So if there’s one thing I’ve focused on a lot in my six years of occasionally blogging, it’s female characters. Because aside from my own writing, I’m a huge consumer of media, I’m a feminist, and I care a lot about the way women are represented across media. So: female characters. I think about them a lot. And thus, non-shockingly, of the roughly seven billionty blogs that I read regularly, a fair amount discuss female characters.

This makes me happy: a lot of other people care, too! And it’s interesting. Reading other people’s thoughts have helped me sharpen and figure out my own, become a more active watcher/reader, and has given me recommendations that have led me to new shows/movies/books that I’ve loved. I’ve also had some interesting discussions when I’ve disagreed, but generally, I come away with a lot to think about. My opinion is: analyzing female characters = super cool.

Except for this one thing that I keep seeing with depressing frequency: explaining why one female character is awesome by talking about the flaws in another lady from the same genre. Or in other words, writing as if two female characters (often both generally pretty good characters, who are flawed in different ways) are in a competition to prove one of them is more awesome than the other.

Why? Why must we do that?

(Note: I’m not linking to specific posts from here because I’m talking about trends I’ve seen, not trying to call out anyone in particular.)

The first time I started to write this blog post (it’s gone through four drafts now) it was in response to a whole rash of articles I’d run into about how great Parks & Recreation is (and it is!). And specifically how great Leslie Knope is (omg SHE IS). And how that’s great, because Liz Lemon over on 30 Rock is a mess. Wait, what?

They’re both the central characters of NBC, Thursday-night comedies. And Tina Fey and Amy Poehler both were on SNL, and are friends in real life. People are used to talking about them as a unit. But unless you’re comparing specific facets of the two shows, why frame it as one character being better than the other? For that matter, if you aren’t talking about both shows to begin with, why detour into it just for that purpose?

I’ve also seen Community’s Britta Perry thrown into this mix occasionally. And here’s the thing: one of my closest friends really identifies with Britta. Another of my closest friends really identifies with Leslie.¹ But I actually think it’s super awesome that there are two very different female characters, both hilarious, so that two very different (but both hilarious) friends of mine have characters they can identify with.²

And just to drive home the point, here’s a video of Amy Poehler being awesome and refusing to fall into the sexist trap of pitting characters, shows, or her actual person against Tina Fey, because they are friends and they are both funny:

This is not an isolated issue of 30 Rock vs. Parks and Rec issue, though. I ranted about it on twitter a couple of months ago, when I ran into a cool blog post about how great Jane Foster of Thor is. And while Thor didn’t do much for me as a movie, I do like that Jane was a scientist devoted to her research above all. What distressed me was that someone immediately commented to argue that actually, no, the better female character from a superhero last summer was Peggy Carter of Captain America. Which again, why? Because they’re both women in superhero flicks? The characters have even less to do with each other than Liz Lemon and Leslie Knope, but the comment was definitely a case of “this character is better than that character.”

And then, more recently, I ran into the same thing again, in an article about how great Ellen Ripley is. And you know what? Ellen Ripley is pretty great! The Alien franchise is pretty great! But the article took a long detour through explaining how much Sarah Connor sucks. But, um. Sarah Connor doesn’t suck. And even if you think she does, her sucking doesn’t make Ripley a better character. The fact that they are both women from lady-led genre franchises does not mean that if you like one, you can’t like the other.³

Look, I am down with criticizing the Terminator franchise. And superhero movies. And 30 Rock, which I generally enjoy, but which also sometimes makes me go, “Yiiiiiikes,” and wince. I think critique is generally a good and important thing, yes, even when it’s critiquing a thing I enjoy. But critique can also fall into nasty narratives of its own: in this case, acting as if women have to be in competition.

They aren’t. They don’t have to be. Instead of talking about which awesome action heroine, or which hilarious sitcom lady, or which superhero’s ladyfriend is greatest… well, why not enjoy how many of those characters there are? Instead of fighting over who gets one slice of pie, let’s enjoy the fact that the pie is getting bigger. Pieces may have slightly different flavors, and some may still be undercooked or not to your taste, but the pie as a whole can still be delicious and filling. And wow that metaphor got overextended.

The point is: this isn’t Highlander. There can be more than one awesome female character at a time.⁴ Not all of them are to everyone’s taste, and denigrating one does not make another seem more awesome. But it does fall into the sexist tropes of thinking of all women as being in competition, and that one representation of women is enough. Neither of those things is true. Let’s please not write as if they are.

So Nickelodeon’s trying to mimic Disney; the network partnered with Sony to put out albums for some of its up-and-coming stars, using wacky TV shows as launching pads. (Or so Wikipedia tells me.) The first was Miranda Cosgrove of iCarly, a pretty decent tween show; the second was the boy band Big Time Rush of Big Time Rush, who I immediately loved; and the third… the third is Victoria Justice of the brand-new-last-week show Victorious.

The show was incredibly, offensively bad. Sidekicks who make sexual assault jokes, a protagonist with no personality, an antagonist who only cares about the boy in her life, on top of generic, mediocre writing. Wow, I really, really did not like it at all.

So while waiting for the subway this morning, I noticed a post for Lifetime’s Army Wives. Okiedokie. And when I looked up, right across from it, was a poster for the forthcoming Basketball Wives from VH1. O…kay then. And these after a few years of Bravo’s various Real Housewives of X series, which itself was following on the heels of Desperate Housewives.

I am all for shows, be they scripted drama or docu-drama-reality-whatever, about the lives of interesting women! Neato! But really, must they be women defined entirely by their marital status?

Whatever.

If I was the sort of blogger who wrote things on a timely basis, this post would have been up during the ALCS when I first thought about it, or at least during the World Series, when it was topical, or shortly thereafter, when people were still buzzing. But I’ve been busy with work, that novel I’m perpetually working on, and meeting some of my favorite authors. And I’m not that sort of blogger. Alas.

So. Baseball. And feminism!

The school where my sister teaches had a Yankees-themed dress-down day when the Yankees won the World series.¹ She stopped at a Modell’s store to pick up a jersey to wear, and found only men’s larges and extra larges — and a very few women’s shirts, all in pastel pink.

I don’t actually know any women who want pink Yankees gear. The blue pinstripes? Pretty iconic, is all I’m saying. Rachel asked a salesman if there was anything else for women, and he said no. They never bother to order jerseys for women. Imagine that.²

I went to see a game with my friend B this summer. B is a much harder-core fan than I am, actually, and when we were talking about how we got into watching, she said I was one of the only women she knows who watches baseball like she does — or, in other words, who watches baseball like a dude.

But, she said, it was nice to see a game with another woman because she didn’t have to avoid talking about how Derek Jeter is wicked hot.

Yup. That’s my experience, too. Because that’s the thing about talking baseball with dudes. There’s an awesome feeling of being in-group, and what’s more fun than talking about something you love with people who are similarly passionate? But for me and B both — and, I suspect, a lot of other female sports fans — there’s an unspoken knowledge that commenting on a player’s attractiveness means you will be out-grouped instantly. Your opinions will be taken less seriously, and instead of a real fan, you’ll be seen as one of those women, who only watches the game for eye candy or because your boyfriend makes you.³

The thing is, this is not something that happens in reverse. For some reason, a sports-centric magazine with a primarily male audience puts out a yearly edition that’s devoted to women in swimsuits, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a magazine about sports. ⁴ Movie reviews nearly always comment on the female lead’s attractiveness, but even when written by men, the reviews aren’t discounted out of hand, on the grounds that people assume men only watch movies to stare at the women. And often, female athletes are uber-sexualized, and their looks are considered at least as important as their skills.⁵

So maybe I do watch baseball like a dude, because apparently even sitting on my couch watching the YES Network is a gendered activity. (Sigh.) But I also watch baseball like a chick. Because, whether you believe in Derek Jeter’s intangibles or Derek Jeter’s actual defensive statistics?

Dude is wicked hot.

So I watched the VMAs last night, and I’m still pissed at Kanye West.¹ I’ve been thinking about why I’m so upset all day, because until last night, I could not have named one Taylor Swift song. She’s been remarkably off my radar, considering I contribute to a blog about tween- and teen stars; I knew her name, knew what she looked like, but her music had made zero impression on me at all. So it isn’t even like I’m offended because I love her or her music particularly; I’m basically entirely indifferent to her. And obviously it was a totally dick move, wrong just because it was wrong, and it would have been wrong regardless of who he interrupted.

But it really, really bothered me. I think I finally got a bead on why: because female performers — especially young, female, pop performers — really don’t get much respect.

I think part of that is the genre generally. Pop music tends to be dismissed out of hand by many, many people, as “just” pop. Growing up loving boybands and Britney Spears, I’ve heard time and time again that pop stars just don’t have musical credibility, because they often don’t write the songs they perform. That has always struck me as utter bullshit because here’s the thing: writing music and singing are different skillsets. They are related, in that they both have to do with music, and one is often found in tandem with the other, but they don’t have to be. Honestly, when I’m listening to music, I rarely care who wrote it. I’m listening for performance; when I’m at a concert, I’m there to be entertained. I respect the people who do the writing and the producing, but they aren’t the ones who make the musical experience for me. Basically, what I want from a singer is that she be a good singer.²

And even were that not true, I think it’s important to remember that female entertainers are least likely to be given the creative freedom to do what they want. Another reason it’s easy to dismiss pop (and especially women in pop) is because it’s all about crafted image (though… what isn’t?). But, as Kelly Clarkson called out, the industry is a boy’s club, and people didn’t want to listen to her because she was young and female. If these young, female stars lack credibility because their images are so carefully crafted… Well, who is doing the crafting? And would these young women be given a chance to put themselves out there and make music at all if they didn’t submit to that image crafting?³

And of course, there’s the fact that pop music is fun. It’s not generally designed to be moving, or deep, or even Great Art. Pop is meant to be…popular. It is entertainment that does not strive to be anything but entertainment. And fun is often seen as frivolous.

So thought number one: pop musicians, especially young, female ones, don’t get much respect because they — and their genre — are seen as lacking credibility, even though that that’s an unfair statement.

But to go further with that, you know why else pop music is dismissed so easily? How about this one: because girls like it.

Seriously. This is not a terribly original thought, but it’s always run true to me. Speaking in broad cultural terms, things that guys value are considered normal; things that women value are seen as frivolous. To talk in clichés: sports vs. shopping. It’s not that every single person is accepting of guys who just want to watch the game (or get more fanatic about it); it’s that culturally, that’s considered normal. On the other hand, women shopping is a punchline, seen as silly. LOL ladies spending money on things like clothing and — hee hee hee — shoes! The attitude is derisive. Projects that are by women, for women, are written off as chick flicks (and chick lit). Women enjoying things by and for themselves is not particularly welcomed.⁴ Things by and for women are not particularly valued.

So you’ve got young female artists in a genre that isn’t considered credible, who are primarily popular with other young, female people and thus their art (even if it is not High Art) is easily dismissed. That upsets me. And even though I have just about no opinion on Taylor Swift, that moment at the VMAs pretty much encapsulated that mindset: young women and the things they value aren’t important, so an adult man felt it was entirely okay to interrupt a young woman who was receiving recognition for being good at what she does.

Obviously, there is a lot more to talk about than that, like how it also stole Beyonce’s moment and put her into the position of having to clean up someone else’s mess; whether or not people would be this outraged if a white man had done what Kanye did, or if it had been done to a black woman instead; and why MTV has an awards show to recognize outstanding music videos when it does not, in fact, play music videos.⁵ But that’s why the incident got to me, in particular. I love pop, and I love teen stars, and I absolutely hate how culturally disrespected they are.

One final note: I’ve had a couple of discussions today about how this is all actually good for Swift, because this has gotten her major exposure and made her a national figure of sympathy. I do get that, but I also think it’s important not lose track of the fact that Swift was getting national exposure and recognition for being good at her job, and that was ruined for her. I have no idea whether she’d trade in that moment of joy and respect for a larger moment of controversy and exposure — but I know I’d rather see a young woman get the respect she has earned than see her get humiliated. And I hope that she would feel the same.

Super quick, because it’s almost bedtime, and because this was so unsurprising I barely thought to write an entry on it. While flipping channels last week, I came across a recent Comedy Central offering, Krod Mandoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire, a fantasy parody show. I didn’t have high hopes, because most of Comedy Central is really not very funny, but I do enjoy a good fantasy parody, so I paused.

I came in to the show just in time to see the villain regarding the unconscious hero and heroine, demanding that a lackey check to make sure they were really dead. The lackey did. Then the villain — I can’t believe I know the word for this — motorboated the unconscious heroine. Then licked her face. Everyone else looked on uncomfortably as he made his excuses — just double-checking to make sure she was really dead, you see.

Ha ha ha ha. Groping and licking an unconscious woman? Hilarious fun for the whole family!

…and thus, exhausted from having trod these unholy grounds too many times before, our intrepid hero picked up her Magick Device That Doth Change the Channel, and continued in her Quest to Find Something Worth Watching on another network…

First, an excuse. For a change, it’s not that I’ve been too busy or too lazy to blog. It’s that I’ve been unable to use the computer for non-necessary… anything. For a few years, I had occasional wrist pain. For a year and a half, I had moderate wrist pain, and protected against it by wearing wrist braces at work. Problem dealt with.

Then, about six weeks ago, moderate wrist pain became, “Oh holy shit I can’t use my hands,” wrist pain, and I am now in physical therapy twice a week. I’m lucky, as these things go, though; I’ve got insurance, and it isn’t carpal tunnel and it isn’t nerve damage, just a combination of muscle weakness and strain, brought on by overuse and bad posture. Anyway, it’s getting better. Huzzah!

So here’s some reading for you.

I Was Followed, Harassed, And Ambushed By Bill O’Reilly’s Producer

Amanda Terkel at Think Progress made some critical comments about Bill O’Reilly and his comments on rape victims. She was then stalked and harassed by his producer. Here’s her account of the story (the “interview” is expected to air at some point soon), and the very important conclusion:

The main issue remains: O’Reilly should offer an apology/explanation of why, when a woman is raped and murdered, it’s relevant what she was wearing or how much she was drinking. O’Reilly never asked me for a statement nor invited me on his show before sending Watters to harass me. Since I’m a 5 ft, 100 pound woman with an opinion that he doesn’t like, perhaps O’Reilly believes I deserve to be treated this way.

Racefail ’09

Okay. This one is… massive. Much more so than a few paragraphs and a couple of links can explain, but basically, a discussion started in January, about writing the other in science fiction and fantasy. Writer Elizabeth Bear made a post about writing the other; Avalon’s Willow made a post critical of Bear’s actual writing of people of color, and what started as a smart exchange quickly spun into several other conversations, some productive and some racist, and many still going on. Aside from writing the other, discussions covered cultural appropriation, racism and the (lack of) representation of people of color (as writers, characters, and recognized as readers) in sf/f, and anonymity on the internet, among others. And all this comes on the heels of the casting of the racist casting of the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie.

You can get a basic summary, and links to more detailed explanations, here.

It’s been vast and overwhelming to follow. I’ve done a lot of thinking but no writing on it because, aside from my wrist problems, I don’t think that I have anything to add. One thing the conversation has made clear to me is that some voices are valued over others, and it’s the voices of people of color that too often aren’t heard. As a white person who’s trying to find a way to be an ally despite my privilege, I don’t think there’s anything I can say that wouldn’t be about me and my experiences. There may be value in them in some ways, but those are more personal and less related to the general conversation. So they’re not useful here, as far as I can tell.

So a few posts that really stuck out to me:

I Didn’t Dream of Dragons

When I was around thirteen years old, I tried to write a fantasy novel. It was going to be an epic adventure with a cross-dressing princess on the run, a snarky hero, and dragons. I got stuck when I had to figure out what they would do after they left the city. Logically, there would be a tavern.

But there were no taverns in India. Write what you know is a rule that didn’t really need to be told to me; after having spent my entire life reading books in English about people named Peter and Sally, I wanted to write about the place I lived in, even if I didn’t have a whole bookcase of Indian fantasy world-building to steal from. And I couldn’t get past the lack of taverns. Even now, I have spent a number of years trying to figure out how cross-dressing disguise would work in a pre-Islamic India where the women went bare-breasted. When I considered including a dragon at the end of a story, I had to map out their route to the Himalayas, because dragons can be a part of a Tibetan Buddhist tradition—they do not figure in Hindu mythology.

A conversation I WANT to have

The world of fantasy should not be all White People + Various European Architecture + Magic (possibly dragons). The world of fantasy also shouldn’t be White People + Various Asian/South Asian Architecture + Magic. It’s not White People Gaining Power From Kachina Dolls. It’s not White People + Dark Savages + Magic. It’s not White People + Voudoo (Hoodo, Obeah, Santeria). It’s definitely not White People + All 4 of the previous mentioned practices, mixed up and rolled into one.

… So the conversation I want to have now is – what next? How do we start? Do we use the internet and go small press the way various erotica writing female writers have utilized it – making a space for themselves? How do we make space for ourselves? Do we embrace the labeling? Do we embrace the separate little bookshelves in the bookstore? The African American Lit. The Asian Experiences. The Jewish Commentaries? With their little signs? Do we accept those labels? Do we try to burst out? Where do we move next?

One possible “what now?” solution might be found in Verb Noire.

Ryda Wong has collected many, many, many more links about RaceFail here.

Other Links

Crossing Lines: Deconstructing Black Superheroes

I know a lot of people out there wonder why it matters. These are, after all, only imaginary superheroes. Why does the way they are created and portrayed matter so much? The answer is because they perpetuate the stereotypes as they play on them, they reinforce these ideas within the minds of fans. We are meant to look upon most superheroes as just that — heroes. We are meant to look up at them as people to emulate and aspire to be. This makes it especially unfortunate that black superheroes and specifically the ones chosen for this list are part of a pattern that continues to portray black people on the basis of opinions and stereotypes formed decades and even centuries ago, a pattern that continues to erase black women from any kind of discourse or agency. For a medium that endeavors to look into other worlds and possibilities, it seems reluctant to release the preconceptions of this one and that’s a true shame. This list doesn’t help dispel any of that at all.

Via The Angry Black Woman.

Carrie’s Analysis of Urban Fantasy Part I: The Formula

Apart from the presence of the supernatural and a kick-ass heroine (often wearing leather pants and wielding a semi-automatic), which are big parts of the urban fantasy formula and traits readers look for in these books, I’d argue that the framework boils down to two things: character and world-building. This genre is primarily character-driven: the main characters are at the hearts of these series, and readers keep coming back because of the connection they feel with them. And world building: readers want a world they can fall into, that they can believe in, often similar to ours but the fun comes in seeing the differences, in imagining what it would really be like if these things really happened. When these two things come together, along with the tropes that cause readers to seek out these books in the first place (vampires, kicking ass, etc), you have a successful urban fantasy novel and series. I believe this is what readers are looking for, and what writers in the genre are striving for.

(Also check out Part II: When Things Go Wrong and Part III: Deconstructing Urban Fantasy. Via The Swivet.)

Phtoshop Adbusting

A photoessay of an adbusted subway poster, that started with perfected pictures of singers — the original ads — and added the menus from Photoshop that make such perfection possible. Powerful stuff. (Recommended reading: No Logo, which I’m currently 3/4 of the way through.)

And finally, a “this is so stupid I can’t even get properly annoyed” link: Sci Fi Channel Aims to Shed Geeky Image With New Name. Right. Because “SyFy” rebranding will make science fiction non-geeky, and attract women. Yeah, good luck with that. Meanwhile, as a woman who already likes science fiction and geekery, all I can think is, you know, I prefer not to associate with the ludicrously misspelled.

That’s it. More… Someday.

So my blogging roll was killed by non-blogging-related stress, unfortunately. (Though hey, two posts in a month is better than I’ve managed at points in the past.) I don’t have anything real for tonight, but here’s some smart stuff other people have written:

The Dark Knight, Part 2: Yes, I’m Still Mad About This, another excellent post on The Dark Knight by Poison Ivory. (Psst: spoilers included.) I point this one out not only because it’s smart and interesting, but because there’s been a little discussion in comments here about the question of if and when feminism enhances or detracts from storytelling. I think Poison Ivory makes a good case for how, if TDK had been less sexist, it would have been a better movie.

Second, via Seeking Avalon, an International Blog Against Racism Week post: Smilla’s Not all cats are grey: 25 years of cover whitewashing in Joan Vinge’s “Cat” series. This post had my jaw pretty much on the floor because, here’s the thing: I’ve read Vinge’s “Cat” series. Twice, in fact; I was really excited when I found they were reprinted and bought copies (which I promptly lost somehow). I really enjoyed the series.

And I’d never noticed Cat was a character of color.

Yeah. The descriptions of Cat, while rare in the books, are pretty clear on that. And I’m a reader who skims for dialogue and action, a bad habit which I now realize is even worse than I’d thought. This post was a huge privilege check for me, because while I generally try to be conscious, I clearly have blind spots. It never would have occurred to me that being able to skim books and just plain not notice the characters’ ethnicities was one of them. I think — hope — I notice more than I used to, but it’s always good to have a reminder that I can do better and pay more attention. I will push myself to do so.

Apparently, when I promise to blog more I stop blogging for months at a time; when I say I’m too busy to blog, I get out a record number of entries (for me) in a month. Go figure. But one of the cool things to come out of the Dr. Horrible discussion (at least for me) was a long list of things to blog about.

Here’s one thing that came up a lot in that discussion: Strong Women. Because I felt very much that Penny was a weak character, and many people responded that she was very strong in nontraditional ways; in other places I saw a lot of angry muttering that not every female character needs to kick ass, and that Penny would have been ruined if she’d kicked someone in the face, in response to people wishing that she had been stronger. And the thing is, all of the above are true, and non-contradictory.

The heart of the problem is this: there are two meanings of “strong” in play here, and that’s making the discussion a lot harder to have. In one of my very first entries, I actually wrote this in a footnote:

I call them dynamic female characters rather than strong female characters to avoid conflating the idea of a well fleshed out, well written female character with a female character who is physically strong.

Still true! Basically, what we’re looking at is two definitions: physically strong (or emotionally/mentally/etc), referring to a character trait; and strong characterization, referring to well-written, three-dimensional characters. Penny from Dr. Horrible was, I think, emotionally strong — she was quietly, optimistically trying to make a difference in the world, from what little we saw of her personality — but was weakly written because we saw so little of her personality in a story that could have given us much more. What motivated her to help the homeless? What was it about Hammer that enamored her to him? What would her idea of a happy ending have been? I’ve got no idea. I know she was nice, and pretty, and very well-acted. But her presence in the story wasn’t as a character, it was as a prop; she provided motivation and a point of contention between the men. Penny may have been a strong person, but she was a weak character.

I suspect that the fact that Dr. Horrible was by Joss Whedon made the distinction even less clear — after all, Buffy is an iconic character. She’s strong, in that she’s able to throw her enemies across the room; she’s strong, in that she has her own motivations, a developed personality, and she was able to grow and change through the course of even just the handful of episodes that I watched. So I was disappointed that Penny was “weak”: not that she didn’t have Buffy’s superpowers, but that she didn’t have Buffy’s agency.

This is why I prefer the word dynamic to strong when discussing the quality of presentation of female characters. But overall I don’t think it’s a very hard concept — but often the two meanings of strong are mistaken and it’s rarely a good thing. I’d much rather read a story about a dynamic woman who is rescued from danger by a man than read a story about a physically strong female caricature who always rescues herself. Either way can be done well, but to tack physical strength on to a dynamic hero who doesn’t need it — who’s dynamic in other ways — can be confusing and detrimental. So to illustrate this, I’m going to critique a movie I actually really enjoy (Ever After) behind the cut.
Read this article »

This is a total blogging cop-out, but I’m in the midst of moving at the moment, and my cable is shut off until it’s hooked up at the new place, and I’m drinkingpacking all night tonight, so I just don’t have time to do a full post about it. (Also: I will answer the rest of the Dr. Horrible post’s comments when I do have time!)

Luckily, I saw the movie with my BFF Poison Ivory, and she hit all of my major comments in this post right here. Spoilers included, obvs.

And now back to taping boxes and finishing that bottle of wine.