Frustration wrote: ↑Thu Nov 10, 2022 10:55 pm
It makes the very pertinent point that certain male writers wrote better female characters than certain female writers.
This deflates the arguments that men can't write convincing women or that women have a special facility for writing women.
One of the things that has really begun to piss me off of late is the idea that you have to be part of X group in order to write about X group. "Straight people cannot play gay people, able people cannot play disabled people, this film about blacks must have a black director" etc.
Speaking of our conversation of strong women here, I found this. I will freely admit that its unfair but it also made me LOL. (Its also more evidence that you'll ever need that men do in fact like strong women).
Not only is it unfair, it is also an absolute lie used to push a culture war narrative. There are ton of well written strong female characters who were written by women. Heck, Japan alone has buttload of examples of that.
The Japanese are not afraid to write women as women. They are allowed to be scared, to be vulnerable, to cry, to need and want men and children. AND they do this whilst kicking ass and looking sexy whilst doing it.
Compare this to Rey or Cpt "I Have Had A Stroke And I Cannot Smile" Marvel to see the difference.
So you're right, the meme is wrong. There should be a * that says "Hollywood" on it.
Though not all female characters in Japanese media "need and want men and children" and not all of them are always "feminine" either. And there are Hollywood writers who know how to write strong female women.
Speaking of our conversation of strong women here, I found this. I will freely admit that its unfair but it also made me LOL. (Its also more evidence that you'll ever need that men do in fact like strong women).
Not only is it unfair, it is also an absolute lie used to push a culture war narrative. There are ton of well written strong female characters who were written by women. Heck, Japan alone has buttload of examples of that.
The Japanese are not afraid to write women as women. They are allowed to be scared, to be vulnerable, to cry, to need and want men and children. AND they do this whilst kicking ass and looking sexy whilst doing it.
Compare this to Rey or Cpt "I Have Had A Stroke And I Cannot Smile" Marvel to see the difference.
So you're right, the meme is wrong. There should be a * that says "Hollywood" on it.
Though not all female characters in Japanese media "need and want men and children" and not all of them are always "feminine" either. And there are Hollywood writers who know how to write strong female women.
Agreed that not all female characters need to be of the same type. In fact - quite to the contrary! - this is my very objection: that these days *all* female characters in American film are of the "cold warrior" type. American television is pretty bad, but owing to its greater volume there are I'd say some decent characters to be found there.
What are modern American characters that you would consider good examples of strong women?
Speaking of our conversation of strong women here, I found this. I will freely admit that its unfair but it also made me LOL. (Its also more evidence that you'll ever need that men do in fact like strong women).
Not only is it unfair, it is also an absolute lie used to push a culture war narrative. There are ton of well written strong female characters who were written by women. Heck, Japan alone has buttload of examples of that.
The Japanese are not afraid to write women as women. They are allowed to be scared, to be vulnerable, to cry, to need and want men and children. AND they do this whilst kicking ass and looking sexy whilst doing it.
Compare this to Rey or Cpt "I Have Had A Stroke And I Cannot Smile" Marvel to see the difference.
So you're right, the meme is wrong. There should be a * that says "Hollywood" on it.
Though not all female characters in Japanese media "need and want men and children" and not all of them are always "feminine" either. And there are Hollywood writers who know how to write strong female women.
Agreed that not all female characters need to be of the same type. In fact - quite to the contrary! - this is my very objection: that these days *all* female characters in American film are of the "cold warrior" type. American television is pretty bad, but owing to its greater volume there are I'd say some decent characters to be found there.
What are modern American characters that you would consider good examples of strong women?
Well, I'm currently watching CBS' FBI that has been running for 5 seasons now, that has some well written strong female characters. The 2017 Wonder Woman film is a good example. Recent MCU has some examples, Hawkeye's Kate Bishop is decently written and is no way a "mary sue" unlike what those culture war hacks on Youtube claim.
Recently watched Enola Holmes 2, she comes across as confident but also has moments of vulnerability and eventually learns that it's alright to ask for help.
Enola Holmes is a perfect example. It would be too easy to make her better than Sherlock. Or not need him at all, or figure out things that he could not figure out. As in knocking down a man to elevate the woman.
She still misses things, messes up, but at the same time shows the same potential as Sherlock. Not to mention both movies had a feminist message which didn't need to beat you over the head repeatedly while dragging every man with it. It fits narratively, historically and more importantly, for a movie entertaining.
Sure the movies has its flaws but at the core they are pretty decent.
McAvoy wrote: ↑Sat Nov 12, 2022 4:52 am
Enola Holmes is a perfect example. It would be too easy to make her better than Sherlock. Or not need him at all, or figure out things that he could not figure out. As in knocking down a man to elevate the woman.
She still misses things, messes up, but at the same time shows the same potential as Sherlock. Not to mention both movies had a feminist message which didn't need to beat you over the head repeatedly while dragging every man with it. It fits narratively, historically and more importantly, for a movie entertaining.
Sure the movies has its flaws but at the core they are pretty decent.
McAvoy wrote: ↑Sat Nov 12, 2022 4:52 am
Enola Holmes is a perfect example. It would be too easy to make her better than Sherlock. Or not need him at all, or figure out things that he could not figure out. As in knocking down a man to elevate the woman.
She still misses things, messes up, but at the same time shows the same potential as Sherlock. Not to mention both movies had a feminist message which didn't need to beat you over the head repeatedly while dragging every man with it. It fits narratively, historically and more importantly, for a movie entertaining.
Sure the movies has its flaws but at the core they are pretty decent.
I haven't seen it, but even if the character is excellent it's ultimately a male derivative character. In other words, it's not an original character (either created by modern writers or a pre-existing character featured by modern writers, like Galadriel). Again, this wouldn't be so bad in a vacuum but at least part of the problem with writing of women these days is that it seems like they're always re-imagined versions of male characters, or characters designed to take the place of a popular male character, or a character who otherwise isn't her own unique character. It's like they all fail some modified version of the Bechdel test which asks whether a female character has any reason to exist that doesn't derive from a male.
McAvoy wrote: ↑Sat Nov 12, 2022 4:52 am
Enola Holmes is a perfect example. It would be too easy to make her better than Sherlock. Or not need him at all, or figure out things that he could not figure out. As in knocking down a man to elevate the woman.
She still misses things, messes up, but at the same time shows the same potential as Sherlock. Not to mention both movies had a feminist message which didn't need to beat you over the head repeatedly while dragging every man with it. It fits narratively, historically and more importantly, for a movie entertaining.
Sure the movies has its flaws but at the core they are pretty decent.
I haven't seen it, but even if the character is excellent it's ultimately a male derivative character. In other words, it's not an original character (either created by modern writers or a pre-existing character featured by modern writers, like Galadriel). Again, this wouldn't be so bad in a vacuum but at least part of the problem with writing of women these days is that it seems like they're always re-imagined versions of male characters, or characters designed to take the place of a popular male character, or a character who otherwise isn't her own unique character. It's like they all fail some modified version of the Bechdel test which asks whether a female character has any reason to exist that doesn't derive from a male.
The Enola Holmes films are actually based on a popular YA book series that's been running since 2006 and is highly regarded among many Sherlock Holmes fans. So before this recent phenomenon you're talking about.
And Enola is her own unique character, being related to an established male character doesn't take that away.
clearspira wrote: ↑Fri Nov 11, 2022 4:32 pmIt's complete BS.
It's the other half of prejudice, and people grabbing as much power and influence for their own group (however they define that) as they can.
One of the big myths of our modern age is that people who are victimized are morally superior. Nothing is further from the truth - and lots of minorities aren't victimized, but hang on to that status as hard as they can.
"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two equals four. If that is granted, all else follows." -- George Orwell, 1984
clearspira wrote: ↑Fri Nov 11, 2022 4:32 pmIt's complete BS.
It's the other half of prejudice, and people grabbing as much power and influence for their own group (however they define that) as they can.
One of the big myths of our modern age is that people who are victimized are morally superior. Nothing is further from the truth - and lots of minorities aren't victimized, but hang on to that status as hard as they can.
This may be an odd tangent, but look at that episode of All in the Family they did a few years ago. The original series made Archie look like a bigot and highlighted the weaknesses of his views, but it ALSO tried to make him a sympathetic, likable character who (to use a cliche) ultimately had a good heart, and to portray the "other side" as coming with its own weaknesses and the more liberally minded characters as at times hypocrites and it tried to "cross-examine" their views and to see how far they're really willing to go with their beliefs (for example, there's an episode where Mike loses a job to a black man because of affirmative action and he doesn't take it well).
That modern remade episode got it totally wrong. It portrayed Archie as thoroughly detestable and everyone else as kind of perfect, unequivocally superior bunch. Your comment made me think of it in the sense of how modern media tends to portray everything in a very one-sided way as determined by the views of those "in power and influence." Think about a lot of ST:TNG episodes which tackled various topics with episodes that cross examined both points of view and sortof left it up for the viewer to decide who was right. These days, they'd really just push one perspective on whatever the topic may be.
