I'm sorry, I'm fictionally cranky today.

[meganbmoore]

 Another thing that's been going around that's been making me extremely irritable (and most definitely carried over into the other posts of the day) is a lot of the talk about women in comic book movies.  Outside of Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Daredevil, all these superhero comic book movies the last few years are having heroines largely limited to non-action roles, mostly just the girlfriend or mother figure.  Uhm...so far, I've largely thought they were all pretty cool myself, but we aren't getting into that.  (Lets face it, X-Men and FF only had action girls because they're team movies, and DD because Elektra is his best known lover.  We pretend Catwoman does not exist.  Just like we pretend Halle Berry as Storm did not make the entire comic book fandom sob in sorrow.)  Then there's Doctor Horrible.  I haven't seen it yet, so I'm not commenting there.  It seems to be bringing a lot of this out, though.

But someone somewhere said that that's all any of the female characters in comic books were.  And someone else said that female characters never should have any role save the girl to get rescued or the mother.  And all comic book heroine suck anyway.

The women in this icon, and everyone remotely associated with them, would like to have words with that sentiment.  As would an amazingly long list of women connected to the heroes movies are being made of.  And an even longer list of other women in comic books.

No, I'm not linking.  I burned the threads from my head as best I could.  Much like the "Storm should be raped" essay I once read.

Here's the thing.  Pretty much all all these iconic heroes they've been making movies of have several action women-lovers, heroines, and enemies-linked to them.  Batman in particular is drowning in them.  But you know what?  The movie makers skip them.  It's basically all about the screen writing articles I linked to earlier.  Other character types in these movies would, very simply, have more to do in the plot and distract from the hero being heroic and saving the day.  Apparently, the rule is that girls in comic book movies only get to help do that if there are several boy heroes.

My point?  I'm not sure I really have one, beyond apparently being generally cranky regarding fiction today.  I get watching comic book movies and saying the female characters are mostly just love interests, because it's true.  That doesn't mean they suck.  But watching a few movies and knowing nothing about comics themselves or the characters beyond the iconic males Hollywood has been promoting, and assuming there are no heroines in the action sense, or female characters beyond assistants and girlfriends?  I might refrain from biting your head off if I like you.

Comic books = Megan's babies, even if The Big Two are annoying her too much for her to be reading a lot lately.

And Gwyneth Paltrow says comic books are only for boys.  What does that make me and about half the f-list that read comics?  She can join Halle Berry in the Comic Book Movie Hall of Ultimate Shame.

Also, I have been spoiled for a part of Dark Knight.  It does not influence my intentions of seeing the movie, but:

Barbara.  Freaking. Gordon.  Mess with her the way the spoilers threaten, and there may be blood.

Comments

[lyssie.livejournal.com]

It was, yup. Right at the moment, my disgusted with the media self doesn't care (STAR TREK. STAR TREK had a black male lead and then a female lead. Has everyone else decided they don't need to have anymore diversity now?)

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

Star Trek has a history of diversity. Even in the middle of the 50s, they had a diverse group working together that would've seemed unlikely in the world at the time -- a Russian, a black woman, an alien, and it was all well and good.

I'm starting to miss even the days of the slightly-too-diverse shows, like with the original Power Rangers.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Not to detract from the main thrust of your point, but the pedantic TOS fan in me compels me to note that Trek was mid-to-late-60s, not mid-50s. :)

[fairest1.livejournal.com]

*facepalm* Yes.