This post was inspired by a post at Hoyden about Town, which listed favourite kickass chicks from TV shows. I love a kickass chick. My present favourite is Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica.
But then I got thinking: why do I love kickass chicks so much? Well, secretly, it’s how I wish I could be. Despite the fact that I failed my yellow belt in Shotokan karate twice. Yes, the yellow belt is the first one above white. Pretty sad, I know. (I understand my co-blogger more than makes up for my lack of skill in karate.)
I remember my aunt telling me about the time she and my uncle were in Morocco. My uncle went out for his customary solo jog at dusk but returned ten minutes later, breathing heavily, and locking the door behind him. My aunt, who had been having a snooze, looked at my uncle curiously. Then she heard a male voice from outside praising my uncle’s lips. “I was just going out for a run, but now I’m being harassed!” said my uncle. My aunt yawned and said, “Welcome to being a woman.” She was right. Few woman would dare take a solo jog at dusk in an unknown city.
It’s a constant anxiety for women. Think of those hoax e-mails that get forwarded on to women warning about the risk of getting carjacked, raped or killed. The startling thing about these kinds of e-mails is that they specifically target women. Obviously, they tap into a collective unconscious which sees women as vulnerable victims.
But a kickass chick can take a solo jog at dusk in an unknown city, and punch the living daylights out of a spurious carjacker. She doesn’t have to be rescued by the dashing superhero – she is the hero. She’s tough, attractive, sassy and smart, but she also makes mistakes from time to time or shows her vulnerability. That’s why I love her. Of course, as noted by commenters at Hoyden, the kickass heroine is not without problems. Does a kickass woman have to reject her femininity before she becomes a hero, suggesting that women can’t be heroes unless they behave like men? Or is she a bold challenge to the male hero stereotype? Personally, I enjoy the contradictions of such a portrayal.
Anyone else out there have a secret desire to be a kickass chick?
Update
There is a negative side to the kickass chick – this piece talks about ladette culture, and the increase of violent assaults committed by women.
84 Comments
“punch the living daylights out of a spurious carjacker.”
In my then recently-co-ed college, we sometimes couldn’t get enough men for our footy team, and made up the numbers with women – who turned out to be our best players.
One of them was tackled around the torso and her mammae squeezed. She dropped the ball, flattened the tackler with one punch, the umpire called “fair enough, play on”, and when the rest of us finally stopped rolling around laughing, she’d kicked our first score (it was nearly half time).
A few years later, she was attacked by thugs wanting her purse. They broke her arm, but she fought them off and they didn’t get her purse.
At college parties however, she wasn’t “kick ARSE” : we guys learned to stand cross-legged around her when she was drunk! Despite that, she was a good mate.
I’ve also got to wonder why role-reversal “kick arse chicks” are so much more admired in popular culture than similarly role-reversed SNAGs. Can anyone think of any high-profile admired SNAG characters on TV? I can’t.
I had a friend at law school who had been training at the gym and doing some kind of martial arts for a year or so. Some guy got in her space and gave her and excuse to use it. She flattened him
She was intoxicated with power for a week! Seriously we started to worry.
Starbuck is très cool.
Guess it’s a sign of the times, and the constituency, but how depressing, and sad, that all commentators here automatically interpret “kick-arse chick” literally, in a violent, muscle and bone, physical and, dare I say, masculinist sense.
To me, ‘kick-arse’ first and foremost refers to someone (here women) who wields very different, far more important powers than the ability to physically hurt or disarm another.
Sure, some ‘kickarse’ women who come to mind are tv characters – which I guess is a common reflexive reference point given the comments here – but most aren’t, for me. Rather they come, reflexively for me, from other domains entirely.
Well we’re interpreting it that way because L’eagle means it that way in the post, at least as far as I can see.
It’s fair point tho’ there are other ways to kick arse that aren’t literal.
Is it worth mentioning that the capacity to fight does discourage those who would fight you. If I had a daughter I’d enrol her in martial arts early. I’d wager that the experience and skills acquired would enable her to kick arse literally and otherwise as well.
Ok, here’s my list. And I’d bet in broad terms it’s not that different a list for most women.
Yet for some weirdo reason women on Oz blogs when they want to feel women-proud think they can only talk about celebrity actor chicks or female governor-generals or Julia Gillard and the like. Yawns and guffaws morphing into a puke at such dull choice.
My mother
her mother
my aunt
my two sisters
my four nieces
countless women I have worked or lived with, or otherwise known, from cleaners and factory workers to CEOs, academic literati, novelists, MPs, political activists, troublemakers, curmudgeons, muckrakers and recalcitrants of all stripes.
Few to none of these kick-arse women have ever been heard of or referred to in the MSM, tbe celebrity world or the blogosphere.
And more power to them for that.
So everyone you know. Does the status of being ‘kick-arse’ diminish somewhat when it includes everyone?
I think that Posey is right, ‘kick-arse’ doesn’t HAVE to mean literally (I’m a Quaker after all) – other little girls dreamed of growing up to be Princess Di, I dreamed of growing up to be Servalan from Blake’s 7 (evil baddie chick with crew cut and evening wear). It’s just that at the moment, one of the few areas where it is culturally ’safe’ to have a female character of moral and physical strength is in quasi-military settings. That’s why characters like Kara Thrace (Starbuck) in Battlestar Gallactica and Ivanova from Babylon 5 are serving military officers. It’s so rare to see a woman in fiction or even an actress allowed to show physical strength and is why I’d take a single episode of La Femme Nikita over an entire series of Alias any day…
That is not what I am saying at all. Most women aren’t kick-arse all the time – or ever. But a lot I know of or have observed are. Perhaps I notice and gravitate towards the latter more.
And no the status (wrong word, quality would be better) never diminishes by being omnipresent. On the contrary.
It doesn’t help a bit to be able to kick-arse literally. If they’re going to get you they will regardless of physical prowess. The whole concept is silly, though self-defence skills do have some limited place, I s’pose.
I never even retropectively wished that I could’ve kick-arsed all the men who were physically violent towards me because I don’t think that was the primary problem: that I happened to momentarily be in a bad place. I am sure this is true for most women who suffer from male violence.
I was just concentrating on physical strength and the way in which women are limited from doing what they want physically. I’m glad that there are some depictions in popular culture which challenge that assumption. I guess I focussed on that because my secret wish is to be a martial arts champion. I’m pretty klutzy in real life.
Of course strength in female characters in television doesn’t merely consist of physical strength. There’s also moral strength as well as intellectual strength. The best female characters have those qualities. However, I agree with DEM that female characters in TV often don’t show physical strength, and if they do, it is often in a military context. So I wanted to focus on the rarer quality of physical strength.
My mother is one of the toughest women I know. It’s not a physical toughness (although she can lift large weights at the gym), it’s a mental toughness, intellect and moral strength. She always undervalues herself, but I think she’s an extraordinary person.
DEM, sounds like you and I are kindred spirits in terms of TV taste.
Posey, perhaps I’m just a nasty person. I was once sexually harassed in a job interview when I was a young student. The interviewer kept asking me what I would do to get the job. I told him repeatedly that I would write an essay on any legal topic he chose. I was too naive to realise what was going on until I got out of the interview and replayed it in my head. I really wish I could go back and punch that sleaze in the nose. Bam! But I was just too shocked.
Sometimes it’s better not to use physical force though. A sense of humour will do. Once someone at another workplace said “Nice breasts” as I walked past. I was holding a legal document. I quickly rolled it up and hit him gently on the bottom, saying, “Nice bum”. He was really shocked. I never heard anything like that from him again. Much better than decking him or complaining to HR.
As LE/DEM/Posey have widened the domain, I’ll vote for Miss Marple (Dame Margaret Rutherford). And to DEM mentioning Ivanova – that’s why at Hoyden’s I thought Delenn was a better choice.
If we’re naming favourite sci-fi military females, I nominate Honor Harrington.
It doesn’t help a bit to be able to kick-arse literally. If they’re going to get you they will regardless of physical prowess. The whole concept is silly, though self-defence skills do have some limited place, I s’pose.
.
Sorry goes against my experience. I had a pacifist kick at school after seeing Ghandi (up until then I’d been involved I think in more than my share of fights – Celtic can’t help it).
So I resolved not to fight at all. Result: In Grade 10 one of the local bully troglodytes beat the crap out of me and the rest of the year was spent in Hell as a direct result.
But I did stick to my guns. I didn’t physically retaliate.
I still don’t unless absolutely necessary. Sometimes it is. That’s just the way of it.
Most of the time it’s not.
naming favourite sci-fi military females
.
Agent 355
Adrien, I reckon my Celtic temper is probably responsible for my fighting spirit too. Quick to burn, quick to extinguish – it can lead me to actions I regret. But sometimes, in rare circumstances, it’s necessary to retaliate.
Physical prowess is less important in girl vs girl conflict. It wasn’t necessary at my all girls high schools. But if you are being threatened by a fella, then it does help.
BTW: If you are into military kick-arse chicks, the real McCoy has to be Artemesia I of Caria, Xerxes’ admiral.
If you want more real ones that kick arse in other areas, try the brilliant Uppity Women of Ancient Times (list in the review), as well as the related Medieval and Renaissance books.
If they MUST be fictional, the upcoming film about my fave heroine Hypatia may well have a fair bit of “poetic licence” and thus qualify when it finishes in theatres and goes to TV.
LE: “Physical prowess is less important in girl vs girl conflict”
Did you ever play hockey?… Women’s (amateur comps) were MUCH dirtier than men’s (including umpires punched out)
I guess I was thinking in a school yard context.
Now on a woman’s soccer team…DIRTY doesn’t even cover it.
I love the look of that book, Dave!
Hypatia rocks. A martyr for science.
Ancient uppity women makes me think of Medea, a kick arse woman in a rather negative way (she cuts up her brother to deter her father from chasing her lover Jason, murders her children and Jason’s new lover, and then flies off with dragons leaving Jason desolate). I do find her fascinating, however.
LE: Would Iason have got the Golden Fleece (or even survived) without Medea? Nope.
But the Euripedes,for me, is WAY too distressing to read twice. Makes Titus Andronicus seem like Thomas the Tank Engine.
There’s a kids version (Jason and the Golden Fleece by Francis Mosley) that ends “Jason was crowned King and Medea, whom he married, became Queen. All was not happy ever after, but that’s another story”.
LE: Great summary of the great Hypatia in 1997 ABC Radio National science show transcript.
Agree on the hockey point, Dave. I finished up a pretty decent cricketer thanks to facility with belting a hockey ball. Would love to learn ice hockey one day, but suspect I’m too old for that caper.
Adrien, I reckon my Celtic temper is probably responsible for my fighting spirit too. Quick to burn, quick to extinguish – it can lead me to actions I regret. But sometimes, in rare circumstances, it’s necessary to retaliate.
Have you read Outliers?
One chapter considers the pattern of feuds in the American South. And cites experiments that show clearly that, even long removed (as in by generations) from the circumstances that bred the temperament, the will to fight evident amongst the Scots-Irish settlers persists – at the biochemical level!
And also Asians are good at maths ’cause they spent three thousand years pickin’ rice.
Physical prowess is less important in girl vs girl conflict.
No you destroy each other by means of mental powers.
I should also add that the Scots-Irish are the predominant ethnic group in the American special forces.
I read something once about the ruler of Dublin spitting in the eye of the invading English warlord, and getting his head chopped off as a result. I can’t find it in a Google search, but when I read it, I thought, “Yes, unfortunately that’s the kind of thing I’d do – spit in the eye of the invading force regardless of personal risk, purely out of temper and defiance.”
I haven’t read Outliers, but sounds like I ought to!
I have always thought that the ANZACs fought in a very Celtic way – bravely and ferociously, to the death. The Gallipoli legend is pure Celt – celebrating a heroic and terrible loss . It reminds me of the Welsh poem Y Gododdin, detailing the defeat and total annihilation of the Northern English Celts at the hands of the Angles.
A Sikh friend was telling me that the Indian army has a disproportionate number of Sikhs, and “Singh” means lion, referring directly to the fierceness of Sikhs. Perhaps they are the Celts of India?
Adrien: “… the will to fight evident amongst the Scots-Irish settlers persists – at the biochemical level!”
That is hilarious. I must read ‘Outliers’. On what medical evidence/hypotheses is this based?
Don Watson talks about the savage aspects of early, predominantly Scottish settlers in the Gippsland region of Victoria and their impact on the Aboriginal population in his first book “Caledonia Australis: Scottish Highlanders on the Frontier of Australia”.
What remains unexplained in all of this though is familial variation. A mystery.
As a descendant of Highland Scottish Presbyterians and bog Irish Catholics I have both the pleasure and probably misfortune of feeling that embattled warrior spirit course daily through my defenceless veins.
In truth, no sound makes the hair stand up on my head and neck – in deep pleasure – as does the exquisite martial music of Scottish bagpipes and drums. Kurdish martial music is pretty droolworthy too.
Hah, I’ve got the Scottish Presbyterian/Irish Catholic mix in me too. A potent mix. Add English, Cornish and Welsh and you’ve practically got a civil war. No wonder I’m a crazy mixed up kid.
Irish pipes make the hairs stand up on my neck. I wonder if there’s a genetic component to musical taste?
I knew you were a kick-arse woman.
On what medical evidence/hypotheses is this based?
Well the first clue is the pattern of clanned feud in the Appalachian mountains exemplified by its most famous episode.
The experimental evidence consisted of samples of college students. In one experiment a group were to walk down a corridor made narrower by a man examining a filing cabinet drawer. As the groups passed by creating a squeeze, the man at the filing cabinet would say ‘asshole’. They then took saliva samples to measure hormonal flux. The lads from south were disproportionately pissed off!
Another is that the boys were subjected to some kind of aggression (I can’t recall what exactly). They were then sent down another corridor. But this time and enormous, physically intimidating man dressed like a security guard came down the other way dead centre and moving like he meant business.
Most of the crew got out of the way well before they got near him. But the southern kids all waited until the very last minute. All Scots-Irish but all well removed from their hillbilly, Scottish past.
Gladwell’s experimental anecdotes don’t seem conclusive to me. But they are persuasive.
As a descendant of Highland Scottish Presbyterians and bog Irish Catholics
I’ve got the Scottish Presbyterian/Irish Catholic
Me three.
Not sure the Irish were bog. They had skills by the time they got to ‘Straya. And it’s a highlander/Brittany mix.
Add English
Egad! Yer tainted lassie, yer tainted.
The Irish are the poets, the Scottish build stuff. That’s the stereotype anyway. My dad was an engineer from a long line of such and called James Stewart to boot. It’s like being an Irish drunk called Paddy FFS. (Pays better but).
Yes, tainted indeed. Must be why I couldn’t engineer a bridge to save myself. Or make up tarmac, or do any of those clever Scottish engineering things. I do make a great shortbread, though…
On what medical evidence/hypotheses is this based?
Well, (and no disrespect to gingers, but given the numbers of red-headed Celts), there is a (tenuous) biochemical link between the ability to put a dark pigment in hair and anger (related to pathways around melanotonic from ancient memory)… the hot-tempered-redhead stereotype is not merely urban myth.
(No Irish in me: welsh/scot/english. But I’ve lived in Warrnambool and taught Gleeson’s down there – does that count?)
Adrien@31 – Walter Salles’ (director) film “Behind the Sun” is a Brazilian version of the Hatfield-McCoy feud adapted from novel by Albanian maestro Ismail Kadare. A honeyed treat of a film.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abril_Despeda%C3%A7ado
Did anyone mention Boudicia?
http://travesti.geophys.mcgill.ca/~olivia/BOUDICA/
On the topic of achieving young people, Susan Geason turned up some stories of Australian girls who achieved success very young, usually as result of losing their parents. She made the point that nowadays children seldom lose their parents and they tend to stay at school and uni until well into their twenties doing kid stuff instead of fending for themselves. http://www.susangeason.com/nonfiction.html
http://www.susangeason.com/gagindex.html
The Bride in Kill Bill.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Zoe Bell in Death Proof, who is a real person – google her and search on YouTube for some amazing footage.
Two of my examples are from Quentin Tarantino and that’s no accident – there are few directors/writers like him.
There’s an interesting riff on female superheroes here.
Helen, that’s a good riff.
I like the trannie in Ugly Betty. But does s/he count as a bloke or a chick? It so hard to tell with women nowadays. If the former, there is always Wilhelmina Slater and Ivy Crane from Passions.
In Australia, of course, the all-time Number 1 Kick-Ass chick (well more an Old Boiler ashley) was Dorrie Evans from Number 96! Why wasn’t I told?
Asley, SL is a dead-set kick ass sheilah. Doesn’t she have a black-belt in ass-kicking?
Can anyone think of any high-profile admired SNAG characters on TV? I can’t.
Yes, Carson Kressley is much loved, and so is Jamie Oliver, just to name two that immediately come to mind. SNAG, though, is a straw-category invented by sneerers who thought that any interest in activities tagged as “female” by mainstream society, or a lack of interest in bellowing and dirtpissing, meant that people were somehow lacking.
Karl Krujenizki, Les Hiddins…
Jamie Durie has got to be near the top of the snag list for real people and while I can’t name them I’m sure the day time soaps are full of much admired snag characters.
The ultimate kick ass chick has got to be Miss Piggy and of coarse many a thirty-something male had a Kleenex moment with Wonder Woman.
Interesting choices, Nanu:
The male masturbatory fantasy of a totally campy, physically but not intellectually powerful fuckable Wonder Woman, created during WW2 btw and specifically designed to replicate and glorify masculinist values.
And Miss Piggy, the fug ugly but strangely treacherous vicious mother figure.
Touching. And hilariously transparent variations on age-old patriarchal archetyepes.
correction: strangely sexy, treacherous…
The Bride in Kill Bill.
.
Yeah. Kill Bill was amazing. It took the whole woman doing a man’s job type action film and made it about believable female characters. An action movie that ends with half an hour of conversation!!
.
I kinda prefer O-Ren-Ishi however. She’s got some good pointers on how to conduct yourself in the harsh world of corporate high-flying.
.
C’arn Posey Miss Piggy wasn’t treacherous. Except she did drop Kermit a lot when there was a better deal. But, jeez, he’s a frog!
Miss Piggy scared me when I was a kid. It was the way she was alternately vicious and loving (confusing for a little tacker). And the way she whacked people.
Adrien and LE – that’s the whole point. Miss Piggy could do demure, loving – sweet – but in a nanosecond would turn and metamorphisize into something dark and unutterably scary. Isn’t this the great male fear and experience of mothers?
And what better way to bring such powerful creatures down than turn them into pigs and robotic flying fucks .
Miss Piggy rocks!
I’m not too sure about Lynda Carter.
I’m pretty sure Miss Piggy was at least partially inspired by “Hotlips” of MASH, someone who could be scary and a pain in the butt, but when the chips were down, utterly competent and someone you’d want to have working with you.
I take Heather’s point about “real world” admired SNAGS, but at that time in the thread it was based on fictional TV characters. As to the SNAGS of the daytime soaps, I proudly claim ignorance, and they CERTAINLY wouldn’t be on my list of things for kids (of any gender) to watch and get fictional role models from. Perhaps “Rocko” from “Rocko’s Modern Life” qualifies?
As to Posey’s “nanosecond” Jekyll/Hyde comment, people can be like that, male or female, parents or not (and I’ll plead guilty for some occasions), wheter to sons or daughters.
At least such sudden extreme changes due to PMS seem to be managable with short-term SSRIs (see recent plos.org papers which discuss near-instantaneous relief) although I’m no fan of handing out SSRIs except in extreme cases and with other cognitive-based therapies as well.
Perhaps “Miss Piggy” was designed to subliminally prepare young heterosexual males for later life
Nice elision/denial of the primary role of the mother, Dave. Sorry, but mother and father are not interchangeable, equivalent entities.
And why on earth would anyone need a cultural, non-human artefact to prepare them for something they’ve already experienced?
Sorry for not appreciating her [Wonder Woman] intelligence Posey, but I think the thread was supposed to be lighthearted.
Was that an edit SL?
Posey :
I understand the development of the common view that “mother and father are not interchangeable”, and thus cannot be angry at anyone who has assimilated that view.
The demands of BOTH roles are fulfilled by all single parents (after the delivery, of course), male or female, to varying degrees of sucess. I’ll admit, it was difficult, and I didn’t achieve everything I wanted. I give LE/SL permission to give you my email offline if you care to inform me which part of either role a single caregiver of either gender, straight or gay, cannot provide, so this thread doesn’t get to tangential.
Of course, I was unable to breast-feed my daughter, but if you think THAT is central to motherhood, you will probably raise the ire of many mothers, whether single or not, who cannot breast-feed.
I’ve NOW got to cover for all 4 grandparent duties (the paternal grandparents are in NSW and thus unavailable, while my daughter and her mum are still, unfortunately, mutually antipathic.)
I’ll also admit that as a single dad of a daughter, I had to look around harder for female role models than I would have otherwise, one of the reasons I felt qualified to participate in this thread.
(LE/SL: If you want to delete/trim this tangential comment, which is understandable, can you forward it and my email address to Posey? TIA)
Thanks for the exposition Dave. You sound like a mighty good chap. Sincerely.
I still disagree on this matter not least because you assume my position to be identical to your understanding of the depth of this topic which it isn’t but if it is off topic as you say then better I don’t elaborate.
Ah, I was right. Posey IS Kerryn Goldsworthy.
Oh, and let’s not forget Alexis from Dynasty! And Wonder Woman was a lezzie’s fantasy, more than a blokes. More Hoyden About Town than Club Troppo.
“Adrien and LE – that’s the whole point. Miss Piggy could do demure, loving – sweet – but in a nanosecond would turn and metamorphisize into something dark and unutterably scary. Isn’t this the great male fear and experience of mothers?”
A fan of Freudianism, are we Posey?
Sit on it, Greensleeves.
Good one, Pavster!
Greenfly, how is it that a bum lover such as yourself is so obsessed with women, and in particular lesbians? There must be some very serious misprints in your genetic code
Isn’t this the great male fear and experience of mothers?
Well not in my experience, altho’ I do think there’s some ammo in the notion that misogyny and male-bonding etc have roots in resentment of mother’s control of one when young blah blah blah.
However your description of Ms Piggy’s personality reminds me of a crazy girlfriend I had once. Yes she almost killed me. But she was great fun too.
Funnily enough I remember that Ms Piggy was once considered a feminist avatar -assertive, confident, sent her boyfriend flying on a regular basis. Etc.
Adrien –
Posey is off her trolley.
Any more of this and we’ll start sooning with a vengeance. You have been warned. We will not have the kind of vicious sexual innuendo that various participants engage in on other blogs.
so MY post gets deleted and not Nanu’s? What gives, sl?
No, it must have got spam-binned. We talked about sooning Mel’s ‘bum lover’ comment but in the end didn’t (or had other things to do, like breastfeed a two-month-old or organise tutorial timetables). The spam-bin has been eating quite a few people’s comments of late, and I must admit I’ve just been emptying it without checking to see if there’s actually a real person in there.
How did you know I was tied up with feeding the voracious baby-monster, SL? Oh yeah, I forgot, I’m always tied up with feeding the voracious baby-monster these days.
What happened to what was supposed to be a lighthearted thread…all this over Miss Piggy & Wonder Woman.
Posey -
Wonder Woman:
“specifically designed to replicate and glorify masculinist values.”
WRONG!
Miss Piggy:
“strangely [sexy]treacherous vicious mother figure”
WRONG!
You should try to discover their creators’ inspiration for each characters. You’ll find out why you are so very wrong.
Let’s turn it back to light-hearted again.
I’ve been trying hard to think of fictional “SNAGs” but they’re few and far between. They’re more prevalent in real TV than in fictional TV. Can anyone think of any fictional nice guys who are also heroes? I suppose all the superheroes have a “nice guy” persona (Clarke Kent, Bruce Wayne etc), but the whole point is that the nice guy can’t be a hero – it’s only the alter-ego who is a hero. Which seems pretty sad if you think about it.
maybe…
Walker Texas Ranger
Mitch Buchannon (Baywatch)
LE, how about Booth in Bones? Yes I know he’s a hard-man ex-soldier ex-sniper etc etc. But he’s putty in the paws of his little boy. (And Tempe, of course.)
George Lazenby’s playing of Bond perhaps? (It took an Aussie to turn Bond into a snag!)
Hmm, if we count the hard men with the hearts o’ gold, there’s a lot more.
Heroic doesn’t have to be limited to physically hard men…
Think movies such as “Happyness” & “Kramer v. Kramer” where mental resolve to overcome strife makes the characters heroic.
SNAGS? Quelle horruer! These are my type of SNAGS.
http://blogs.brisbanetimes.com.au/bluntinstrument/archives/2009/01/post_10.html
As I sit here in fear of my life and in tears following homophobic attacks on my tender snaggy self, may I be permitted one last petit-snaggy retort to my tormentor/s?
Sit on it, Greensleeves
Kerryn, I never would have picked you as one to “strap on” sweetie. You naughty, naughty girl!
Nanu, you do lighthearted, if that’s you’re bag. I often prefer darker. Ok with you?
Authorial intent is largely irrelevant to understanding an artistic creation. And multiple alternate readings and meanings can be made wrt any work of art. Hallelujah for that.
Miss Piggy was a puppet character and Wonder Woman a comic book character. They inevitably suffer the limitations of both genres and of their idiosyncratic male creators.
Neither interested me much.
Neither interested me much.
.
Well I think DC characters are flat ‘cept Batman, and Miss Piggy and the rest were nowhere near as good as the Swedish Chef. He should’ve had his own (cooking) show. The fine art of chopping vegetables with a shotgun.
I just thought it was interesting. The feminist discourse on fictional portrayals is often conflicting. I wrote a paper on the film Klute viz the criticism of the time (high water mark 2nd gen fem) where there was an argument whether Klute was ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ feminist. You can convincingly argue either way.
Such criticism always seems to overlook the fact that creators of such things rarely think of political ramifications too deeply. It slows up the work.
Fab film btw. One of my personal top 10.
Greenfield, this is strictly a head-to-knee Burqini blog, now behave yourself
Update – the negative side of being a kickass chick
Posey -
The creators intent is the argument, it your interpretation. However, IMO the creators inspiration should to a factor when endeavoring to interpret. The only factor I see in your interpretation is your own hang-up combined with a shortfall in knowledge.
When I think of your comments what commes to mind is my favorite critics from the Muppets..
WALDORF: They aren’t half bad.
STATLER: Nope, they’re ALL bad!
[HINT: Missy Piggy the wasn't created by Jim Henson but by one of his creative designers who also created Waldorf & Statler]
Hmmm…multiple typos
[Note to self: Cut down on cups of espresso!]
http://media.comicvine.com/uploads/0/3133/105274-111559-elektra_super.jpg
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/dbenedict/2009/01/19/lt-starbuck–lost-in-castration/
Apparently this is the counter argument.
Personally I’d prefer katie sackhoff any day.
Hmm, that’s interesting, AJ. I disagree with that dude TOTALLY.