|
Post by michaelpaciocco on Oct 13, 2010 12:34:15 GMT -8
Go check this out, while I think it could have been broken down a little more clearly, it's still an amazingly beautiful thing to behold. www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/12/female-character-flowchart_n_759539.htmlNow, onto a couple of comments. 1) If I'm reading this right (and to be honest I'm not sure I am) - Gwen Stacy is being described as a flawed but 3 dimensional character who does not respresent an idea. BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHIT. Are you kidding me? Gwen freakin' Stacy? Even, even if you count "Sins of the Past" or whatever that first lazy fuck retcon was, you still, still can't get past the idea of "Saint Gwen" who had FUCK ALL ZERO personality, and anyone who has spent any amount of time reading that original era of Spider-comics would know that. 2) Man, this does not make any creator look good - even the ones who should.
|
|
|
Post by K-Box on Oct 13, 2010 21:12:49 GMT -8
This chart is anti-feminism masquerading as feminism.
Ellen Ripley from the Aliens franchise as the final surviving girl? Really? Even though her character carried three sequels, to the point that she became as essential to the franchise as the title creatures themselves?
Uhura is "useless"? REALLY? Given the MASSIVE step forward she represented for women of color JUST BY BEING ON THE BRIDGE back then?
I find it most telling that, while most of the female character tropes have example pictures to accompany them, the "successful" portrayal of a strong female character has NO example.
I call bullshit. There's a difference between criticizing characterizations of women versus going out one's way to tear down nearly every well-loved, or even semi-liked, female character of the past half-century or more, many of which are AWESOME characters, and using faux-feminism to say, "See? All those GIRL characters SUCK!"
And just in case I wasn't clear enough before? Calling Uhura "useless," in the context of what her character meant for an entire GENERATION of black women who grew up watching her, is SUPER fucking racist, as at least half a dozen women of color of my acquaintance have already pointed out on their own blogs.
This is typical concern-troll privileged white woman "feminism."
|
|
|
Post by K-Box on Oct 13, 2010 21:34:51 GMT -8
In fact, I'll let my friend Homasse (a black woman) say it for me. Here:And here:
|
|
|
Post by michaelpaciocco on Oct 14, 2010 5:46:13 GMT -8
Yeah, well, that's it - there's so much here that just doesn't fit - but at first glance it does seem impressive, but then you realize it's so badly mis-categorized. and the categories themselves don't...quite gel.
|
|
|
Post by jkcarrier on Oct 14, 2010 12:14:50 GMT -8
Are you kidding me? Gwen freakin' Stacy? Even, even if you count "Sins of the Past" or whatever that first lazy fuck retcon was, you still, still can't get past the idea of "Saint Gwen" who had FUCK ALL ZERO personality, and anyone who has spent any amount of time reading that original era of Spider-comics would know that. Gwen had a very distinct personality. She was good-hearted and intensely loyal (watch the claws come out whenever Flash or Harry take a shot at Peter, or when anyone threatens her father), but also insecure, possessive, and moody. The only time I've ever seen her treated as a "saint" was by Busiek in MARVELS, and he was using her as a metaphor for the way the Marvel Universe lost its heart and optimism and became all grimdark (personally, I think the death of Jean Grey makes a better "tipping point" in that regard, but Gwen works better in MARVELS because her death was more public). Claims of sainthood tend to come from MJ/Peter shippers, who (like Rose/Doctor shippers) can't stand the idea that someone else got there first.
|
|
|
Post by michaelpaciocco on Oct 14, 2010 13:46:37 GMT -8
Actually, I hear more claims of sainthood from the Peter/Gwen shippers, or at least the retroactive ones like Jeph Loeb who always say how perfect she was. Despite the fact that
This is the sum total of all I know of Gwen Stacy:
A) She was Peter's girlfriend B) Pretty much all of her conversations and thought balloons revolved around Peter C) "Good-hearted, intensely loyal but also insecure possessive and moody" describes any supporting cast member of just about any Silver-Age super-hero comic. In that regard, the comparison you put to Jean Grey is apt because I still have a hard time pinning down Jean's personality, and she's had more ink devoted to her than Gwen. D) She once ran off to Europe because she couldn't handle Peter suggesting that Spider-Man wasn't responsible for the death of her father. E) She's dead.
I have no idea what her college major was, what she wanted out of life, or anything that wasn't directly Peter-related. In that regard, she fails the Betchel test as a character.
Feel free to educate and correct me on this matter.
|
|
|
Post by jkcarrier on Oct 14, 2010 20:21:36 GMT -8
I dunno, I never got the whole "Gwen was a boring saint" riff, because it was obvious to me that she had huge Daddy Issues, and that hang-up drove a lot of the drama in those years. Comparatively, MJ in that era was paper-thin; her whole identity was "That chick who flirts a lot". Later writers had to do a lot of retconning and back-filling to turn her into a viable life-partner.
(Gwen's major was science, BTW, but it's true they never did much with that angle.)
|
|