[Link] Bombshells and Bae: Sexism in Afrofuturism

by Balogun Ojetade

I love reading and writing Afrofuturistic and Afroretroistic stories – particularly science fiction, fantasy and horror featuring larger than life heroes and sheroes and eye-popping action. I really do. But I am growing increasingly disgusted by the sexism within a lot of it. I can no longer read books in which people of color and women are constantly oppressed and seen as lesser beings in a world based on fantasy and science fiction – even if WE are the authors of it.

Lately – as the father of seven daughters who are all avid readers of Afrofuturism and Afroretroism – I have become particularly disgusted with the continuing sexism in the writing and in the visual art.

Writers, you can create a world with any rules you choose. In your world, you don’t have to continue to perpetuate the sexist tropes so prevalent in Fantasy and Science Fiction since its inception.

Are you that lacking in creativity that you cannot write something better? Are you that apathetic to the plight of our Sisters? Or have you convinced yourself you have to maintain some sexist status quo to sell?

Bruh. Do better.

Certain tropes have been formed and propagated. Given the overwhelming number of novels set in a sort of idealized, white, medieval Europe; given the grossly oversimplified and homogenized concept of medieval gender roles, stereotypes and sexist archetypes have arisen in Fantasy and Science Fiction and Black male writers are giving us the same old trite bullshit. Some examples of these played out, tired tropes are...

Read the full article:http://greydogtales.com/blog/women-speculative-fiction-men-write/

Vixens Make the Pulp Go ‘Round

By Sean Taylor

Even though Scooby Doo wasn’t a pulp tale, I still blame Daphne Blake.

I do. That poor, danger-prone mystery solver turned young me on to the joy that is the redhead. Now, that in itself is innocuous enough, but then you must take into account all the vixen redheads that make up the crime movies and the pulp stories.

It’s simply math. A + B = C.

A. The brunettes are the girl next door who chase the hero or wait patiently for him to return.

B. The curvy blondes are the slinky lounge singers the hero chases and who tosses all those classy double entendres at him.

C. That leaves the red heads and the truly raven-haired beauties to play the part of Lilith—the femme fatale who, if not outright gunning for our hero, seeks to coax him (often through sex or the promise of it) to the dark side.

Yes, I know I’m oversimplifying and resorting to the worst, broadest stereotypes, but bear in mind I was still a kid. I didn’t know that women heroes could dye their hair to be any shade. I didn’t know that heroes could come in both genders yet. My world wasn’t ready for that kind of thinking yet. Yes, I’m THAT old.

So, because I liked the redheads (a fact that neither Josie nor that thief from the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon did anything to dissuade), I had no choice but to fall in love with the bad girls. The vixens. The femme fatales. The ones who only led to trouble. Not Eve. Hell, probably not even Lilith now that I think about it. I fell in love with the serpent.

Continue reading at: https://hcplaya.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/writers-ramble-vixens-make-the-pulp-go-round/

Nugget #68 -- You Known Vixen...

To me, you just about can’t write

pulp stories without a vixen getting

in the way of the hero’s quest.

Whether she’s a client and he’s a

P.I., or he’s a soldier and she’s a spy,

or he’s a copper and she’s a gun

moll, she just has to be there to

divert his eyes and tempt him to

the dark side, at least a little.

Nugget #68 -- Wounded Pride and Female Characters

I have a weak spot for writing women. I love female characters. Always have ever since I took a creative writing glass in college and was told in no uncertain terms that I sucked at it. I failed time after time to write a believable female character. So I dusted off my wounded pride and hit the delete button on my pre-Word Perfect copy of some long-forgotten shareware word processor. Okay, I hit the delete button a lot.

The Do’s and Don’ts of Romance

by Ellie Raine

Romance can be the most intoxicating part of your story. It can also be the most nauseating.

That’s why it’s imperative to pay close attention when crafting a novel, movie, or comic. Even if your story’s central element isn’t romance, you must pay close attention to it. A little romance on the side can be a great improvement, or a great wart on your manuscript’s otherwise handsome nose.

I’ll speak as a reader for a moment. There seems to be a trend with romance (non-erotica) in stories that have the same cringe-worthy beats that I’d like to bring to light.

First: Less is more.

Your characters know their names well enough. While slipping in a few oh, John’s and oh, Jane’s can add an effective conveyance of deep emotion, it lessens the thrill each time it’s said. Less is more. Repeat: less is more. While writing, placing softly spoken names in your manuscript is a strategy game. Add too many all over the pages, and it sucks away any romantic implications you were trying to make. In short, it gets old. It gets wrinkly, smelly, dementia-ridden old.

And from an erotica standpoint, the same advice may apply, though loosely. Sex scenes are awesome, and having a name moaned in the heat of things can get a reader hot and bothered like no tomorrow. HOWEVER, again, saying names too many times can grow bunions on your manuscript’s feet. And don’t get me started on blatantly saying the words ‘penis’ and ‘pussy’ like a thirteen year old. Innuendos are far more effective. Make it a challenge, think of all the colorful names you can give a guy’s juicy squirt-gun or a girl’s moist cavern. Don’t just vomit ‘penis’ every three words.  Tone it down. Less is more.

Second: It’s about what you DON’T say.

For me, as a reader, I want the couple to finally say those three magic words: “I love you”. It’s the focal point of a budding romance, the fireworks finale on New Years Eve; it’s what we’re all waiting for.

So don’t give it to us.

Seriously. If it’s going to be said, keep it to a minimum of one or two moments in the entire manuscript. If you say it too may times, it looses its magic. Again, less is more. It’s the reason we want the romance.

Unless, of course, your characters were together to begin with. That’s a different animal, but even still, overusing the magic words will lessen the magic.

And even though I want to read I love you more than anything in a book, what I really enjoy is to see the love, rather than hear it.

Placing a gentle hand over your lover’s while they stare at the setting sun can just as easily tell us they’re in love than if they’d said it.

Third: We like someone for their virtues. We LOVE them for their flaws.

Good romance is beautiful. GREAT romance has ugly, beloved depth. This one concept is the root of all fantastic romance. If you look back through your manuscript and realize your protagonist’s only reason for being head-over-heels for the love interest is “they’re so pretty”, it’s time to get your nails dirty and dig deeper. Have them notice a few physical flaws in the lover, like pudgy sides, or some acne scars on their face. Show us these characters aren’t perfect Gods (unless they ARE Gods, then by all means, ham up the gorgeous). Show us their battle wounds, their mature wrinkles, their flappy arms. You don’t have to make them hideous, just human.

And that weird, annoying tick they have, where they pick at their bloody fingernails or have a crazed, neat-freak streak? Yeah, your character better be irked by it, and even get frustrated, but by Gods, they’d better love them for it, too. Basically, if they have a trait that got under the protagonist’s skin, but then they walked out of their life, your protagonist will suddenly notice they can’t live without that annoyance.

That’s what they ought to love. That’s what we’ll love about them, too, and love the protagonist for appreciating it. Pretty models in dresses are great for cover art (I’m looking at you, Young Adult) but if there isn’t more reason for the love, then no one cares.

So, romance, however small the amount, can be essential to your story. Pay attention, and steer clear of these detrimental trends.

Originally posted at https://deliriumonthevine.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/the-dos-and-donts-of-romance/

Nugget #53 -- Strong Female Characters

For me, a strong female character is a woman who has 

embraced most, if not all, of the things that make her, 

well, herself. She is multi-layered, filled with emotional 

searching, psychological depths, and sexual power. She 

owns both her failures and her successes. 

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #316 -- Strong Female Characters (revisited)

How do you write a strong female character?

For me, a strong female character is a woman who has embraced most, if not all, of the things that make her, well, herself. She is multi-layered, filled with emotional searching, psychological depths, and sexual power (but not necessarily overly sexualized as a character trait). She owns both her failures and her successes. She isn't afraid to exercise all the things that make her who she is. She may possess quiet strength, or she may be a smart-ass quipper who holds her own with the boys (so to speak). She isn't defined by the man (or woman) in her life, nor by the fashions she wears.

She is unapologetically herself.

Now, all that said, in a story she shouldn't necessarily start off fully strong in that sense defined above, because, well, getting her there is what storytelling is for.

(Let it be said too that this same definition can apply to writing strong male characters.)

[Link] Badass Women of the Pulp Era

by Jess Nevins

The pulps of the world were full of tough men. The iconic pulp characters — the Shadow, Doc Savage, Tarzan — are all men, and the common perception of the pulps is that they were written by male writers, about male characters, for male readers.

However, the pulps were more progressive than mainstream fiction (and film and comic strips, etc.) in a number of respects, including and especially the number of formidable female characters who appeared in them. Even excluding those characters whose writers forced them into marriage and respectability, the list of Women Badder Than You is long. Here are 14 of the most badass fictional women to appear during the pulp era. Excluded are the best-known female badasses: Isaac Asimov's Susan Calvin, C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry, John Russell Fearn's Golden Amazon, and Lester Dent's Pat Savage. You already know them. Here are some you don't - but you should.

Read the full article: http://io9.com/5802941/badass-women-of-the-pulp-era

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now #281 -- Recent New Favorites

Who's your favorite golden age pulp character that you discovered relatively recently? -- Jim Beard

For me, these new "faves" came from accepting gigs to write them for anthologies. I knew nothing of them prior to the research required to begin the writing, but felt instantly drawn to the characters as if they were old friends I'd been writing and reading for years.

For prose, they were Armless O'Neil and a certain beauty I can't discuss at the moment. But I really, really (can I add another really and get away with it?) loved writing and reading Armless O'Neil. He was a character I was immediately hooked on and felt like I "got" right off the bat.

To boil him down to his key character is simply this: Take Humphrey Bogart's Charlie Allnut out of The African Queen and give him a hook for a hand, then saddle him with adventures more typical of Allan Quatermain, then shake and pour, voila!

For comics, it would have to be The Blue Lady (whom I wrote in All Star Pulp Comics #1). She grabbed me the same way Armless did. She's a typical old-school pulp supporting lady rather than a heroine at first, but when she receives a ring that gives her the power to beat back guys to a pulp, she does what any other lady of the era would in a comic book and puts on a mask and costume to fight crime.

Even though she was only in three back-up features in Amazing Man Comics in the early 1940s (October '41 - January '42, to be precise) , I felt she needs and deserves more stories --which is something Jim Ritchey and I are currently working on. We'll keep you posted.

[Link] What makes a ‘strong female character’?

by Andrea Judy

What bothers me about this is that it seems like any time someone mentions a ‘strong female character’ it’s because she fights. She is a badass who can fight with the boys, who shoots, kicks, and punches with the best of them. She’s tough, no nonsense, and physically strong.

But is that the only way to present a strong character?

I want characters that are smart, clever, and bad at something. I want a character who can whip anyone in a game of chess, but has never been in a fist fight. I want to see the female computer hacker save the day without having to blow up everything, without having to be rescued 8 times, and without having to prove she’s strong by breaking something…especially if that has never been her character. If she’s never been shown to fight, or been shown to be awful at fighting, don’t make her a kung fu master just to show ‘Hey, look at this strong female character!’

Continue reading: http://judyblackcloud.wordpress.com/2013/06/18/what-makes-a-strong-female-character/

Thank you, Mr. Whedon!

Can White Men Jump? Writing Other Races and Genders Than Your Own.

What is your best advice for writers looking to write characters of other genders, races, economic statuses, etc.? How do you make sure you best portray someone "not you" as accurately as possible when you write him or her?

H. David Blalock: There's only one real way to properly do it. Find someone of the gender, race, belief, or whatever and talk to them. No amount of research online or in books or on TV can compare to the face to face reality of dealing with someone. Answers to those things are personal, not objective. Description cannot equal experience.

William Preston: Recognize your limitations. Though no character is exactly you, how far outside yourself does your experience extend? (Flannery O'Connor, for example, knew full well that she couldn't write from within black Southern experience; she could, however, portray black characters richly and vividly from the outside, often by viewing them through the bafflement of her white characters.)

Rely on observation, inquiry, and personal interactions. If all or much of what you know of this "other" comes from books, films, and TV that rely on stereotypical characterization and obvious racial and gender "cues" that make white males feel that their prejudices and stereotypes are perfectly acceptable, you need to extend your reading, viewing, and experience (and discard whatever has constrained your comprehension).

Not every characterization requires the foregrounding of, say, race and gender issues, but certain circumstances within a story may force those elements of a person to become primary factors either throughout or at a given moment (and the same may be true of age, sexuality, social class, or any other socially defined component of a person's background and self-definition). Regardless of whether a particular personal element is foregrounded or critical to the story, all such elements contribute to a character's perceptions of the world, thus shaping what they see and how they understand what they see. Every character functions with a set of eyes which are not yours though, again, to accentuate any one of these elements because you are aware of a box you're checking off may do a disservice to the humanity of that character rather than fairly represent him or her.

John Morgan Neal: I try and use my experience with other types of people and my observations. But most importantly of all I use my instincts. Because despite whatever racial, sexual, gender, national or regional differences, we are all human.

Raidou Kazunoha: It really depends on the culture at hand. Some are are more cut and dry than others. I think its very important not to step in the wrong places, when you are writing. There are things you can understand and know, through reading or talking to friends. There are also many things you will never know, and never be able to properly empathize with no matter how hard you try.

I also feel that if you are writing characters of other ethnicity, you should really not describe them as 'so in so race' every time you mention them. To often i will read stories, and they will be described simply as their race, nothing more. Yet the other characters get these glowing descriptions on their hair, and weight and eye colour and all that. That can get really annoying. If you are properly doing your job it will be obvious what your characters' races are.

B. Chris Bell: I think respect is the key. If you know enough about the culture to be able to imagine what it's like to walk in their shoes, know some history, and don't get too hung up on trying to be trendy or follow a stereotype, then it's no problem. The problem of course being the same one the writer has all the time: Is it believable? I lucked out when I picked Crankshaft to be THE BAGMAN'S partner, because the whole point was that he isn't stereotypical. He's based on a number of curmudgeons I've met in my life, some white, some black, and one an old Jewish man. Hell, he's smarter than the hero most of the time!

Linda Drue Hays-Gibbs: Empathy! The ability to put yourself in someone elses's shoes. Walk a mile in my shoes, research, concern for fellow human beings to feel for them and their circumstances.

Joe Bonadonna: I sort of base the characters on people I know. I also just sit and talk with friends of the opposite sex, of other colors and creeds, and get some insight. Then I try to write as honestly as I can. As far as other races . . . I always say, there's only one race -- the human race, and we all bleed red. That's our common denominator. Human emotions are universal. It's what believe and how we think that divides us. Those are the things I try to get a handle on, to lift me out of writing from the POV of a white man. Don't know if or how well I've succeeded, but the key is: write with honesty.

Marcus Blakeston: I'm writing as a woman at the moment, I just write her as a man with tits. She's a bare knuckle fighter, and it's aimed at men, so I figure I'll probably get away with it.

Mike Pascale: Great question. The easy answer: RESEARCH! No excuse with the 'Net. Go to areas where that group live. Talk to the people you want to represent. Read other fiction by those who either are part of that group or who are known for doing it well; note how they do it before adding your own voice. All that said, though, never forget that people are PEOPLE. Human nature is identical regardless if one lives in Bangladesh, Burma, Boston or Birmingham. Characters are characters. Write the personality first and the specifics later.
 
K Anthony Pagano: I tend to journal from the POV of the character if I'm having a hard time with the character at that particular moment. It helps me get some perspective on an opinion. Otherwise I stay away from "ethnic" because it's a trap. For the most part people don't define themselves by their skin... or accent... or what have you. They think about it, and defend it, but it's not the only lens. Besides, the best journeys are the ones that bring the character home.

Hannibal Tabu: Research. Even when I deal with other countries I've never visited, I sit down with people, I ask them about their upbringings, the things they like, and look for both contrasts and comparisons in my own experiences. Little details make big impacts. I try to be comprehensive where I know nothing.

Luckily, I've been blessed to meet lots of types of people from lots of ethnicities. Arrogant Indian programmers. Sci fi fans from Kenya. Two very funny Ukranians. Et cetera, and so on. I draw on my time with them, the details I gleaned, the idiosyncracies, and try to see how they would react to the plot's situation.

Ron Fortier: there is really only one answer to this question;  a writer uses his or her imagination to believe they are that character.  All good writers are ultimately the penultimate actors.  I've written stories, both comic and prose, in first person narrative as a woman.  I didn't find it particularly difficult.  I've never personally tackled being of another ethnicity but again, I would trust my talents of observation and imagination to do it should I make the attempt.   How well I succeeded or fail would be up to the writer to decide.

But research, etc. isn't the key here, we can never truly be someone else in reality... but in our imagination there are no such bounds.

[Link] Dangerous Dames: A Timeline of Some of the Significant Female Eyes, and the Date of their First Appearance

"If it's that delicate,... maybe you need a lady detective."
-- Marlowe in The Little Sister (1949)

Despite various bimbo eyes whose pulchritudinous assets often far outweighed their mental equipment (to paraphrase one critic), competent women eyes have been around for a long time now. That they've finally come into their own is something we should all be grateful for. After all, they have helped rejuvenate the entire private eye genre. It's about time. But they've been around for years.

To see the full listing, visit: http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/triv138.html

[Link] Badass Women of the Pulp Era

by Jess Nevins

The pulps of the world were full of tough men. The iconic pulp characters — the Shadow, Doc Savage, Tarzan — are all men, and the common perception of the pulps is that they were written by male writers, about male characters, for male readers.

However, the pulps were more progressive than mainstream fiction (and film and comic strips, etc.) in a number of respects, including and especially the number of formidable female characters who appeared in them. Even excluding those characters whose writers forced them into marriage and respectability, the list of Women Badder Than You is long. Here are 14 of the most badass fictional women to appear during the pulp era. Excluded are the best-known female badasses: Isaac Asimov's Susan Calvin, C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry, John Russell Fearn's Golden Amazon, and Lester Dent's Pat Savage. You already know them. Here are some you don't - but you should.

Continue reading: http://io9.com/5802941/badass-women-of-the-pulp-era

The Writer Will Take Your Questions Now (#193) -- Female Protagonists

What's with your preference for writing female protagonists? 

The Fool, from Show Me A Hero.

Let's face it, women are far more interesting than us men. It's just truth that we need to accept. Both genders of characters have their stereotypes to break out of, but both also have so much fun to be had while playing fast and loose with those stereotypes.

Part of it, I think, stems from that fact then when I was a beginning writer, I couldn't write the female voice at all, well, not without sucking bigtime anyway. The only clues I could provide that a character was female were the physical ones, such as references to wearing a bra or pantyhose.

Whoa. So talented!  I know. (Yes, that's sarcasm.)

So I drove myself hard to learn to write the female voice. If I'm going to be a real writer, I figured, I needed to learn to write anyone's voice, red or yellow, black or white, man or woman, boy or girl or two-headed Beeezlesnord from Planet X (they are precious in his sight). Anyone.

The best compliment I ever received as a writer came from a fan who wrote me an email fan letter during my time on staff with Cyber Age Adventures magazine. She told me how wonderful it was to have another woman writing kick-ass super hero fiction. I felt bad to have to tell her (so far as apologizing for it) that I wasn't a female. Still, what a powerful compliment!

Female characters to me have so many more depths to explore. Perhaps that's just because I'm a man, and to a female writer, writing male characters would be the same. I don't know. But for me, that's how it goes.

There’s No Place Like Home – When Being Likeable Was Enough

Guest article by Selah Janel

Let’s face it: being a person is tough at any age. Some have it harder than others, true, but none of us are immune to heartache, tragedy, finding out you have to save the universe, having to rescue a sibling you wished away, being accidentally or suddenly transported to a magical world, or finding out you actually have magical powers. Part of what’s fun and disconcerting about urban fantasy or magic realism is that it could potentially happen to anyone. While it’s always been a theme to have a young hero or heroine at the center of stories like this, there’s been a definite increase in the fascination within the past ten years or so. So what I’m going to (try) to do is go down the timeline as much as I can and examine the strengths, weaknesses, and trends in some of the more notorious magical coming-of-age/urban fantasy plots.

Dorothy, Wendy, and Alice. We all know their stories whether it be from the original books or movie adaptations. They’ve been modernized, sexualized, horror-ized, turned into cartoons, comics, and anything else you could possibly imagine. All three tales are similar in that all three girls are living their lives and dealing with their own child-sized problems when BAM! They’re transported into a world that’s far different from their own. They go on adventures and defeat adversaries, but to a certain degree the real story is how their attitudes shift and their eventual desire and effort to go home. I’ll admit I go back and forth on these. I loved The Wizard of Oz as a kid (and I’ve read a lot of Oz books in the series) and Fox’s Peter Pan and the Pirates helped me appreciate Peter Pan (Until I finally read the book and decided that it was fantastic – up until that point I was only familiar with the cartoon and the musical which, while charming, don’t really embody the depth of the story). Alice…we’ll get to her in a moment.

These stories are well-deserved classics and still resonate with people. Everyone knows the pain of wanting to go home or to where you belong, everyone knows the bittersweet realization that it’s time to grow up, and everyone has felt overwhelmed and pulled apart by their surroundings, so in that respect the stories definitely hold up. Plus, they express different levels of magic and fantasy and danger in ways that are relatable for all ages. But we’re not here to talk about those things – we’re here to look at what makes these heroines tick.

Besides their locations and circumstances, all three are fairly similar: they’re likeable, innocent, and hard-headed about certain things the way any child would be. Don’t get me wrong; they’re sturdy archetypes and different incarnations have done a lot to flesh out how we view them, but at the end of the day the adventures they go on are more interesting than the girls, themselves. But the one thing they have going for them is that they’re likeable.

Dorothy is a little girl so, of course, she reacts to the potential loss of her dog by knee-jerking and doing what makes sense to her: running away from home to protect Toto. Even before running away she’s acting just how a kid would: getting in the way and daydreaming. During the course of her adventures she slowly wakes up and has to be somewhat self-sufficient (Though because of her age and I’d hazard a guess to include gender she also gets a huge help from others along the way, though the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man could also be personifications of the qualities she needs to complete her quest). She’s half-forced into facing off with the Wicked Witch of the West but she (somewhat accidentally – she’s a child and has to remain likeable) completes her task so that she can go home.

Even her entire quest is somewhat telling about her naiveté and age: she doesn’t realize that she really wants to be at home until she’s not there. She tends to become a little more self-sufficient in later books when she returns to Oz, but all in all still retains her child likeability. While I do think this kind of character thrives on the good girl role, it’s hard not to like her. I tend to get a little uncomfortable with ‘adult’ variations of Oz just because it is a story that’s so central to childhood and slowly growing up, it seems like a hell of a dichotomy (though I will admit that Bloodstained Oz is pretty amazing.) I find her less repetitive in the L. Frank Baum books, but the movie is and always will be a classic. I also really love that Dorothy is portrayed as a child who acts like a child and not like a little girl/teen/preteen who talks like she’s forty.

Wendy I have a love/hate relationship with. I genuinely like the book because to me it encompasses the sweetness and the potential danger that all really good fantasy and fairy tales should have. I’m not fond of Peter Pan the character. I’m just not. I think the concept is great and I get where all his motivations are coming from but his treatment of Wendy bugs the hell out of me. Granted, I think things are tempered and paced better in the book. I will even admit that she’s the real rebel of the story because she denies what he’s offering and agrees to take her natural place in her life by growing up. That’s huge and it didn’t make sense to me until I was older (like six months ago).

She tends to ape characteristics of adults and tries to act more grown up than she is. To be fair, this is totally a female trait. We’ve all at certain times tried to act older than our age and I don’t know a woman who’s being honest with herself who hasn’t tried to rush love or push it on the first available guy that just doesn’t see her that way. For me it’s not that the lost boys get to go off and have adventures or that Wendy stays around keeping house; it’s within her character and upbringing to want to do it and a lot of us have spent many long afternoons as kids playing house, me included.

Her forgiving nature does complement Peter’s little-boy arrogance, but having her continually be included only to be a mother/housekeeper/kidnap victim, person for Tinkerbell to harass (especially in the Disney version and the musical) is frustrating. Ultimately, she does get her way and makes her own decision, but if it took me decades to realize this, I kind of wonder if that was her real purpose or if I’m trying to put a strong-chick spin on it. And I fully realize at the time of writing that little girls strove to be good mothers and homemakers – and there’s still nothing wrong with that choice today. My main complaint tends to be that Peter wants her to come and baits the Darling children with stories about adventures, and then ends up ignoring and mistreating her at his whim.

I will admit that I can agree with the book version of the character and I love the Fox show’s variation. On the show, for every girly thing that she did or feminine stereotype that she was forced into, she also gets to go on her own adventures. She falls in with a group of mermaids and at one point when the lost boys are fascinated with The Three Musketeers and are pretending to be the characters, she disguises herself as a boy and totally kicks their butts with a sword. It’s fabulous. From what I remember it also had her hold her own against Peter’s bullheadedness much more, and had Peter being much more of an equal-opportunity harasser that forgot about everyone at certain points because he was so self-involved. It was much more in the style of the book and that version of Wendy I quite like.

And now we come to Alice. I was hesitant to bring this one up because in all honesty Alice and Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are stories that I actively dislike. The world-building is fascinating and I think it’s intriguing that different film or television versions can take the same story and use it to portray different themes, but if we’re talking the true-blue standard story then, well, honestly I can’t stand it. I never found the books enchanting and most of the film versions make me very uncomfortable. I grew up with the miniseries in the eighties that featured a million stars and a guy in a dragon suit playing the Jabberwocky. While the songs were catchy, there was always something about it that bothered me. The later miniseries also featured a lot of celebrities and was a great metaphor for overcoming stage fright, but it was still something that I’d never actively decide to sit down and watch. And try as I might, I’ve never been able to watch the Disney cartoon in one sitting. While I like that the story can be used as metaphor, the actual story doesn’t do much for me. To me, reading or watching a little girl get yanked around and harassed or bullied by people when she’s lost and confused just isn’t entertaining and can get borderline creepy. Obviously the majority loves this story and I’m not trying to stir anything up – anyone who’s mortally offended by this can send their hate mail to Sean, who's letting me take over his blog for this post.

Seriously, though, while Alice does have qualities of her counterparts (innocence and the little girl trying to be an adult syndrome), I could never get around the fact that she tends to be ganged up on to the point of being a victim. I often thought I was the only one who thought this way, but Ray Bradbury’s actually done a fabulous essay comparing Wonderland to Oz and why Dorothy had a much better deal (i.e. Oz was full of helpful people that exuded helpfulness and support whereas Wonderland had a dark and hostile cast to it).

That being said, I absolutely love the Tim Burton movie. Making Alice older plus giving her an independent streak was a work of genius. I like seeing her question the marriage she’s being forced into, and having enough wits about her to really notice an entire situation. Suddenly what’s been a “good” stock sort of female character has morphed into something well-rounded and interesting. Plus, dude, she gets to wear ARMOR! And fight the Jabberwocky! I think I may have stood on my seat and cheered at that bit (Thank God I have friends that can put up with me). That, plus seeing at least some part of Wonderland be supportive of her efforts and working with her was amazing and balanced out the dark and dangerous bits (To be fair I have nothing against dark fantasy; I just don’t like seeing little girls get ganged up on). Even better, when she returns home she has developed even more backbone and sets out to keep her father’s legacy going, herself, instead of taking the female-role position of marrying for business’ sake. For me, Burton captured the themes of Wonderland and gave the female lead a fighting chance, which I heartily appreciate.

While I think people tend to love these three stories more for the adventure and fantasy elements than the female leads, I do think they have their high points in that respect. The characters act like their age range, they’re likeable, and they get to have adventures that are believable for their ages and the way they were brought up. Plus, they work because they’re very easy for little girls to identify with. Unfortunately, they also end up getting pushed around to a certain extent (Wendy and Alice more so than Dorothy) and I don’t feel that’s a great thing. They obviously can be used to promote different themes and metaphors and they’re very likeable – I just wish there was more to them than being generally likeable and feminine. There’s definitely a reason they’ve stayed around so long, and I will agree that the good points of the overall stories outweigh the weaker aspects of the characters.

Originally posted at: http://fandomfestblog.com/selah-janel/theres-no-place-like-home-when-being-likeable-was-enough

The Watson Report: On Heroines

by I.A Watson

Pulp is a very traditional storytelling form. It has deep roots, right back to the “penny dreadful” broadsheets, the popular middle ages ballads, and the bardic tales. It paints with broad strokes, intending to make the reader feel as well as think about its stories. Pulp can be a style, a genre, or a theme; but it’s always an experience.

There are some experiences which go deep to our human cores. Death, violence, and sex are about as fundamental as it gets in human experience, so naturally those things are prevalent in much fiction and almost always in pulp fiction. These are the things that get our hearts thumping – and keep readers turning the pages!

It’s been argued that there are really only three stories, and that they sum up every plot for every piece of fiction: A Man Goes on a Journey; A Man Learns a Lesson (or fails to); and Boy Meets Girl (or loses girl etc.). Fiction certainly devotes a substantial amount of time to telling stories of men and women relating romantically, not least because that’s something that attracts an audience and makes the reader care about and pull for the protagonists.

So many pulp stories include a female character who is a potential romance or sex interest. She might be a virginal good girl menaced by her wicked uncle, or a sinful bad girl seeking to manipulate our hero for her own devious ends, but she’s prevalent in all kinds of variations; not just a female character, a female character with a relationship or potential relationship with the protagonist.

That’s the sense in which I’m using the term heroine in this article. Sometimes heroine can simply mean the proper feminine of hero, the protagonist to whom the story happens; here I’m using the other definition, that of the female story lead with whom the hero must associate and who is often part of the hero’s heroic mission.

Prior to our modern liberated era there was a general assumption that most female characters would be less capable of dealing with threat than male characters. If there’s a plucky heroine, that’s considered remarkable. She’s exceptional, not the norm.

Reflecting societal attitudes, and perhaps a practical acknowledgement that when violence is involved women are at a physical disadvantage, the assumption has been that the female lead has eventually required some kind of help from the male lead. Let’s not shy away from the truth that many pulp stories, especially older ones, hold this to be true.

Pulp can be a very honest storytelling style though, because that hero-saves-heroine trope goes way back in our society. It’s probably engraved in our DNA. There is a very primal instinct in males to protect females from other males. It’s probably about ensuring that our seed fertilises the woman rather than any other, but it’s a very old urge. Protect the women and the children.

We’ve been telling stories about heroes who turn up to save the girl, often from death or a fate worse than death (impregnation by anyone other than the hero), for a very long time. How many fairy-tale princess and forest maidens are saved in the end by a handsome prince or burly woodsman or likely lad? How many of our ancient myths include a damsel in distress being rescued (hi, Andromeda, Deineira, Sita)? From the Princess of Sana’a (Arabian Nights) to Canace (Chaucer’s “A Knight’s Tale”), from St George and the Dragon to Van Helsing’s vampire hunters, the damsel in distress is hammered into our worldview as soon as we open a book.

Another very old assumption goes with that. When the hero rescues the heroine, she will fall in love with him. They’ll marry and live happily ever after; or at least they’ll have sex. Many older sources don’t even question that her hero is entitled to the virginity he’s just saved. To the hero the spoils. Only the brave deserve the fair.

We know, in our post-modern cynical diagnostic world, that the ability to kill ogres with a sword doesn’t necessarily make one a perfect boyfriend – although a very useful one for an ogre-prone princess, I suppose. We know that men, however heroic and blood-stained, do not automatically qualify for a thank-you bedroom session. But when we allow ourselves to be drawn into the realm of fiction our expectations subtly change; our perceptions and values are dragged again into a world where the hero and heroine do find themselves compatible and attracted, and where a happy ending or a tragic loss are the two most likely outcomes.

That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of stories that subvert these expectations. The most common is the one where the heroine turns out to be the villain after all. But these subversions only work because the expectation of how things should go is so ingrained into our reading experience.

Given that most pulp fiction was originally published to earn a living, its not surprising that it caters to the things that will most part a reader from his purchase money. Look at the covers of many old pulp magazines. A good percentage of them feature scantily-clad or naked women; that always sells. Of these, about half also feature the woman in bondage or immediate peril, requiring rescue or facing imminent destruction or ravishment. In about half of these the hero is also present, striving to save her.

Now go to the artistic depiction of heroines throughout history, back through the portraits of the Renaissance, the woodcuts of the Middle Ages, to the friezes and pottery of the Hellenistic period. See if the percentage of nudity, bondage, imminent peril and heroic rescuers is much different.

So what does this tell us? And what does it mean for modern writers and modern readers of pulp fiction?

Well, first off, it tells us that fundamental differences between men and women sometimes leak past our modern conceptions of equality meaning uniformity. Fortunately I think society is past the days when gender equality meant that women should be just like men, so its not too hard for us to recognise that the sexes are physically different and that they have historically played different social roles. But when we settle into the world of fiction and fantasy, the masks come off and we allow ourselves a more guilt-free experience of the contrasts.

Second, it means that we have to buy in to the romanticised, sexualised way that men and women relate in fiction. In the same way as we allow that a protagonist may be more heroic, a better fighter, a smarter thinker as part of our suspension of disbelief, we have to allow his heroine to be more beautiful, more charming, and more available than we would give credence in “real life.” That we consistently do make these allowances suggests how much we enjoy visiting worlds where heroes get the girl.

But because modern audiences tend to be more sophisticated and come to their reading with modern understandings of gender and morality, contemporary pulp writers have to be cleverer and subtler in how they apply the ancient tropes. Readers are still interested in boy-meets-girl, but they want another reason for why our protagonists hop into bed together at the end than “Oh thank you for saving me, my big strong hero!”

There are certain older assumptions and attitudes which writers can no longer get away with – thankfully. Depicting a member of a minority race as naturally less intelligent or moral than another might have been acceptable in 1920; now even stories set in that time that accurately depict discrimination of that era had better not try and suggest the view was justified. Likewise, the era when a hero could push a girl down on the bed, tear her clothes off, and ravish her until her protests end and she becomes an acquiescent passionate lover are past; now we call that rape.

But just because there are pitfalls, that’s no reason for pulp writers or readers to shy away from one of the fundamental pillars of the genre. Boys still meet girls every day. People who are in trouble should be helped. Adversity forms strong bonds of fellowship, and sometimes of romance. All of these make for potent, visceral stories.

Heroes, of whatever gender, have to be heroic. Heroes rescue people. Heroines (also of whatever gender) tend to get into trouble; the best of them get into trouble because they’re doing the right thing (c.f. snoopy reporter, princess defending her people, whore with a heart of gold). If the heroine has our sympathy, respect, or admiration then we’re even more engaged rooting for our hero to get to her.

Pulp has traditions. Heroines are part of it. Go save one today.


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I.A Watson’s homepage.

“Rescue Me” a short piece of humorous fiction by I.A. Watson on this topic.