fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2801 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2801 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 031 secrets from Secret Submission Post #400.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 2 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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06. http://i.imgur.com/sVEOQHz.png

Is the term even still used as a serious descriptor now? Mostly I've seen it used mockingly lately.

I've seen people use it straight lately.

Same.

I've actually seen it around. Same in ye olde LJ days it was around.

You're not the only one. I once spent an entire afternoon reading various rants on the subject. It's like wikipedia, you get lost in the link trails.

I'd prefer not to see 'strong' or 'weak' characters, but well-written ones. Regardless of their gender.

I like this quote:

"Sherlock Holmes gets to be brilliant, solitary, abrasive, Bohemian, whimsical, brave, sad, manipulative, neurotic, vain, untidy, fastidious, artistic, courteous, rude, a polymath genius. Female characters get to be Strong."

Yeah, that one sticks with me too.

(no subject)

elephantinegrace - 2014-09-04 01:59 (UTC) - Expand

dinogrrl - 2014-09-04 02:07 (UTC) - Expand

Kate Beaton's comics about that are so spot-on.

Oh jesus fuck, do I agree with you. It's not just patronizing; it's also incredibly limiting, because it represents a standard that's nigh impossible to meet.

Me too. I'd rather go with "Interesting Female Characters." Because that's what people really want. They want well rounded, interesting characters who are female. That doesn't mean they only want action heroes or women who always win. They want characters who are just as interesting and fleshed out as their male counterparts.

You've said it perfectly.

More female characters, less female caricatures.

I use the term "fully realised character" and toss in "female" if it's important that the character is a woman or girl and that's not already clear from the context.

So few people seem to understand that strength in a fictional character is an attribute of the writing, not of the character as a person.

lol at that comic though

I admit I use the term now and then, but I mean it as a shortened version of "strongly-developed." Because that's really what it comes down to for me.

Yeah I think it's not a bad term per se, but then male writers took it entirely too literally and think being "strong" means taking the most basic female character and giving her a gun to shoot.

What they didn't get is that we wanted well rounded, interesting female characters of all types. Female characters that were just as well developed as their male counterparts and didn't rely on old sexist stereotypes.

taking the most basic female character and giving her a gun to shoot

Hahah yeah that's literally it, too. It would have been different if they actually made them fully kick-ass all around and as competent as the male leads, but... For a while there there was a slew of films that created what you could tell they thought was a "strong female character" just by having her ride a motorcycle or fly a jet or hack a computer - some "manly" skill - which serves some minor plot point, then spend the rest of the film being the hero's girlfriend/damsel in distress/nothing of importance. Or have her swear a lot or have an "attitude" but be utterly ineffectual while the male characters get everything done.

The newest Terminator with Christian Bale had a particularly egregious one of these as I recall. She literally flies a military jet once in service to a plot point, then immediately afterwards get victimized, has to be saved by the hero, is given to the hero as a reward, and does nothing else of importance for the rest of the film while the two male leads do it all. Just... wow. Wow. Why was she even present? Congratulations, you've created a prop to reaffirm the lead's masculinity... now with a single non-gender-normative skill!

Agreed. I hate that term, it's so generic and reinforces the idea that as long as a female character can "kick ass" and is competent, she's well-written, no matter how two dimensional and undeveloped she is.

Heaven help me but I really wish that was Obama.

Who? The lady doing the kicking, the reporter getting kicked or the other reporter saying "omg"?

Agreed, so much. Especially since "strong" so often seems to equal a character who is pointlessly aggressive, reckless, impulsive, violent.
"Strong" = physically violent, "sassy" or "feisty" = rude and confrontational for no reason...

I feel like this term left me behind. When I used to see it years ago it meant "well-rounded female character with definite strengths and agency" but those strengths didn't have to be physical. Sansa Stark fit the definition as much as Brienne.

This weird morphing it's done to mean "action Amazon" really needs to go.

"Strong Female Characters" ought to mean strong characters who happen to be women, where "strong" means interesting and engaging. Strong characters are well-written and well-developed. They are people we want to see more of. They are people we want to see interact with other strong characters. Strong characters can be wildly different in terms of gender, appearance, personality, morality, physical prowess, motivations, and goals. A strong character can be physically weak, indecisive, or morally gray. There is no single type of character that is universally strong or universally weak as a character.

Instead, we get people thinking "Strong Female Characters" means characters who are strong women, where "strong" is very narrowly defined to mean - as others have said - violent and aggressive. They don't even need to be particularly strong physically, or to have strength of character - they just need to be able to shoot things and spout a one-liner.