Agreed that most of them are absurd and often show the writer's ignorance about all things violent, but luckily there are exceptions to this rule as well, few as they may be.
It's not always ignorance. There's martial arts as a science, martial arts as a culture, and then martial arts as Hollywood choreography.
Like others have recommended, forget the critiques of characters (especially out of context) and just write the character the story needs. That said, I've made a non-binding contract with myself to do my absolute best to only write female protagonists. There is a lack of (positive) representation of women in the media, a problem which is reflected in the snap judgements your panel makes. They are accustom to seeing males, so that's what they expect and accept. One way to try to change this mindset is to create more female characters. And even then the sad truth remains that it's not likely to be a change seen in our lifetimes. We can go ahead and give it a try, though! Especially for younger audiences, I think it's so important to have strong role models they can relate to on the most basic level. So write that military action adventure story with a totally BA female lead and maybe somewhere, someday, you'll inspire a young girl to break the gender molds society has us all trapped in.
The thing about this though, is she's not totally badass. Almost right from the start, she gets her ass kicked and HARD (enough to put her in the hospital.) She's in the military yes, but she's a medic, not really fighting on the front lines though she is combat trained and she has issues with illicit drugs (namely covertly swiping morphine from the supply cabinets) that lead her to make big time mistakes in medical judgement. Somehow, I fail to see how that creates the "perfect" Mary Sue" character. Far as I can see, she's just average aside from being a female in the military.
Yeah, there's that. I'm afraid this makes me a bigot, but I see it in a fairly black and white way: "Hollywoodian" depictions of violence, i.e. unrealistic portrayals (be they in books or on screen), give the audience, especially younger people, a very distorted image of violence, often making it even seem fun or cool, which, I think, is an insult towards real victims of violence as well as those who have to deal with it on a day to day basis in their work. That's why I tend to think that if there has to be violence in a story, the least the author can do is to make it realistic, and if s/he hasn't first-hand experience of it, do the legwork just like is required of us in every other aspect of writing, i.e. research, research, research. Imagine if we did the same with rape scenes; make them into fun, cool, action-packed, feel-good entertainment...
I'm confused by the term Mary Sue. The definition I've always heard is it is apparent to the reader that the author has completely inserted a fantasized version of herself into a story. For example, being prettier than in real life, better social skills, whatever. I guess I'm more used to this definition in relation to fanfic. Is there an alternate definition of this that I missed? And why is it so important to run a character sketch by anyone other than the author? The character lives in your brain and no one else's.
Presenting a character out of the context has no bearing on what that character will be like inside the story. There's definitely a bias against strong females, society has it, readers have it, and most importantly - writers have it. Strong female protagonists in fiction are outnumbered by the males 1000:1. This is the baseline we are starting from when deciding to write a female protagonist. My suggestion is that you only present her as a written character, in a chapter. That's the best way to see if she works or not. Everything else is a waste of time, imo.
I'm not sure about that. Say, what's her name? Ripling from the Aliens films - her character was originally written for a man, and I don't remember their reasons now, but they switched the gender in the end and made her into a woman without rewriting the role. I've not heard absolutely anybody call Ripling a "man in drag" and not a woman. In fact, isn't she exalted as one of the first movie examples of where a woman was written as a strong character? The girl in Jurassic Park had the same story - she was originally meant to be the little boy, but Steven Spielberg wanted this particular male actor so bad he had to switch the roles to allow the boy to be in the film, which is why you end up with a girl who's a computer genius who's interested in dinosaurs. To the military discussion - I remember reading a book on violence written by a police officer, and he said that in his experience, it was women who proved to be the best officers usually, and not the men, but only when the women owned their womanhood and "didn't try to be a man". I didn't quite understand how he meant it exactly, but he was saying how where there was a woman who knew she was a woman and took charge and led the team as a woman, she was respected and admired and those women were the ones who made excellent leaders. From that kind of description, I gathered he meant that women can be some of the best leaders in the police force and command a lot of authority and respect, but somehow, some way, managed to tread that line where she wasn't trying to be "one of the guys". I'm not too sure how a woman would look in this context, perhaps because there're so few examples in life and in fiction, and of course, that traits and skills are often sexualised (as in, segregated by gender). I'd say though, someone like Katniss was a pretty good example of a woman who owned herself. I'm also inclined towards the female MC in the Japanese classic Ranma, the girl Akane. On the surface she seems like an anime caricature like most others, but she's often shown as far more mature than the guy, considerate, kind, certainly emotional and sensitive, but also a strong and stubborn woman whom you just don't mess with, and who's able to put aside her feelings, but also who's able to act on her feelings too. I'd venture a guess that these two are probably fairly good examples of someone who didn't try to be a man and yet were strong and distinctly female. As for how to write such a character, I don't think I've quite got the hang of it yet.
Hahahahaha oh dear. Well I've never actually seen the films, so... Will go and correct it now! Or shall I leave it in cus it's funny?
Aw, you should see the movies, they are classics! I don't know, but if you want to change it, I should edit my comment as well, to cover the tracks effectively
I thought they added the cat to make 'Ripling' more feminine... But I think a movie character differs from a character in a book. You will be, possibly maybe probably, more in the character's head when reading a novel, and if, say, she was first written as a man and then the author just changed names, it might not fly, might not be very credible. On the other hand, people come in all shapes, sizes, and mindsets, so you never know. I wouldn't do that, however.
Exactly. Time for my Bridge Analogy. If you sail up the East River from New York Bay, you pass under two bridges in quick succession that link Brooklyn and Manhattan. The first is the Brooklyn Bridge, designed by John Augustus Roebling and widely regarded as one of the most aesthetically pleasing bridges in the world. The second is the Manhattan Bridge, an mediocre structure unremarkable for anything other, perhaps, than the fact that subway trains run over it. It was designed by committee. Characters, like bridges, should not be designed by committee.
I don't agree, unless the author wants to make it realistic. Fiction is an art form, and there are many different approaches to such things. If an author writes a story that uses highly stylized or cinematic action/violence sequences, I don't think that's a problem.
Statistically speaking, men and women may be different in a variety of ways. A character is not a statistic, however, but an individual. The idea that men and women are generally different and therefore a female character has to have certain characteristics is false. Any given man or woman may be just about anywhere on the continuum of human behavior patterns and physical characteristics. Thinking about characters in terms of representations of statistical likelihoods is a mistake. In most cases, I think the author is much better off simply treating the character as a person and writing the story accordingly rather than getting caught up in the idea that the character has to have some specific characteristic as a result of being female.
Again I wonder, if it's perfectly innocent to make violence, i.e. shooting at people, beating on them into light entertainment (in this context means highly stylized or cinematic action/violence sequences), why shouldn't we do the same with rape? Or other less pleasant forms of violence? I mean, it's all violence in the end, just the details vary, no? I don't swing that way, frankly, but I'm sure plenty of people would derive lots of pleasure (one way or another) from glorified, romanticized rape scenes (which exist, but are usually shunned nowadays in mainstream TV/cinema).
Like I said, that's fine. So long as you don't mind the subset of readers who complain that your female character is nothing like 99.99% of women they've ever met. Someone mentioned Ripley a few posts back. I thought her 'man in drag' character was quite obvious in the original movie, and I believe you'll find that most people's favourite Ripley is the one in Aliens, who certainly isn't. That doesn't stop her running around with a flamethrower and grenade launcher when the need arises.
My last serious writing project had four primary characters, two male and two female. None of my beta-readers has yet said that the characters are unrealistic, even though the women are pretty awesome, objectively speaking.
That subset is welcome to read something else. Most readers are fairly intelligent, and I don't intend to target my work toward any who can't handle a woman who doesn't fall lockstep into stereotypical preconceptions about what women are supposed to be like. In other words, I don't write for the least common denominator.
They *do* do the same with rape, and frankly I find it disgusting. Rape is misunderstood enough and its victims/survivors stigmatised enough that we really don't need this type of writing. This is actually a case where I'd refer back to the responsibility of the author. Yes, you can write anything you like, but you must take responsibility for the values and the messages that you're promoting. Anyone who can say with good conscience that they're actually exalting rape as somehow entertaining has questionable morals and an even more questionable mind/personality IMO. Btw, I am not talking about you personally, T. Trian lol. I realise you're just asking a question and you're not saying you approve of this. But yeah, I've come across books like that before. There was a book about a girl who's kidnapped and her kidnapper sexually molests her and if she refuses, then she gets starved. In the book though, the woman is portrayed as thoroughly enjoying this and the perpetrator described as rather kind and caring. All this while she was blindfolded, tied to a chair and locked in a cell that has a keypad and code on the door. Then there was her flashback where she talks about how her ex-boyfriend forced her into accepting oral sex, and how she thoroughly enjoyed it in the end and when a friend of hers accused the guy of rape, she outright rejected the idea. And then I didn't read any further. This was all within the first chapter.
You understood correctly as I actually dislike any glorified portrayals of violence (whether it's about a guy raping a girl or three guys beating on one) that make feel-good entertainment of it, but that's just me. I do approve of violence in books and movies etc, but like it is with rape, child abuse etc. if the violence is done just for gratuitous entertainment or in a way that glorifies it, makes it look like something fun and cool, I'll be moving on to the next piece of art. But again, this is just one opinion, not necessarily the right one.
Here's a point I haven't seen anyone mention yet, and it might be bullshit - I was only just thinking of it as I read this thread: Maybe, from the point of view of evolutionary psychology, men regard women as "those who must be protected." Just thinking about human reproduction, a man can impregnate many thousands of women during his life, but a woman can only go through a very limited number of pregnancies during hers. That makes each woman, reproductively speaking, far more valuable than each man. So men are much more expendable. This results, psychologically (in men), as the "women and children first" thing when it comes to filling lifeboats if the ship is sinking. In other words, save the kids because they are the next generation, and save the women because we need them to produce the next generation. If anyone has to die, it should be the men. I realize that this is simplistic reasoning, but to my uninformed brain, it makes sense. This means that, when it comes to war, men don't want to see women on the battlefield. Women's lives shouldn't be risked. If lives must be risked, they should be men's lives. So males have evolved to reject the idea of female soldiers - men feel that they, the men, must do the protecting and the fighting and, if necessary, the dying. This means that it isn't that men don't think women can kick ass - it's not a sexist idea in that sense - but rather that it shouldn't be the women who have to kick ass. Men don't want to see women on the battlefield - it goes against the evolutionary grain, so to speak. Ripley in the Alien films has been raised as a counterexample in this thread, and I might as well mention Sarah Connor in the first two Terminator films. These are great examples of Women Who Kick Ass, and men love watching them do so. But in both cases, they were forced into the position where they had to kick ass. It wasn't something they volunteered for or trained for. They did it because they had to. Men might react differently to them if these women had grown up saying, "I want to be a soldier! I want to learn a bunch of combat skills and kick enemy ass!" The deep-in-the-dark-past part of the male brain might say "Wait a minute, woman! That's MY job! I should be protecting you, not the other way around!" That part of the male brain might feel very hurt by the idea of letting a woman defend herself - she's basically telling him he can't do his primary job as a male. All this results in men, boys, and many women and girls, wanting to read action/military stories about male MCs and not female ones. It's not that they think women CAN'T be action heroes; it's that it shouldn't be the woman's job. Women are too valuable to risk, from the point of view of evolutionary psychology. Does any of this make any sense? Thoughts? Opinions?
It does make sense, and it is also one of the many arguments many people use to justify oppressing women, unfortunately. (I'm actually pretty sure I saw exactly the same argument in a Christian book that details what true godly manhood is supposed to be. I read only snippets, I have my doubts about it) Oppression and sexism happens when you dictate what someone can and can't do based solely on their gender - ever thought of the women who might be very hurt by the men insisting that she simply shouldn't or can't protect herself? It's ridiculous to think of hurt feelings as though we're trying to smooth over a child's tantrum. Men need to realise they are strong and perfectly adequate even when a woman protects him, and the ones who can't stand it because of wounded pride need to grow up, frankly. They're not children, they're men, for goodness' sake, and it's time we stopped treating men like children and go, "There, there. See, here's someone physically weaker than you are. Go on and prove yourself!" That's counter-productive if we're really into the business of affirming men's integrity and ability as men. If you only feel like a man when you're imposing yourself over someone weaker, then, well... I'm sure you get where I'm going with this I agree, women shouldn't HAVE to protect themselves, and neither do men HAVE to protect the women. Women can protect men, men can protect women (what do you really think a husband and wife are doing to each other in a healthy, happy marriage? I protect my husband as much as he protects me. Protection or the desire to give protection or the right to give protection are not a monopoly that's exclusive to men) Why do we insist on twisting something essential noble and wonderful (the desire to protect one another) into a tool to control someone? The main problem comes when people start saying "You CAN'T do this". Because "You shouldn't have to do this" is often not the way most people think when coming from the angle you've presented, but rather that you deem the other person as somehow lesser, reducing his or her ability. "You shouldn't have to" speaks nothing of the person's ability, desire or right to do something. "You can't" does, and "can't" is the way most people think and voice their objections. The desire to protect someone is a noble thing, and I have absolutely no objection to men wanting to protect women, sparing them the dirty work. Love does that. And if a woman loves a man, she will likely want to do exactly the same thing. They will not always protect in the same way, depending on the individual. But it's ridiculous to say, "Well, you CAN'T do this. It's MY job!" Bullshit. Isn't it EVERYONE'S job to protect one another? If a woman is supposed to feel like she's no lesser for being protected, why should men not have the privilege? Being protects IS a privilege, and men are human like women are, they also need protecting. It's my job to protect my husband, my father, and if I had a brother, or if I have a son in the future, then to protect them too. My job to protect my grandfather, my uncles, my male cousins. It's my job to protect all the male friends I have. Yes, it is my job. Just as it is their job to protect me. It's about being human. It's got nothing to do with gender.
I think there's a lot of psychological truth in what you're saying minstrel. However, that's only a part of the issue, I think. Another part is toxic competitiveness. There's archaeological and genetic evidence which suggests that around the time of first agriculture forming, there were gangs of more aggressive males who literally exterminated the more placid ones, and grabbed females for themselves. They went on to form hierarchies and further evdence shows burials of rich vs poor, basically setting this kind of class division all the way back into a very early human society. So human descendants ultimately come from only a few male ancestors. This kind of aggressive competitiveness also translated into continuous subjugation of women, their expulsion from power, from inheritance and ultimately, they became no threat, but rather a man's property. Women were killed by their husbands, still are in certain areas, for any percieved slight or simply to be replaced by a younger, more desirable mate. I don't think that men protecting women is responsible for sexism. I think it's toxic competitivness and the inferiority complex that usually goes hand in hand. Eliminate 50% of the competition by default, it's pretty convenient way to up the odds. Just remember the fight women fought for centuries, just to be given their human rights back. And even today, we have to fight on daily basis agaist subtle or hidden misogyny (because open one is punishable by law). It's an inborn trait that certain insecure and inferior males will always display, if they're allowed to. I say inferior because it's usually the confident, desirable males who don't feel threatened by women.
I found the article! By John Piper, renowned theologian telling you about gender roles: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/taste-see-articles/co-ed-combat-and-cultural-cowardice Here's the main paragraph that sums it up: I'm sure I don't have to tell you just how WRONG that is.
