That of `What is a girl doing in an elite strike force anyway?`

I said she was a NINJA, a perfectly acceptable job for the unliberated Japanese female (along with Diving girl, Shamaness, Founder of martial art and Businesswoman, to name a few traditional jobs)

Hooha

I like the girlie tween novels of the day, certainly: Babysitter’s Club, Saddle Club, Sleepover Friends, Sweet Valley High, and everything by Judy Blume. But I also liked gory horror stories, so go figure!

Yes! Sounds completely familiar. I had two sisters near my own age and that was what we did. We played dolls, but not wiping baby butts. We did dramatic reenactments of similar quest or military scenes, using them as puppets, when the weather was too bad to go outside and build forts and hunt dragons. We were also girlie-girls, who liked to dress up, flirt, chase little boys and read love stories. We had it all.

When I walk away, you reach for Bill’s avocados at the next table. Bill, Maurice, and Janet all tease you because–everyone knows!–carrots are for Nikis, not avocados. And when I come back in the room, I smack your hand and sit another plate of carrots in front of you.

Eventually, you learn to eat carrots.

Some years later, I point to the lack of women named Niki ordering guacamole in my restaurant. “See! It proves it! Women named Niki just don’t like avocados. It’s just the way they are. There’s nothing wrong with that! It’s hard-wired! You show a woman named Niki a menu, and I can almost guarantee she’ll order carrots!

“(Now, of those Maurices who have a twisted love for carrots … we won’t discuss that!)”

I think it’s interesting the number of young women becoming interested in superheroes, fantasy, manga, comic books, science fiction: those typically male pursuits. We are more conscious of stereotypes these days; I’m sure that you and I were handed dolls by default far less often than our mothers were, for example. And look! Women in our age group and younger tend to have broader interests!

I saw your comment on your original post about why women or people of color wouldn’t want to see movies that constantly malign them. I think it’s an excellent point! To extend my bizarre food analogy just a bit further, if you constantly find hair in the guacamole that you order at my restaurant, chances are you’ll eventually stop ordering it. That doesn’t mean that you dislike avocados when they’re not disgusting and offensive.

(And no worries about the “old guy” … I didn’t take it that way at all! )

Also, I’m with you: Who the hell would give a baby a gun to play with??

UH: Yes! That is a truly novel concept that women as well as men might care less about capes and high-heeled shoes than they do fully realized characters! As I remarked in a recent conversation here about whether writers should aim their characters at being “politically correct,” I said no: but characters must serve the story, and sticking a character–male or female–into a stereotypical role because that’s the easiest choice is simply bad writing.

I don’t tend to see “chick flicks.” There are a few that I’ve seen over the years for one reason or another that I end up liking. Incidentally, my husband ends up liking them too, usually. But it’s because the story and the characters are realistic and thoughtful, not cardboard stand-ins for the worst stereotypes.

*high fives on the OT rant* Yes, anytime I am assumed to be incapable of something requiring thought or knowledge, I tend to fly into a teeth-gnashing rage. I do not have nearly your education on the subject, but I am a huge movie fan, and I love analyzing what works and what doesn’t. There is someone *ahem* who shall go unnamed who likes to brush off my opinions while thumping his chest and asserting his own. *rage*

Tyler’s original article is really short. And the comments will make you feel a bit avenged, even if it doesn’t take away the fact that this is 2009 and someone really wrote this and expected to be taken seriously. But Pitts’ article is definitely worth the read. I’m researching right now how women are using the fantasy genre to fix myths that have portrayed them negatively for centuries, and I was amazed at how well Pitts’ observations coordinated with my own and my research on fantasy literature. (Yes, I am looking at you too, JRRT! )

And you’re welcome!

Especially that quote made me want to get my head better acquainted to my writing desk:

Women are interested in movies about relationships and romance and love.

Eh, no. I’m interested in well written quality movies with nicely developed characters and a plot to hold my interest. If those happen to be about about relationships and romance and love it’s fine with me. If they are an escapist fantasy or historic thriller (why does no one make movies about the War of Roses?) or maybe even a 70s James Bond, even better.

Add to that, that as a former movie student, I can appreciate technically well done movies, even if I don’t like the genre or the story or whatever. As a former student of art history, the same goes for movies with an innovative set design. Seriously, for me movies go far beyond “me likes” or “me likes not”. There are those that I watch for the sheer pleasures of it, and others that I like for being artsy and intellectual. The one movie that combines those two aspects perfectly is IMHO Greenaway’s The Draughtsman’s Contract, and that one certainly isn’t the sort of simpering chick flick the author expects me to like.

Okay, was a bit on the OT-side now, but I appear to have talked myself into a rage… I hate it when people don’t believe me able to think about movies on an intellectual level…

Also, all those stereotypes make me gnash my teeth and rend my hair… I mean I enjoyed Sex and the City, I love high heeled shoes and shopping and going out for a drink, but there are – less womanly – things I enjoy just as much or even more. For example, I was always more interested in motorbikes than dolls (and growing up in the country, there were far more interesting things to do than playing with girly things anyway!); even today I’d prefer a Ducati Monster to a Birkin bag, and my maternal feelings only extend as far as to my kitties.

Now, do I go to read that “thing” for the sheer masochism of it, or do I rather leave it and dumb my bookmark in the trash, where it belongs?

Thanks Dawn, as always.

My brother and I did the same thing! (Well, we played Star Wars and our wrapping paper rolls were light sabers, but anyway…)

Also, I especially love the whole “women don’t want this stuff–look, guys play with guns and girls play with dolls! We’re *just different!*” thing because wasn’t there a study done that showed that if an adult was given a toy gun and a doll and a baby to play with, the adult would use the toy gun if it’s a girl baby dressed like a boy and the doll if it’s a boy baby dressed like a girl? I’ll have to look it up. (I distinctly remember seeing the video of an old guy trying to give a baby a realistic looking gun and wondering, “WTF do people give fake guns to *babies* for, anyway?!” so I’m sure it’s real.)

So I totally see why “they’re just different” is a great reason why there shouldn’t be super hero movies made with a female audience in mind.

And as I said to someone else, it always cracks me up when something is made with white men in mind as an audience, then women and/or people of color (or another minority) speak up as saying they want something like that but more geared toward their tastes, and people point at the movie and say, “But look, mostly white men (and let’s ignore everyone else in the audience)! You don’t even like this stuff, so what’s the point?!”

(And cripes, the sentence “Make them for men” creeped me out, for some reason. That and the use of the phrase “slutting it up.”)

*high fives*