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We’re Losing All Our Strong Female Characters To Trinity Syndrome


CrossCuT

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HisChildForever

I am a huge fan of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." The title is silly but the show is amazing--there's quirky comedy but a lot of drama and life lessons. Some elements are questionable, sure, but overall you have strong women in that series (as well as the "Angel" spin off). And the women do dress fashionably, sometimes there was a bit of skin but overall appropriate. In fact Joss Whedon is very focused on strong female characters.

 

Other strong females in movies/TV/novels that come to mind:

Dr. Ellie Sattler, Jurassic Park

Maggie Green, The Walking Dead (honorable mentions to Carol Peletier and Lori Grimes)

Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice

Laura Chapman, The Day After Tomorrow

Rose DeWitt Bukater, Titanic

Arwen Undomiel, LOTR

Eowyn, LOTR

Chiyo, Memoirs of a Geisha

Hermione Granger, Harry Potter

Susan and Lucy, Chronicles of Narnia

Topanga, Boy Meets World

Skeeter, Minny, Celia, Aibileen, The Help

Leia, Star Wars

Sarah Connor, Terminator

Black Widow, The Avengers

 

These women are all presented as intelligent, witty, and independent, and don't shirk their femininity. 

 

Granted, there are more, these just pop out because I'm most familiar with them. I could add a ton more if I was less sleepy.

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Nihil Obstat

Hm. I would be inclined to disagree about Princess Leia. She was mainly either a damsel in distress or essentially just luggage.

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Credo in Deum

Hm. I would be inclined to disagree about Princess Leia. She was mainly either a damsel in distress or essentially just luggage.


Yeah, but dem buns! AMIRITE!?
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HisChildForever

Hm. I would be inclined to disagree about Princess Leia. She was mainly either a damsel in distress or essentially just luggage.

 

She was really only a damsel in distress with the Jabba storyline. And she was in that situation because she took it upon herself to rescue Han. She might've even orchestrated the entire rescue mission, alongside Luke. I know she was a prisoner in "A New Hope" but she gave her [s]captures[/s] captors a lot of lip and refused to give up the good guys. Overall I'd say she was a pretty fearless fighter for the rebels. 

Edited by HisChildForever
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Nihil Obstat

 

She was really only a damsel in distress with the Jabba storyline. And she was in that situation because she took it upon herself to rescue Han. She might've even orchestrated the entire rescue mission, alongside Luke. I know she was a prisoner in "A New Hope" but she gave her captures captors a lot of lip and refused to give up the good guys. Overall I'd say she was a pretty fearless fighter for the rebels. 

I can see why you might think that, but I cannot agree overall. :P I think if you compare her role to that of other major male characters, she ends up looking extremely useless.

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HisChildForever

I can see why you might think that, but I cannot agree overall. :P I think if you compare her role to that of other major male characters, she ends up looking extremely useless.

 

Hm, well, I'd agree only in regards to her role at the end of "Return of the Jedi." Luke and Han are part of the big finale, if memory serves.

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Maggie Green, The Walking Dead (honorable mentions to Carol Peletier and Lori Grimes)

 

No Michonne?! Come on now.

 

Has anyone here read Wool? The female lead in that book is portrayed really well I think.

 

I also like Katniss Everdeen. Yup

 

 

(Apparently I didn't get here in time before the thread got lame, but I did like the discussion prior to the stupidity. Can't get mad tho. I've sunk threads before with lamesauce).

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HisChildForever

No Michonne?! Come on now.

 

Oh my goodness how could I...she's actually my favorite female character of the show. :doh:

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LittleWaySoul

I really like this thread. A lot. Let's continue.

 

Also, CrossCut-- you should look up the Bechdel Test! It's super important for feminist media criticism! :)

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I really like this thread. A lot. Let's continue.

 

Also, CrossCut-- you should look up the Bechdel Test! It's super important for feminist media criticism! :)

 

Thanks for the suggestion! I completely forgot about it!

When Nihil had mentioned it I had the intention of doing some research but then my brain shut off so I forgot.
:)

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For anyone else who is like me and didnt know what the Bechdel Test is, here ya go from Wiki:

 

 

What is now known as the Bechdel test was introduced in Alison Bechdel's comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. In a 1985 strip titled "The Rule",[8][9] an unnamed female character says that she only watches a movie if it satisfies the following requirements:[4]

  1. It has to have at least two women in it,
  2. who talk to each other,
  3. about something besides a man.[9][10]

 

 

 

Pass and fail proportions[edit]

Only a small proportion of films pass the Bechdel test, according to writer Charles Stross[19] and film director Jason Reitman.[20] According to Mark Harris of Entertainment Weekly, if passing the test were mandatory, it would have jeopardized half of the 2009 Academy Award for Best Picture nominees.[17] The news website Vocativ, when subjecting the top-grossing films of 2013 to the Bechdel test, concluded that roughly half of them passed (although some dubiously) and the other half failed.[21]

Stross noted that about half of the films that do pass the test only do so because the women talk about marriage or babies.[19] Works that fail the test include some that are mainly about or aimed at women, or which do feature prominent female characters. The television series Sex and the City highlights its own failure to pass the test by having one of the four female main characters ask: "How does it happen that four such smart women have nothing to talk about but boyfriends? It's like seventh grade with bank accounts!"[10]

The website bechdeltest.com is a user-edited database of some 4,500 films classified by whether or not they pass the test, with the added requirement that the women must be namedcharacters. As of November 2013, it listed 56% of these films as passing all three of the test's requirements, 11% as failing one (the women's conversations are about men), 23% as failing two (the women do not talk to each other), and 10% as failing all three (there are not two named female characters).[22]

In addition to films, the test has been applied to other media such as video games[23][24] and comics.[25]

 

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