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Re: Completely agree with your first paragraph DomA Send a noteboard - 04/04/2012 01:43:55 PM
The majority of people go see movies because the premise sounds good, they have a great trailer, someone popular starring etc. They don't give a rats ass if the MC is male or female, as long as it is interesting and well written. There have been huge hits with female MC for 30 years (Aliens, Resident evil franchise). And there have been flops. To even point out that something is feminist and a huge step is pointing the finger at something that is an artificial problem and therefore contributing to the problem all over again.


Characters like Ripley, Leia in major blockbusters have long been considered as results of feminist progress in the 1970s. A decade earlier, and you wouldn't have seen characters like this in blockbusters, and it's not because Ripley is barely a cause for comments now that she didn't cause many when the movie was originally released.

Ton of people like you or me consider this perfectly natural/normal and that a woman can be any kind of heroine without necessarily being there to bring in the male audience through exploitation is yet another result of feminism's success at changing mentalities.

Writers like Rowling or that of HG are a new generation of feminists. They no longer "preach" with their fiction, they have simply integrated the feminist values they grew up with. Some call them post feminist works.

But calling this "an artificial problem" is going too far. There's still a fair percentage of the audience, including in the primary market of the Hollywood movies - and such a review is a reflect of this - for whom even integrating those gender values that merely reflects the changes brought to mentalities by feminism is pushing a feminist agenda and a problem. For you and a large part of the audience it's obviously integrated values, for many others its a movie with a gender-based agenda. Stuff like this still surfaces every time a female heroine like this becomes popular and becomes a target as a "feminist icon" for reactionary groups/individuals (and the opposite is also true... just think how much loathing surrounds the values represented in Twilight, and how much grief it causes many that stuff like this can still have success with young women). Also take into consideration just how many female characters are little more than eye-candy for the male viewers in Hollywood blockbusters - and this is why characters like the one in HG still stand out.

Are works like HG, HP feminist? Most definitely, in the sense that they reflect feminist values. Whether either is an example of intentional activism from their creators is another story. To many writers from these generations who consider themselves feminist, it's not so much as pushing an agenda as using the creative freedom the success of feminism granted them and reflecting their own values.
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This message last edited by DomA on 04/04/2012 at 01:49:45 PM
  • Edit 1 by DomA on 04/04/2012 at 01:49:45 PM
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The Hunger Games gets a ... different kind of review. - 03/04/2012 03:37:39 PM 2183 Views
"Written by a female with femalist themes" - 03/04/2012 04:38:54 PM 966 Views
Ok, I did and basically it's garbage. *NM* - 03/04/2012 04:53:00 PM 787 Views
I grant that I haven't read the Hunger Games yet - 03/04/2012 05:10:38 PM 915 Views
No, it's totally off. *NM* - 03/04/2012 05:39:03 PM 778 Views
fair enough. like I said, I haven't read it yet. *NM* - 03/04/2012 07:20:34 PM 726 Views
I can only speak for the film, which was not feminist. - 03/04/2012 06:01:18 PM 879 Views
Where do I start? - 03/04/2012 07:43:18 PM 888 Views
Hermoine was the most kick ass of the Potter kids. - 04/04/2012 03:08:17 AM 752 Views
So? Hunger Games has lots of male characters. - 04/04/2012 05:30:21 AM 807 Views
His racism point... - 04/04/2012 02:32:43 PM 694 Views
Makes me almost wish I knew the source material so I could judge what he is saying - 03/04/2012 10:50:48 PM 794 Views
Why don't you think the Hunger Games are feminist? - 03/04/2012 11:17:53 PM 900 Views
Why would I consider it to be femenist? - 04/04/2012 01:51:24 AM 783 Views
Completely agree with your first paragraph - 04/04/2012 08:22:35 AM 838 Views
Re: Completely agree with your first paragraph - 04/04/2012 01:43:55 PM 801 Views
Unfortunately truly ordinary female characters are so rare that the exceptions stand out - 04/04/2012 01:49:16 PM 831 Views
Fair enough - 04/04/2012 02:33:22 PM 870 Views
Stop using female as a noun! - 04/04/2012 03:51:13 PM 796 Views
It's stuff like that that makes you lose cred - 04/04/2012 05:26:24 PM 797 Views
It's fairly derogatory as a noun, though, have to agree with Vivien on that one. - 04/04/2012 07:30:18 PM 791 Views
I don't think Jens was really using it that way, though - 04/04/2012 07:34:28 PM 725 Views
Thank you! - 04/04/2012 08:03:38 PM 826 Views
Of course he didn't intend it that way, but that's how it sounds. - 04/04/2012 08:06:03 PM 808 Views
I understand that, but it's still such a ridiculous thing to get fussed over - 04/04/2012 09:20:01 PM 845 Views
You are rather exaggerating just how "fussed" anyone did get, you do realize. - 04/04/2012 09:51:22 PM 761 Views
Her tone was not just "informative". It was accusatory - 04/04/2012 10:17:57 PM 733 Views
Female is perfectly acceptable to use in a medical/clinical setting. *NM* - 04/04/2012 10:36:57 PM 977 Views
so if your problem is people using it disparagingly... - 04/04/2012 10:45:10 PM 705 Views
That's not what I said. - 04/04/2012 10:51:41 PM 818 Views
I'm going to have to just outright disagree with you then. *NM* - 04/04/2012 10:54:25 PM 751 Views
If I wanted to be accusatory... - 04/04/2012 11:05:37 PM 773 Views
Are you a native English speaker, Legolas? (Clarified to preempt possible internet tears) - 06/04/2012 09:29:28 AM 790 Views
Nope. (edit) - 06/04/2012 07:23:54 PM 788 Views
Re: Nope. (edit) - 07/04/2012 04:51:30 AM 855 Views
"Female that"? That's even worse. - 07/04/2012 11:42:00 AM 741 Views
Ok. - 07/04/2012 03:27:16 PM 1023 Views
Re: It's fairly derogatory as a noun, though, have to agree with Vivien on that one. - 05/04/2012 02:21:21 AM 796 Views
I think the language difference is really interesting. - 05/04/2012 03:13:03 PM 803 Views
English is not French, and it's not German. Particularly the connotations of American English words - 06/04/2012 09:39:00 AM 869 Views
LOL! You don't say... - 06/04/2012 05:06:20 PM 773 Views
LOL u so mad - 06/04/2012 06:19:28 PM 769 Views
The prospect of "losing cred" is not going to stop me from speaking my mind. - 04/04/2012 10:30:03 PM 751 Views
My dear - 09/04/2012 01:07:34 PM 799 Views
LOL - 09/04/2012 01:57:53 PM 647 Views
guess what, it is a noun. *NM* - 04/04/2012 07:26:39 PM 631 Views
That's the first time I have ever heard/seen anyone say that. - 04/04/2012 08:19:02 PM 770 Views
well it's important that you say "female human" - 04/04/2012 09:28:45 PM 759 Views
Re: That's the first time I have ever heard/seen anyone say that. - 04/04/2012 10:48:07 PM 750 Views
wait, so now you're claiming it's a grammatical thing? *NM* - 04/04/2012 10:58:31 PM 754 Views
No, I have issues with words that begin with the letter f. - 04/04/2012 11:09:45 PM 781 Views
ooookay then. - 04/04/2012 11:11:23 PM 838 Views
Re: Stop using female as a noun! - 05/04/2012 02:18:47 PM 701 Views
If dislike of the use of female as a noun makes me crazy town, I'm not the only crazy in here. - 05/04/2012 05:59:16 PM 738 Views
For the record, I certainly don't think you're crazy town. - 05/04/2012 07:23:18 PM 752 Views
Oh, so now we're using 'dislike' instead of 'should'. It's funny how you fell back on that. - 06/04/2012 10:01:59 AM 770 Views
Fascinating. - 06/04/2012 09:54:47 PM 797 Views
Re: Fascinating. - 07/04/2012 03:54:26 AM 775 Views
Just in case (however slim that chance may be) you are genuinely interested in citations/references. - 07/04/2012 05:34:37 AM 775 Views
What a joke. Do you even know what grammar is? - 07/04/2012 05:57:40 AM 834 Views
Oh, come off it. This should be the point where you admit to being wrong. - 07/04/2012 12:11:07 PM 710 Views
Sorry, no. Read better. - 07/04/2012 02:23:10 PM 750 Views
*deletes long reply* Let's focus on the essence here. - 07/04/2012 06:38:08 PM 736 Views
Re: *deletes long reply* Let's focus on the essence here. - 07/04/2012 09:26:34 PM 839 Views
Aha, we found the problem - 09/04/2012 01:03:35 PM 822 Views
You're being disingenuous. - 09/04/2012 12:57:38 PM 750 Views
To be fair - 04/04/2012 02:37:25 PM 788 Views
You didn't see thmovie? She is far from passive - 04/04/2012 01:46:16 PM 812 Views
Re: You didn't see thmovie? She is far from passive - 04/04/2012 02:23:33 PM 762 Views
Re: You didn't see thmovie? She is far from passive - 04/04/2012 07:51:46 PM 778 Views
This - 05/04/2012 12:20:04 AM 758 Views
I got half way through the review and got bored. - 04/04/2012 03:09:58 AM 734 Views
And it appears the writer of the article completely missed a central point of the story *spoilers* - 04/04/2012 05:44:40 AM 798 Views
I think that might be debatable - 05/04/2012 06:59:35 PM 772 Views
She still made plenty of choices and she did choose to kill. - 05/04/2012 07:13:47 PM 722 Views
The reviewer is kind of full of it, but makes a good point about the character - 04/04/2012 04:22:30 PM 823 Views
Out of curiosity (this off topic) - 04/04/2012 07:32:25 PM 721 Views
Rachel, of course. - 05/04/2012 12:17:41 AM 781 Views
Well. Now I've actually seen it. (mild spoilers) - 09/04/2012 12:17:03 AM 832 Views