Markup View

Author: KingZeal

Mar 16th 2012 at 5:16:12 AM

^^^  When Titanic was ''set'' doesn't make a difference, since the romantic tropes and heroic sacrifice Jack makes to save the woman he loved are still played completely straight and in no way invoke ValuesDissonance.  These are the central themes of the movie, not an analytical view on the culture of the time.  The movie itself proves those tropes not only still work, but strike a chord with audiences.

Also, a BadassDamsel does not ''subvert'' WomenAreDelicate.  It zig-zags the trope.  Once again, this is part of the entire stereotype and is ''enforced'' in Hollywood.  The reason the BadassDamsel and its cousin the FinalGirl exist is because of this--there's more tension in a delicate woman being in danger than a man or even a tomboy.  In fact, look at the recent GIJoe film.  The Baroness is turned into a Damsel at the end of the movie.  In the IronMan films, Pepper Potts has to be saved at the very end of each movie.

Also, even when a cast is mostly female, or the protagonist is a girl, the stereotypes run rampant.  Take, for example, ''Twilight'', which is the most popular fiction aimed at young girls in the 21st Century, and plays nearly every stereotype on that list straight.  In the most recent ''Underworld'' movie, Selene is the one who is forced to find her daughter, not her boyfriend, Michael (who never even appears).  Even in the ''Resident Evil'' film series, where the protagonist is a super-powered female badass, the first image we get of her is her being in a shower, naked and vulnerable.  Oh, and with amnesia.  Michelle Rodriguez (again) dies in the first film so that Alice can live.  For the rest of the series, if your name isn't Alice, and you're female, you're either a love interest, someone's little sister, or a corpse.