talk about how Peter Jackson has ruined his reputation and thrown out everything that made the Lord of the Rings great. No, this is a post to point out the one good thing the movie did - better than the production team of the LotR movies and better than most fantasy movies I have seen.
For those of you who don’t know much about Tolkiens original mythos, it was pretty racist. The men of Middle Earth, which is not all of the whole of the world (arda), are white. There are other areas, whose people are described as ‘swarthy’ or 'having dark complexions’ and their military tactics and clothing are taken pretty much directly from East Asian, African, and South-Asian cultures. These races are all, at the time of LotR, sided with Sauron or Evil in some way. In the books, people with these ancestries are pretty universally no good. Here is a page with a good summery of all of the really problematic things as well as the common defenses you might here.
Now, someone could choose to take a very strict to canon approach and say that the population of Lake Town would not have been so diverse, based on Tolkien’s writings. If such a person has voiced such an opinion, though, they probably shouldn’t have gotten to this part of the film because this film was so far from the canon of the books that if this is what you are complaining about kindly rethink your life.
But even, theoretically, if Peter Jackson hadn’t decided to replace his brain with all the Oscars he won for The Return of the King and had made a Hobbit movie that was about as true as to Tolkien as the LotR movies were and even half as good, I still think there is absolutely no reason to choose to preserve that level of racism and racial exclusion in a fantasy work.
The choice to not only include POC in this crowd (however badly the crowd acting was directed), but have them front and center is important. Not that POC had any speaking roles, but they were there, in Middle Earth, playing everyday, non-evil people.
Visually, I personally was plenty represented by the likes of Aragorn, the people of Gondor or the Dwarves (though more female characters would have been nice), so I can’t say what this might mean to a fan of the movies, books, or world who was previously rather conspicuously missing, except under blatantly ethnic-coded costume battling against the heroes in the third film.
But seeing all of the things still going around about Frozen (a fantasy film set in a real-ish place at a ??? time with plenty of historical and geographic inaccuracy that has to reject actual history to not have POC) and Tangled (a fantasy film set in a make believe place at no set time with no canon to reject and no POC) I thought I would point this out, because I hadn’t seen anyone do this yet.
By the way, I think overall, both Tangled and Frozen were infinitely better films than this pile of horse poop. In like every way (this franchise is 5 movies running without passing the Bechdel Test). So it’s even more remarkable that it managed to outdo so many speculative fiction movies on racial representation.
(I will be happy to be proven wrong if someone can find a shot of POC in the LotR movies. There may be some amongst the heavily armored and hidden riders that are impossible to make out on a computer screen…)