On reactions to female characters

[hsapiens]

Saw this linked in rydra_wong's LJ and found that it resonated with me. Thus, I'm passing it on:

From fabu's discussion of fans and female characters:

No one is saying that you must like every single female character or you're a bad fan/bad feminist. However, if you *habitually* find yourself criticizing female characters for behavior you admire in male characters/dismissing female characters as boring (even though you spend hours developing walk-on male characters into well-rounded characters for your stories)/accusing female characters of being "Mary Sues" for having skills that you accept unquestioningly in the men, perhaps you might want to think about the bigger picture.

~~**~~

And in other news: When it's a relief to get to the refuge of work, that's a bad way to start the day. Luckily, this day hasn't gotten any worse. :)

Comments

[superbadgirl]

I'm positive I haven't always been fair toward Sam...but it came to the point for me that I realized the negative energy wasn't doing me (or anyone around me) any good. I do get the stepping-back and really looking at what you're doing/saying and how you're reacting, but I think for many people, especially at the height of fandom drama, emotion will rule over logic. And fear of that emotion will make anyone with a differing POV really hesitate to get into the mix - maybe I played in the wrong places, but it felt at times that if I supported Sam, I was somehow an Untouchable. Same thing for not liking Vala.

Ultimately, at least now, for me it's about believing a character should be doing the things they're doing because they would, not doing the things they're doing because the writers need to fill in a hole (sometimes half a hole, and sometimes only to create another hole). That, I think is one of the primary reasons SG-1 lost me quite a while back. I didn't believe the story was there to support the characters, I believed the characters were there to support the story, come hell or high water. ALL of the characters. So all the little things I was able to ignore tipped the scales.

But that's rather another discussion, so I should shut up about that.