goings on

[ironymaiden]

i was kind of stunned to discover that the "bankrupt nihilism" kerfluffle discussion was not on scarlettina's radar. so hey, Joe Abercrombie does a rebuttal and link roundup about that.

somewhat related (but written beforehand) NK Jemsin on "Feminization" in epic fantasy.

discuss?

Comments

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

As to the first: Eh. I think there's ego and protectionism involved in both sides. One side seeks to guard his position by championing that which is established, familiar, comfortable. The other seeks to gain position by being deliberately contrarian. Yawn.

All I see here is a battle between parents afraid of becoming obsolete and kids asserting their independence by hacking off their hair and listening to music their parents hate.

As to the second: Double-eh.

The weird part to me is that (popular concepts of) SF and Fantasy seem to be inherently gendered anyway, at least as concerns the fen who follow them: Guys tend to go for high-tech settings and hard science, women tend to go for natural settings and magic. I think it's silly, but that's how things (roughly) tend to settle out, IME.

And of course, that sort of cultural-brainwashing-inspired self-sorting means that when you start dipping the chocolate in the peanut butter, people get fussy. Metaphysics and character-based emotional/relationship drama in a future/space setting? Ack! We can't have that! (Oh, the flailing at how Jane Espenson "ruined" the BSG-verse with Caprica's operatic personal tragedy plot!) And heaven forbid your manly hero ever have a moment of doubt.

As you might imagine, I personally think all of it is horse hockey. Without getting into the metafeminist chicken-and-egg discussions of how different things get gendered in the first place, I'll just say that good storytelling is good storytelling, period. Doesn't matter if it's robots or orcs. It all gets stripped down to the same basic tropes anyway. It's how those tropes are executed that makes the difference.

That said, what one considers a good story depends a lot on what one is trying to get out of it. If you want the catharsis of bloody battles, you're going to think a story about some guy's monumental warrior angst is a crock. If you want love stories, you're going to be bored with chapter-long descriptions of war machines or politics.

I get that there are legit arguments to be had about whether a given work might be furthering damaging cultural ideals (and I've made such arguments myself), but beyond that, I don't get why we don't all just indulge in the particular types of entertainment/storytelling that happen to trip our triggers. (Which reminds me that there a book-v.-TV pondering I've been having lately. But that's another post.)

[e-bourne.livejournal.com]

You mean we don't have equality in literature yet? I'm shocked. Simply shocked.

OK, sarcasm filter off.

The male gaze has long been acceptable. The female gaze is not. Unless something has changed while I was napping, this is true across media. What was the last big budget female buddy film? How many paintings of male nudes done by women are there (And I tried, dear lord, I tried when I was younger. I gave up.) Name four big money female fronted bands. Female experience is still marginalized.


It's as true in fiction as it in the rest of life.

[textualdeviance.livejournal.com]

What was the last big budget female buddy film?

Aside from Sunshine Cleaning (which wasn't big-budget), there aren't a lot of specific "buddy" pics that come to mind right away outside of cheesy comedies, but there are a heck of a lot of dramas with female leads (most of which also pass the Bechdel test.) There are a lot of great woman-centered flicks with Anne Hathaway, Penelope Cruz, Natalie Portman, Amy Adams and Emily Blunt, to name just a few.

It's true you don't see a lot of big-ticket blockbusters with female leads (though there are exceptions: stuff with Angelina Jolie, Milla Jovovich and Kate Beckinsale for example) and that a lot of woman-led comedies are stereotypical rom-coms, but otherwise, things are improving.

TV also has a ton of female-heavy shows: Bones, Warehouse 13, Being Human, Fringe, The Good Wife, etc.

Name four big money female fronted bands.

The Gossip, Evanescence, Paramore, Garbage. Also New Pornographers, if you count Neko Case as one of the leads.

Tons of country artists (Lady Antebellum, for instance.)

And that's not counting solo (non-pop) artists such as Bjork, Imogen Heap, Pink, Queen Latifah...

I get your point (it's definitely hard to find women in media that aren't, in some way, objectified, for one) but I also have seen a lot of improvement in the past 10 years or so. We still have a long way to go, but we're at least on an upward trajectory, now.

[e-bourne.livejournal.com]

Things are definitely way better than they were,for sure.

And I like your point about TV, which has always been better than movies -- which I think is because they know they have to appeal to everyone, male female white black hispanic chinese what have and so television is more adventurous than movies which seem to me sometimes stuck in some weird time warp -- at least the big money movies. You get great indies, Sunshine Cleaning, Winter's Bone, but blockbusters where women are as good as the guys are rare. Unless they're fronted by a buxom name. And maybe that's fair. After all, I like a toothsome boy as much as the next person. But I sure would like to see more cool as a cucumber women out there, especially in scientist/business/drama big movies.

I'm mostly a pop music person, so other than Garbage, I don't know those bands. Makes me lame, I suppose, but there it is.

There is a tendency to make fun of powerful female singers, whoever they are, and objectify them.

I think the same thing of all the above happens with literature. There are wonderful women writers, of all sorts of genres out there, and it's better than it used to be, but still, there is just this niggly thing.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

I have been so focused on work and getting to Radcon that I didn't hear anything about this discussion until I got to the convention. Thank you for the links. I'll go dive deep now and get caught up.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

OK, I think I'm caught up now, at least on the "bankrupt nihilism" kerfuffle. I'm too tired (and possibly a little sick) to do a full-blooded, full-throated analysis, but here's what I see at the top-most level: It's a conservative versus liberal argument. Poor Leo Grin wants to preserve his heroic, mythic tropes and is terribly upset about their being overturned. Joe Ambercrombie's thoughtful, witty analysis takes apart Grin's conservative wail pretty thoroughly. Being a bleeding-heart liberal, I agree with the core of his argument: this genre is big enough for all approaches to classic ideas, and the challenging of same doesn't threaten them; it merely reexamines them from a different angle and, I think, by doing so, demonstrates their resilience, flexibility, and versatility. Grin needs to have a drink and relax.

Too tired and a little too sick to read the Jemisin piece; will almost certainly come back to it tomorrow.