busyThis bothers me. I'm all for having strong female leads in entertainment. But Pixar is a great studio precisely because they're making the kind of movies they would want to watch. That's an approach I want to encourage. If you want strong female characters, you make some. Don't try to fob off your creative desires on somebody else. If Pixar wants to tell a girl story, great. But if that's not what inspires them, I don't think they should have to do it. I'd rather see a great boy story that they love than a mediocre girl story that they made because somebody said, "You should put a girl in the lead role." Apparently Pixar does have a princess story somewhere in the works; that has potential.
I don't mind ragging on an entire industry, if it has a bad habit of misrepresenting or under-representing certain people. I don't mind people saying, "I'd really like to see X," or "I'm offering merry bundles of cash for people who write/draw/produce X." But I don't think it's right to point to a specific creative company or individual and say, "You HAVE to do X." That is not how creativity works. If you put something into a story strictly for political or moral purposes, and not because it's the core of a cool story that excites your imagination ... chances are, it's going to suck.
I think that if women really, really want a movie with a strong female lead, they should make their own. Same with books. If you don't like what's on offer, do it yourself. Do it better. Because if you're right, and there's a real gap in the entertainment, then there will be other dissatisfied fans out there who will flock to your offering.
If you want stuff with strong female characters but you don't feel creative yourself, there's another option: support women in entertainment. Give them your attention and your money. Here's a terrific movie by a woman, starring a goddess in the lead role. Here's an online serial by a woman, featuring a cookie-baking mom who slays alien bugs to save the galaxy. Here is some vivid art by a woman, inspired by the African diaspora and frequently depicting women. Here is the landing page for my Poetry Fishbowls; feel free to suggest a strong female character whenever a fishbowl is open. Want more examples? Check out the Links list over in
crowdfunding; many (though not all) of those projects belong to women and/or feature strong female leads.Because asking the guys to do stuff for you? Is not feminism. You want girls to have good role models, be one. Do it yourself.
Re: Thoughts
October 10 2009, 04:51:40 UTC 11 years ago
Oh, you're not kidding. I've always had a thing for that archetype.
Ooo ... good point.
Thank you. I'm relieved, I thought I might have been making a fool of myself there. *^_^*
re: vampires
Hrmmm... there's the Hollows series, where you have the female detective and the female living vampire, but the living vampire's still young and not dead yet... where the main character is 'totally straight' but constantly lusting over her vampiric partner ...
Though really I don't like that series. And I could write a whole lot about why that is.
Hrmmm...
There's a British series 'Demons' which is basically Buffy with reversed roles. Young high school guy finds out he's the last of the van Helsing family. One of the main secondary characters is Mina (yes, from the book Dracula), who's totally hot, but not a love interest. (His mentor is mysterious foreign American who always listens to country music and eats hamburgers) That show was awesome...
Re: Thoughts
October 10 2009, 07:38:06 UTC 11 years ago
I must say, I really enjoyed Mina in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. "Your first mistake was thinking I need them to protect me."