Male Roles Vs. Female Roles in Fiction: Discussion/Analysis/Troperwank

I know it isn't your argument (which is why I tried to avoid using "you" in either of my replies). Was just wondering if you could enlighten me as to what your friend/colleague/acquaintance/random person you happened to be speaking to meant.

Concur with the last couple of sentences. Still think that we shouldn't let that stop us from giving good reviews to those films that we do think have positive messages, especially if, as in this case, they happen to also be very good independently of the message.

Fair enough. My answer is: I don't know. It was online, it was short, I was not a part of it.

So I cannot answer.

And yes, good reviews make sense, it's just good reviews don't generate discussion in troperwank of this thread.

edited 24th May '15 9:19:25 AM by MrAHR

Mad Max is one of the few movies I have seen in a while where the characters across the board are not stupid.

Good guys, bad guys, innocent bystanders, all are well developed through action, consistent with their limits and their knowledge, and they are not useless.

1) Overall it is just a well crafted movie. From the technical to the character development to the action sequences, it is just a solid piece. That alone makes it stand out.

2) Feminists are jumping on this movie because of it's craftsmanship. Mad Max is a good example of how easy it would be to make female characters as quality characters and still have all the action and violence that is popular.

Mad Max is a big, fun action movie but it is not dumb.

3) The very fact so many MRA cretins decided to bash the movie for no reason and try to decry it as bashing men will make people who would have never seen the movie through a feminist lens do so now.

Many people are supporting the movie if nothing else but to shove it in the face of the hateful and disgusting MR As. I applaud that.

I love violence done well. And considering Terminator 2 was my favorite movie growing up I am totally in fangirl mode to be able to have just a well done action movie that happens to be feminist because of it's quality.

There is one troubling aspect to the Furiosa character. Namely that (as far as I could tell, anyway) she seems to be the only female soldier from the bad guy armies, so her decision to defect plays right into the High-Heel–Face Turn trope.

Or it shows just how strong and badass she was and why she would also risk so much for redemption.

Kinda like how Michael Clark Duncan being black gave Kingpin a wicked edge.

For a minority to rise to that position of power, they went through heavy shit and had to prove their caliber.

Again, developing the character by allowing their audience to fill in the blanks.

Like when Max comes back after buying them time. We didn't need to see any super secret ninja shit. Our imagination is far better.

Keep in mind The imagination can also be used to create a derisive reasons.

Not arguing against you, just something I thought about.

From Ashley Lynch:

"This sums up both the truth and untruth of calling Fury Road a feminist film."

Source Unknown

For the first time ever a FIFA game will have women's football also. Hopefully they don't get rid of it in the next game.

That's pretty cool. Now I wonder if the rest of the game will actually be good? I mean, has anyone here played the FIFA games and if so, has it been doing good lately?

From what I've read in the football sub-reddit, people welcome the inclusion of women's teams, but EA continues to not fix the bugs and genericness in the AI.

Well, we're going to see a bunch of weird bugs and glitches of PC and NPC models doing improper acts.

Indeed.

The inclusion of women in those games probably won't get much media coverage, due to the giant FIFA scandals that are being brought out right now. So if you were expecting this to be followed up with a trend of stuff like WNBA based games and such, I doubt that will happen.

Yeah this is going to massively get over shadowed by the scandal and this was announced just days after the scandal hit... Yeah EA needs better timing or this is an attempt to save the game from being buried in the scandal along with FIFA.

Maybe the next Winning Eleven game will do the same but that's Konami... Ugh they are worse than EA now.

edited 29th May '15 8:05:07 AM by Memers

The question is did they follow the instructions from the president of FIFA and put them in "tighter shorts"?

Man I hope that sexist sack of crap getz put in jail.

Dunno, there's a trailer but I haven't watched it yet:

They are playing in regular shorts, so it looks ok.

This is by George R.R Martin

I actualy kind of agree with the guy once he reaches the point about fantasy, it is better to have "Like reality unless noted" then "Free reign"

That seems kind of like saying that, if you're going to write Food Porn, you also need to describe the bowel movements that happen afterwards.

He writes Food Porn too. Specially when the characters are morbidly obese, or when there is an incredible discrepancy between two characters and their income, or when their situation is very dire. This is invoking an emotion via description to make a point and it tries to get you to doubt about the fact of glorifying certain things.

Just dropping by to mention a surprisingly good boys' adventure book from 1927, Battling the Clouds by Captain Frank Cobb. At one point, one of the boys has a series of Imagine Spot moments where he fantasizes about rescuing the Colonel's daughter from all sorts of perils and getting rewarded by the Colonel.

The narration then explains that young Bill did not take into account that said young woman was "a strapping damsel" of 5'8" and 160 lbs who consistently gets herself out of tight situations "without asking odds of anyone". Sadly, she is mentioned only in two paragraphs; I want to read about the Colonel's daughter and her tightfisted father.

For those who are curious of where that big George RR Martin quote came from, here's the link.

Timely post on how Mad Max: Fury Road is FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC.

When I first saw the Wives and their gauzy clothes, I was really steeling myself against the inevitable panty-shot, boob shot, wet-shirt shot, or some other form of Fanservice.

And I was just so fucking pleased to have gone through the movie without any gratuitous fanservice at all. That just put the icing on the cake in an already excellent movie.

Regarding GRRM's point - I think it largely depends on what your fantasy book is 'for'.

A lot of people read fiction for the escapism factor, and yes, for the cool heroes getting to do cool things. Having every woman live in constant fear of rape for the entire story can put a bit of a damper on that. Particularly when male readers can open books and find male characters getting to do cool things with no equivalent fear. Sometimes we don't want to read books about "How Things Realistically Would Be". There's nothing wrong with wanting to put that into your books, but it's not the only way of doing things.

I kinda feel like I need to call bullshit on the "Well dragons are okay, but you're only allowed to deviate from reality in ONE way PER SERIES, there is no room for gender egalitarianism if you also want dragons" business. Because dragons are by no means the only way in which Westeros differs from Medieval Europe. We have an entirely different grab-bag of religions, for one thing.

Also, what exactly are you trying to say here GRRM, that you can only write a slightly more gender-egalitarian society if you're planning on making it a major defining feature of the world? That sounds like a one way trip to writing kind of cringe-inducing one-dimensional 'girl power' narratives.