Rambling on heroines and equality
Jun. 22nd, 2005 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieSaw Howl's Moving Castle again yesterday. What can I say, I love it (and the second time around the story actually made complete sense (satisfied me, at least) and I wasn't confused a bit).
And that got me to thinking about heroes, heroines and their characteristics. I absolutely hate when the heroine is a damsel in distress and all she can do is whimper helplessly throughout as the hero rescues her. My favorite example is the silent flick "The Pagan" with Ramon Novarro. It's a really fun movie, but the heroine's helplessness drives me up the wall. During a climactic scene her lover is fighting the bad guy and all she does is stand nearby and scream helplessly, when a well-placed bottle to the head of the villain would finish this whole thing off (there are plenty of silent films with strong women characters. This is not one of them). Of course, I get equally annoyed when feminism runs amock and the heroine ALWAYS rescues herself and the hero does nothing useful (see Drew Barrymore's "Ever After:" the Prince was a looker but he did absolutely nothing. She always took perfect care of herself).
Either one of the situations always leads me to the frustrated question: why would you want that person in real life? Shouldn't you want someone who helps you out occasionally? It doesn't have to be physical, of course. In fact, I prefer it when characters who are a couple have different strengths. My favorite ever couple is Lymond and Philippa from Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles and Lymond does not need physical help in fighting. He does however recieve and accept help in various sticky situations, emotional help etc etc etc. She helps him as much as he helps her.
So yeah, one of the reasons I love Howl's is that the heroine is throughly competent but she is no Drew Barrymore in Ever After who is so perfect she needs no one (and is skating dangerously close to a Mary Sue): Sophie might rescue Howl, but he "rescues her back." And they both screw up as well. That is how it should work.
And that got me to thinking about heroes, heroines and their characteristics. I absolutely hate when the heroine is a damsel in distress and all she can do is whimper helplessly throughout as the hero rescues her. My favorite example is the silent flick "The Pagan" with Ramon Novarro. It's a really fun movie, but the heroine's helplessness drives me up the wall. During a climactic scene her lover is fighting the bad guy and all she does is stand nearby and scream helplessly, when a well-placed bottle to the head of the villain would finish this whole thing off (there are plenty of silent films with strong women characters. This is not one of them). Of course, I get equally annoyed when feminism runs amock and the heroine ALWAYS rescues herself and the hero does nothing useful (see Drew Barrymore's "Ever After:" the Prince was a looker but he did absolutely nothing. She always took perfect care of herself).
Either one of the situations always leads me to the frustrated question: why would you want that person in real life? Shouldn't you want someone who helps you out occasionally? It doesn't have to be physical, of course. In fact, I prefer it when characters who are a couple have different strengths. My favorite ever couple is Lymond and Philippa from Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles and Lymond does not need physical help in fighting. He does however recieve and accept help in various sticky situations, emotional help etc etc etc. She helps him as much as he helps her.
So yeah, one of the reasons I love Howl's is that the heroine is throughly competent but she is no Drew Barrymore in Ever After who is so perfect she needs no one (and is skating dangerously close to a Mary Sue): Sophie might rescue Howl, but he "rescues her back." And they both screw up as well. That is how it should work.
