The Discriminating Fangirl » Movies

Ryan Reynolds is awesome, video at 11.

TDF Pamela — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:38:59 +0000

At the Green Lantern panel at San Diego Comic Con, Ryan Reynolds recited the Green Lantern’s oath for a very excited little fanboy.

If I didn’t already have a crush on the guy, this would’ve created one. :D

TDF Pamela

The Discriminating Fangirl, who is more likely to answer to Pamela if you shout it at her, is the proud owner of an MA in English, focusing on children's/young adult literature and popular culture. Because of her ample free time thanks to being gainfully unemployed, she reads voraciously. She also loves geeky movies and tv shows, reads comic books as often as she can buy them, and when she's procrastinating, she enjoys playing video games. She can be contacted at t.d.fangirl @ gmail.com and followed on Twitter at the link below.

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Link Roundup: July 19, 2010

TDF Pamela — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:50:49 +0000

Yay, I’m back at my own computer! I can use tabbed browsing and upload images and everything! I love my iPad, don’t get me wrong, but writing blog posts on it was a bit of a pain in the ass.

I’ve also got an obscene number of items in my Google Reader, so I figured I’d start a new regular feature here: the Link Roundup! In which I post all kinds of random things that are cool. Rock on.

Books/Writing

Why editors are important when you write. –Amen!
A Paranormal Editorial Roundtable at Tor.com –A great discussion of the ubiquitous kick-ass heroine in urban fantasy.
Suvudu’s Free Library –Check out this month’s free ebooks before they’re gone!

TV/Movies

I’m way late on this one, but io9 created a hilariously awesome 80s Firefly opening credits vid:
And in case you were wondering, here’s why Simon Tam wasn’t in the Firefly intro:
Blastr (formerly SciFi Wire) tells you what you shouldn’t miss at San Diego Comic Com
New pics from the upcoming Thor and Green Lantern movies. –Oh, Ryan Reynolds. [happy sigh]
And another new pic from Thor. –is it just me, or is Thor looking worryingly cheesy?
Two pics from the upcoming Conan The Barbarian remake. –Why hello there, Jason Momoa’s muscular chest.

Science/History

What cool stuff have you stumbled across today? Let me know in the comments. :D

The Business of Being Born – StrangenessAbounds’ Review

Strangeness Abounds — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 03:28:16 +0000

The Business of Being Born

Buy It Now on Amazon: The Business of Being Born

Amazon’s Summary: Is it conceivable that in the United States, profit is increasingly driving the business of birthing–sometimes at the expense of the best possible outcome for mothers and babies? Should birth be viewed and treated as a natural process or a potential medical emergency? This documentary, produced by Ricki Lake and directed by Abby Epstein, opines that money and fear are changing the way Americans give birth, and not necessarily for the better. Beginning with shocking statistics that the United States has the second-worst newborn death rate in the developed world and one of the highest maternal mortality rates in industrialized countries, the film presents interviews with medical professionals including Dr. Jacques Moritz, OB/GYN from St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital; Dr. Michel Odent, OB/GYN researcher; and Masden Wagner, MD, former Director for Women’s and Children’s Health at the World Health Organization. Each expert paints a dismal picture of American birthing and emphasizes the frequent overuse of medical procedures in what are otherwise potentially normal deliveries. Stressing the prevalent use of midwives in birthing in other developed nations (70% of births are attended by midwives in Europe and Japan, versus 8% in the U.S.), the documentary then follows Cara Muhlhahn, a certified nurse midwife in New York City, as she attends a variety of home births. The footage is candid and sometimes very graphic, showing various home-delivery methods, including water birth. Interviews with Cara and her clients emphasize their shared philosophy on birthing as a normal life process that, when attended by a caring and well-trained midwife, can be both empowering and exhilarating. Though a midwife is often characterized as a supportive, but medically untrained birth attendee, the film dispels that stereotype, stressing a good midwife’s solid training and knowledge of when it’s appropriate to seek outside medical intervention. Key in every birth is a commitment to doing what’s best for mother and baby, regardless of pre-planned agendas. The filmmaker’s lament is that hospitals and doctors often too quickly advocate medical intervention in the interest of saving time and avoiding potential litigation. While unquestionably advocating midwifery over hospital birthing, this documentary presents solid expert opinions, concrete facts and statistics, and anecdotal experiences of both mothers and midwives that are crucial in making an informed decision about the use of midwifery in birthing as well as enlightening as to the current state of birthing in the United States

StrangenessAbounds’s Rating:

StrangenessAbounds’s Review: (This review is based on a copy the author personally bought) I will admit to having already arrived at a firm decision as to what I’m going to do to control the birth of my children. Or rather, what I’m not going to do to control the birth of my children.

The Business of Being Born is a documentary by two women, Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein; both have either had children or about to have a child. Ms. Lake gave birth to one child in a regular hospital setting complete with pitocin (a chemical that’s used to ripen the cervix during labor and act as a catalyst for stronger contractions) and epidural, but her second child she had at home with a midwife. Ms. Epstein hopes to have her baby at home and is employing a midwife to help that dream come true. These two women filmed The Business of Being Born in the hopes that they will be able to educate women in the US specifically as to what kind of birth experience they’re giving themselves and their babies.

The Business of Being Born does not claim to be unbiased. It pits hospital-setting births with attending doctors against home-setting births with attending midwives and the Home/Midwife team clearly wins in this documentary. But for me, this is anything but the television show A Baby Story rehashed. I always cringe and look for the nearest cheese grater to claw out my eyes when Baby Story comes on. There’s just something to me that’s utterly repulsive. And yet with Business of Being Born (herewith dubbed BBB to save my fingers ;) ), I only received a warm, deeply moving experience.

When Lake and Epstein filmed BBB, they attended several births in homes with midwives attending. The documentary portrays it well, but anyone can see that there is a stark difference between a hospital birth and a home birth. They interview several OB/GYN’s and midwives, present crazy statistics (did you know that the US has one of the worst rates of babies who are DOA among the most developed countries? And yet the US spends more on hospital birth than most other developed countries?) and gives the history of the rise of the hospital birth. This is a documentary that challenges the regular way of thinking.

I give BBB five stars out of five and I would highly recommend picking up The Business of Being Born for yourself. It is was a thought-provoking, occasionally disturbing but overall very powerful in its presentation. Unfortunately, I’m concerned that this documentary is “preaching to the choir.” The types of people who enjoy documentaries often seem to be the type to seriously reconsider what US society regards as “the best way to have your baby.”

Strangeness Abounds

StrangenessAbounds may be more of a truthful moniker than the author will admit to -- when she is not obsessively playing RPGs and arguing over what is canon in "The Legend of Zelda," she is planning her next sushi outing. Erin "StrangenessAbounds" Leanne is a writer of both fiction and non-fiction and plays "editor" to other authors' works. She graduated in 2009 with her BA in English and is returning for her MS in English in the Fall of 2010. She can be contacted through e-mail.

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Review: The Last Airbender

WereGeek — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:00:37 +0000

Promo poster for "The Last Airbender"

A review of “The Last Airbender” – written, produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan; starring Noah Ringer, Dev Patel and Nicola Peltz.

Air. Water. Earth. Fire. The four nations lived in harmony until the Fire Nation attacked the other nations in an attempt to rule the world. Right after the war started, the Avatar, an Airbender named Aang, disappeared and was feared lost – disrupting the Avatar Cycle. Now, 100 years later, the Fire Nation is close to total victory. Aang is found once again and must seek to restore balance to the world while learning how to be the Avatar – the bridge between the physical and spirit worlds.

WereGeek’s review:

Let me just start by saying that I love “Avatar: the Last Airbender”. I have watched every episode from the beginning and have all three “books” on DVD. I engaged in speculation about where the series would go and how it would end as far back as season one and the idea of a live action movie filled me with far more glee than dread – at least until M. Night Shyamalan’s name was attached to produce, direct AND write it. I didn’t believe then that he could faithfully recreate the world of Avatar and I feel my lack of faith is sadly justified.

The bulk of the review contains spoilers for both “The Last Airbender” and book one of the “Avatar: the Last Airbender” TV series. To view the spoilerific bonanza, click “show” below.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

While I don’t feel “The Last Airbender” is the bomb many prominent critics say, there’s not a lot to recommend it. Given the depth, breadth and popularity of the source material, this film could have been so much better. Having M. Night Shyamalan as the producer OR director might not have been so bad, but to give him complete control over the movie as producer, director AND writer was a disaster waiting to happen. I support those who protest the movie on ethical grounds and I support those who stay away after reading the volumes of bad reviews. I hope that books two and three (if they get made) will have new writers and directors at the very least. Despite moderate opening weekend figures, fans have made it clear that this was not what they wanted from “The Last Airbender.” I, for one, had heard the reviews and went on opening day anyway, because I felt I owed it to my love of the cartoon. I definitely won’t be going again. My curiosity for the world M. Night Shyamalan created has been satisfied. I can live with this being the only live action movie, but I can only hope that the inevitable second week drop off due to word of mouth and the probable mediocre overall box office will not scupper the rumored second cartoon series set in the “Avatar: the Last Airbender” world. The world itself, as envisioned and executed by Michael Dante DiMartino, Brian Konietzko and company is a rich and beautiful one with more stories to share – provided M. Night Shyamalan stays well away.

WereGeek

WereGeek is reading 5-7 books at any given time, not including comics. These can range from alternative universe fiction to historical fact and from theoretical physics to Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader. You can argue with her all you want, but Dirk Benedict will always be her Starbuck. Her ringtone is the theme from Airwolf and she believes that there's nothing that can't be improved by the judicious application of werewolves. Or bacon. Or werewolves with bacon. She can be contacted at werewolf17 @ gmail.com and followed on Twitter at the link below.

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Movie Review: Army of Darkness (1993)

TDF Pamela — Thu, 13 May 2010 14:31:37 +0000

Note: This is another Old Movie Review, written for a class and posted here so it wouldn’t rot away on my external hard drive. Enjoy!

In October of 2008, I attended the Dallas Sci-Fi Expo/Star Wars Fan Day. Bruce Campbell was the special guest, and while walking the convention floor, I saw no less than four people wearing Ash Williams costumes, Campbell’s character from the Evil Dead series. One was a teenage boy probably no older than 14, dressed in Ash’s trademark dirty khaki pants and ripped shirt, complete with poofy hair and chainsaw hand. The line of fans waiting for their turn to meet Campbell stretched the entire length of the entrance hall, and it wasn’t uncommon at all to hear con-goers quoting lines from Army of Darkness to each other.

Army of Darkness, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Campbell, had a ready-made cult audience at the time of its release in 1993. It is the third film in the Evil Dead series, following The Evil Dead (1981) and Evil Dead II (1987), both of which were well-received by critics and horror genre fans alike. Army of Darkness, which follows immediately after the end of Evil Dead II, moves away from the gross-out horror of the first two films and instead blends horror with the sword-and-sorcery conventions of high fantasy, relying on slapstick comedy and campy dialogue instead of the graphic violence and gore of the first two films.

The film is silly, but it was not made to be taken seriously. It was shot using highly exaggerated camera movements and cheesy visual effects–one of the opening shots of the movie, a flashback to the end of Evil Dead II, features Campbell flying through the air toward a time-travel vortex, and his harness and the wire suspending him are clearly visible. Special effects in the early 1990s look primitive to a 21st century audience, but the effects in Army of Darkness are corny even by 1993 standards. The deliberately bad effects are meant to jar the viewer into laughter, adding to the overall feel of self-mockery that pervades the film.

One of the most prominent effects in the film is also an intertexual homage. The evil army that Ash must fight are composed of skeletons animated by evil magic. Raimi chose to use stop motion animation in a style very similar to that used by Ray Harryhausen in Clash of the Titans, among his many other films, and the skeleton army functions as a tribute to Harryhausen’s groundbreaking work in film effects. Other instances of intertextuality in Army of Darkness include the Necronomicon as well as the magical phrase that should send Ash back to his own time. The Necronomicon, which features prominently in all of the Evil Dead films, is the book which, when read, will unleash the evil dead. This book was invented by influential horror writer H. P. Lovecraft as an account of his fictional Cthulhu mythos and is a common device in the horror genre, whether in Lovecraftian stories or otherwise. The magical phrase, “klaatu verada nikto,” is taken from The Day the Earth Stood Still, albeit misspelled.

One of the major attractions for cult fans of Army of Darkness is its quotability. The aforementioned magical phrase, which was butchered by Ash, is a particularly popular quote: “Klaatu… verada… necktie. Nectar. Nickle. Noodle. It’s an N word. It’s definitely an N word. . . . Klaatu! Verada! N (indistinct coughing)!” Other favored quotes come from Ash’s pithy or cheesy one-liners, which make up a large portion of his dialogue: “This… is my boomstick!”; “Good, bad. I’m the guy with the gun.”; and “Gimme some sugar, baby.”

The film has had multiple DVD, and recently Blu-ray, releases, and has expanded beyond film into other media. There are numerous Army of Darkness and Evil Dead comic books, published by Dark Horse Comics and Dynamite Entertainment, and the Evil Dead series has recently been adapted into a comedic stage musical. Army of Darkness and its predecessor films have carved out a niche for themselves in the hearts of horror fans, and their popularity is such that even though the last film was released seventeen years ago, the series is still going strong.

Movie Review: Cry-Baby (1991)

TDF Pamela — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:29:01 +0000

A brief note: I wrote this review as well as one for Army of Darkness for a course on cult films that I took in the spring semester. I thought, why let them go to waste? So it’s time for Old Movie Reviews!

In the eighteen years between the release of Pink Flamingos in 1972 and the release of Cry-Baby in 1990, John Waters morphed from a shock director who would do anything–from including graphic oral sex to shots of his main actress eating dog feces–into a relatively mild musical director. Despite the fact that Waters toned down some of his most scandalous material does not mean that he donned a polo shirt and khakis and started making mainstream movies. Despite the popularity of Hairspray (1988), Waters’ films of the late 1980s and early 1990s are still culturally subversive even if they are not as shocking as his early trash films.

Cry-Baby, while not as blatantly shocking as Waters’s earlier films, still deals with the director’s signature subject matter: “normal” versus “trash.” In Cry-Baby, two 1950s Baltimore cultures clash, with a Romeo and Juliet-style romance at the center. The Drapes, rockabilly greasers from the wrong side of the tracks, drink and dance and have–gasp!–premarital sex, and their golden boy is Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker. The Squares, on the other hand, are good kids with rich parents and neat haircuts, kids who wouldn’t dream of doing such sinful things–or at least wouldn’t dream of getting caught at it. The Drapes and the Squares are constantly at odds with each other, but their skirmishes come to a head when Allison, a sweet Square girl, falls for Cry-Baby. After Allison’s jealous boyfriend, Baldwin, sees her singing with the Drapes, he starts a riot and gets Cry-Baby thrown in juvenile hall. Despite the obstacles, including a faked pregnancy by a girl obsessed with Cry-Baby, Allison and Wade end up together and the Squares are humiliated when Baldwin loses a chicken race to Cry-Baby.

The battle between the two subcultures is at the heart of Waters’s story, and as in Pink Flamingos, the freaks triumph over the buttoned-down bourgeoisie. The Drapes revel in their outsider status, throwing raucous parties overflowing with booze and rock-and-roll music. The men dress in leather and blue jeans and wear their hair in greased pompadours, while the women wear tight dresses, teased hair, and heavy makeup. This is a sharp contrast to the Squares, who look like they just came from the Ozzie and Harriet set; the Squares wear khakis and demure dresses, crew-cuts and penny loafers. The Squares are “good” kids, while the Drapes ride motorcycles and have babies out of wedlock. Drape culture is recognizably trashy, but the audience is meant to sympathize with the bad-but-unpretentious Drapes. The Squares, despite being representative of mainstream 1950s, are portrayed in such a way as to turn the audience off. You want the Drapes to win. This hearkens back to the rebel films of the 1950s, where the audience supports the misunderstood bad boys, like James Dean and Marlon Brando.

Cry-Baby has a cult audience for several reasons. Most obviously, John Waters as a director brings along his own cult audience. While Cry-Baby and Hairspray may be much more mainstream than his earlier films, he still has a devoted following. Waters’s signature trash-versus-mainstream subject matter is also attractive to cult viewers. The fact that both of these films are musicals also attracts a particular type of cult audience; indeed, both films have been adapted to Broadway musicals, and the Cry-Baby musical was nominated for several Tonys.

The misfit cast also helped attract a cult audience, and helped build a cult for one of the actors. At this point in his career, Johnny Depp was a reluctant teen idol mostly known for his run on the television series 21 Jump Street. Taking on the role of Cry-Baby was partly a rebellion against his teen idol status; he was reluctant to play the part at first, but director Waters told Depp that he should play it to make fun of being a teen idol. It’s a good thing that Depp played Cry-Baby, as he says the role is what helped him get the main part in Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands, a role which catapulted him to stardom and gained him his own cult audience. Other actors in Cry-Baby include Traci Lords, a former underage porn star, as the bad girl; Ricki Lake, who had starred in the original Hairspray, as a pregnant teenage mother of two; Iggy Pop, a punk rock forefather, as Cry-Baby’s uncle; Patricia Hearst, the heiress who was kidnapped by and later joined the Symbionese Liberation Army, as a Square housewife; as well as recognizable 1950s teen heartthrobs Troy Donahue and David Nelson.

The subcultural subject matter, the quirky cast, the silly musical numbers, and Waters’s signature campy style all intersect to create a funny, endearing cult film.

Released by Universal Pictures, 1990. An Imagine Entertainment Film directed and written by John Waters and produced by Rachel Talalay. Original music by Patrick Williams. Running time: 85 Minutes. Rated PG-13.

X-Men: First Class… coming to the big screen?

TDF Pamela — Sat, 01 May 2010 20:28:47 +0000

If you’re an X-Men fan, you’ve probably already heard the rumors that an X-Men: First Class movie is in the works. The XM:FC comics are great; they feature the original X-Men team and their often funny adventures when things were just starting to roll at Xavier’s place. The XM:FC movie, on the other hand, would still be set within the universe created by Bryan Singer.

The current rumor is that Matthew Vaughn, director of Kick-Ass, has been offered the director’s seat and has apparently turned it down.

I’ll admit that I haven’t been watching news about this movie very closely. I’m still pissed about X-Men: The Last Stand, and I don’t have a lot of faith in Fox to not completely screw up this movie.

So why this post? Because I’d like to take a moment and plead with the powers that be to reboot the X-Men series. I know, I know, I’m as sick as you are of reboots, especially of series that came out ten years ago. Does Spiderman need to be rebooted? Nah. But hear me out.

See, one of the things I absolutely adore about the XM:FC comic book is the camaraderie between the original five X-Men. Scott’s the solid one, Warren’s the flighty one (pun intended), Hank is the smart one, Bobby is the smartass, and Jean is… Jean (i.e. awesome). They work together very well, and it’s a hell of a lot of fun to watch these five young people become close friends and a coherent team.

I want to see that on the big screen.

If Fox goes ahead and makes a First Class movie with the movieverse’s original team, we’d have Cyclops, Jean, Storm, Beast… As much as I like Storm in the comics (Halle Berry was terrible in the movies; sorry to her fans), there’s just not the same dynamic in that group as there would be in… well, any group with Iceman included.

So as much as I’m hesitant at the idea of rebooting every series that ever made money, I’d really like to see Marvel Studios start fresh with the X-Men.

Review: Wuthering Heights (2009)

Wenchie — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:25:46 +0000

Wuthering Heights (2009)

Buy It Now: Amazon.com

Watch It Streaming: Netflix.com

Synopsis (borrowed from IMDB): Braving her father Edgar Linton’s warning not to cross the estate border, young Catherine discovers her charming, but sickly cousin, and the manly Hareton are the heartlessly scorned and abused sons of wealthy Heatcliff on the Earnshaw estate. This launches a flashback how Heathcliff was raised as Cathy’s best friend by her kind father, Mr. Earnshaw. After his death, the son and heir returns from boarding school, married, and reduces Heathcliff to the rank of stable boy, enduring constant abuse in order to remain with Cathy. After an accidental meeting with elegant gentleman Edgar Linton, she falls in love. To Hindley’s delight, this drives Heathcliffe away. Three years later, he returns wealthy enough to buy the estate, a day after Kathy married Edgar. He takes revenge, which instead of satisfaction brings misery to all. After Kathy and later Edgar’s death, his scorn includes the next generation, which nevertheless finds each other striving for nobler values.

Wenchie’s Review:

Okay, first and foremost, I should probably tell you all that I have never read the book Wuthering Heights. I tried when I was in high school and just couldn’t get into it, so I read the Cliff’s Notes instead. I’ve also seen a lot of movie versions of this story, so I think by now I have a pretty good understanding of the story in general. That being said, I have never liked this story. The characters, Cathy and Heathcliff, were just so frustrating and unlikable that I could never see this as the love story it’s always played up to be. These two characters destroy one another’s lives and that just never appealed to me, to be completely honest. I usually like stories with happy endings, or if a happy ending isn’t going to happen, at least an unrequited love story where everyone generally turns out all right.

Now, with all that out of the way, I loved this version of Wuthering Heights. It’s a two-part miniseries made for the Masterpiece Classic collection and I think they did a wonderful job retelling this story. This version is the only one I have ever seen where I felt sympathetic and slightly heartbroken for Cathy and Heathcliff. Any other version (the 1992 Juliet Binoche/Ralph Fiennes version, for instance) always made me want to smack every single character right in the face. Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley brought a realism to the characters that I, personally, have never seen before. Tom Hardy especially.

I have to admit the only reason I found out about this version is because I’d looked up Tom Hardy on IMDB after I saw that he’d played Shinzon in Star Trek: Nemesis. And I have to say, he looks so much better with long hair. Since then I’ve seen a few other movies he’s been in and I am just blown away by his talent as an actor. He brought life to the character of Heathcliff and I could actually see that this is a love story. A very twisted, vengeful love story, but a love story nonetheless. The depth of emotion that was brought to the screen, by both actors/characters….I can’t even really describe it. I just empathized so much with both Cathy and Heathcliff. And even though I still wanted to smack them for being idiots and causing each other so much pain when they could’ve just been together, I enjoyed it for the tragedy it is. I think the writers may have intentionally focused on the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff, which is probably why it seems so different that other versions.

Whatever they did, I loved it. I don’t think I’ve re-watched a movie in the last few months as much as I have this one. The acting is great, the story is way better than I remember, and I actually cared about the characters for once. Bravo, PBS. You did well with this one.

Wenchie

Wenchie, also known as Brittany, is a college graduate with a BFA in New Media. She is an avid reader of almost any genre that has a good romance plot to the story. She loves movies of all kinds (mostly period dramas if her dvd collection is anything to go by), anything Joss Whedon, tv shows, and comics. She games almost every day and has gotten very good at playing Left 4 Dead over the last few months. She loves dark chocolate, her cat Remus, and has developed a passion for growing Angel Trumpets. You can reach Wenchie at wenchie.is.awesome @ gmail.com.

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TDF Pamela’s Top Ten of 2009

Chris Evans is Captain America

TDF Pamela — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:05:58 +0000

Looks like it’s official; Chris Evans has signed on to play Captain America in Marvel’s upcoming movie.

I’ve got to admit, I’ve never really paid much attention to Cap, so I don’t have any strong feelings either way. I like Evans well enough. I do think the fan comments along the lines of “OMG he’s too shallow to play Cap, did you see him as Johnny Storm” are funny, though. I mean, the guy is an actor. One would hope he can play more than one type of character. ;)

In closing, I just got completely distracted by that image.

What are your thoughts? On the casting or on the image, heh.

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Deconstructing Hollywood’s Strong Female Character

TDF Pamela — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 16:21:11 +0000

My favorite ass-kicking lady, Ellen Ripley.

I know I’m responding to a ridiculously old post here, but I stumbled across it this morning and it got me thinking about Hollywood’s rather screwed up idea of strong female characters. mlawski over at Overthinking It posted a great rant about the “strong female characters” Hollywood is cramming down our throats, which is somewhat unfortunately titled “Why Strong Female Characters are Bad for Women.” Perhaps it would be better titled “Why ‘Strong Female Characters’ are Bad for Women,” because like mlawski, I’m of a mind that pretty much any female character created by Michael Bay does NOT fit the rubric of a strong woman, at least in my book. (Also, check out my fine MLA-approved use of quotation marks. This is what happens when I write blog posts when I should be doing homework.)

See, I’m a strong female character kind of reader/viewer/fan. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I’m going to go for a book featuring a tough woman in the lead as opposed to one who faints and dithers and needs to be rescued. I’m not saying there’s anything particularly wrong with the passive characters, just that I don’t prefer them. When it comes down to it, I do think that we need a wide variety of female protagonist (as well as male protags), some weak, some strong, most falling somewhere in the middle of those two extremes. But my personal reading preferences tend toward the kick-ass heroines, and so I get frustrated, much like mlawski, when people start trumpeting characters like those in Bay’s Transformers movies as strong female characters.

It feels kind of disingenuous of me to start drawing a line in the sand and making Megan Fox stand on one side while Sigourney Weaver stands on the other, and this brings me to the crux of this issue. What do we do with strong female characters that are also sexy? Not saying that Ms. Weaver isn’t sexy (au contraire…), but Ripley, as an iconic tough movie woman, wasn’t created to capitalize on her attractiveness. What’s Her Face in Transformers was most certainly created to be masturbation material. Sure, she can work on cars, but she works on cars while bending over in very short shorts with her cleavage hanging out.

This is where I feel like I’m talking myself in circles. On one hand, I emphatically don’t like seeing women exploited for sex. On the other hand, I think that women should be able to express themselves sexually however they damn well please without being shamed for it. So… how do I reconcile my belief that women should be in control of their own sexuality with my complete and utter disgust at Megan Fox’s character (yes, I’m too lazy to look up the character’s name)? I think maybe it comes down to the feeling that the character actually is in control of her own sexuality. I know, I know, that’s incredibly subjective, and I suppose when it comes down to it, it’s up to each of us to make our own judgment call about what’s exploitative and what’s not. But how does that help send Hollywood the message that a sizeable chunk of their viewing audience is sick of wank-material sex kittens who can fix cars/hack computers/what have you being trumpeted as tough, role-model-worthy characters?

Last year at San Diego Comic Con, I attended the “Entertainment Weekly: Wonder Women: Female Power Icons in Pop Culture” panel, which was a round table discussion of strong female characters in Hollywood. Here’s SDCC’s description of the panel:

EW moderates a conversation with Sigourney Weaver (Avatar), Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost), and Zoe Saldana (Avatar) about the actresses who have redefined the rules, and the female characters that have shattered the glass ceiling for all women. Basically, a discussion with women who kick ass. (Addition: Eliza Dushku also sat on the panel)

While I agree that these women have all played characters who kick ass, I have to quibble with the idea that they’ve shattered the glass ceiling for all women. Having to be sexy sexy in order to be successful in Hollywood doesn’t exactly make it sound like that glass ceiling is coming down. Thankfully, Sigourney Weaver seemed to quibble with that, too, and she said something that really stuck with me. An audience member asked her if she feels like Hollywood is leading the way for strong women, and Ms. Weaver immediately shot down that idea. She basically said that we can’t expect Hollywood to blaze any trail, especially when it comes to feminism and the portrayal of women. Hollywood makes what they think will sell, and they tend to be way behind when it comes to social change. If we as audience members want to see change in Hollywood, we’ve got to make that change with our pocketbooks.

Hearing her say this made me want to stand up and cheer. We have to support movies that have strong female characters and not see the ones where we’re told that a strong woman is one who can save the world, but must do it while being supermodel-thin with big tits and a short skirt. The key there is the requirement that the woman must be traditionally sexy. Strong women most certainly can be sexy, but they can also go against the ideal of sexuality that our culture is so enamored with. They can be pretty or frumpy or nerdy, but they need to be realistic most of all. They need to have flaws to go along with their strengths.

This is different in books than in movies, mainly I think because books don’t have the same sort of visual representation of sexuality that movies do, but I do think that strong female protagonists in books need to have the same veneer of realism that I think movie heroines need. I don’t want to read about characters that are all tough or all weak; I want characters that find a balance between those two extremes, who can kick your ass, but who can also break down every once in a while.

One of my academic specialties is pop culture, particularly the portrayal of tough women in film and comic books. So, to make myself feel like less of a slacker for writing this instead of finishing up a midterm, I’m going to put my academic source hoarding to good use. Here is a list of my favorite books about the portrayal of strong female characters:

Tough Girls: Women Warriors and Wonder Women in Popular Culture (Feminist Cultural Studies, the Media, and Political Culture) by Sherrie A. Inness (this one is my personal favorite)
Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture, edited by Sherrie A. Inness (my second fav)
Wonder Women: Feminisms and Superheroes by Lillian S. Robinson
The Violent Woman: Femininity, Narrative, And Violence In Contemporary American Cinema by Hilary Neroni
Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies, edited by Martha McCaughey & Neal King
The Modern Amazons : Warrior Women on Screen (Book) by Dominique Mainon & James Ursini
Reload: Rethinking Women + Cyberculture, edited by Mary Flanagan & Austin Booth
From Girls to Grrlz : A History of Women’s Comics from Teens to Zines by Trina Robbins

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject of strong female characters! This is something I’ve been chewing on for a while, and frankly, it’s a miracle that this post is somewhat coherent. Let me know what you think about the issue.

(As an aside, when I hit Google Images to find that pic of Ripley, the first two images to show up were of Ripley in her panties after waking up from hibernation. I think that makes my point for me.)