Maryelizabeth Hart wrote:
>
> Jill Gillham shared:
>
> >I've been having a lot of fun with Laurell Hamilton's "Anita Blake,
> >Vampire Hunter" series lately. Probably no Big Messages contained within,
> >but one of the best take-no-prisoners female characters in print these
> >days. Hamilton's got a great way of writing, but it might not be the best
> >thing to read if you're squeamish. She describes things pretty
> >graphically, and the body count tends to be pretty high. (LH has said that
> >one of the reasons why she created Anita was because female detectives in
> >stories never got to kill as many people as their male counterparts did.)
>
> I like these books a lot as well, although they could be improved if her
> prose would improve. I think she's a great storyteller, but for me, these
> are airplane books, (or light summer reading) where I don't have time to
> count how many times she uses exactly the same pronouns or adjectives to
> describe something. I think the worst offender in the last book was that
> EVERYONE's hair "foamed" over their shoulders. (minor spoiler) Well, that
> and she ruined my SOD with the wet jeans.:)
>
> Of interest in a similar vein (heh heh) I might suggest Tanya Huff's
> "Blood" books. Just read the first one in Seattle last weekend, and thought
> it was pretty good entertainment.
>
> >
>
> >Honestly, I haven't watched the seri (serieses? what's the plural,
> >anyways?) since they killed off Tasha Yar, and the character I could most
> >closely relate to was Wesley Crusher. (Yeah, I know. I was in high school
> >at the time) Deanna Troi and the female doctors were just never allowed to
> >do anything interesting, in my view.
> That's the same time I quit watching, despite Crusher being a red head
> which usually is an asset in a hero of mine. :)
>
> >
> >On a related rant, why aren't the strong female characters ever allowed to
> >live? Tasha Yar was written out early in the series, and other characters
> >in other popular movies that were seen as strong are all dead by the end
> >credits. (Thelma and Louise and Catwoman come to mind) It's like there's a
> >message that strong women are fated to face a very high cost for daring to
> >be who they wanted to be.)
> I like to call this the "Travis McGee" syndrome, after the fictional
> amateur PI's illfated girlfriends.
>
I know this is an old thread, but I'm new to the list and just wanted
to address this issue. On the same lines as "strong women are fated to
fact a very high cost....", has anyone seen the Captain Planet cartoon
on Saturday mornings? The female Gaia, is always getting sick - and has
to be rescued from the source of her illness from *Captain* Planet.
Now, setting the obvious need for the raising of consciousness about the
ecological state of our planet, I think that it's really sad that we are
portraying this need of women to be "saved/rescued" by men.
Kim Selle
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:19 PDT