About the crying: First, I'm trying to distinguish between the
representation of a fictional character and the psychology of an actual
human being. Literally every time I turned on the show this past year, Kira
was crying. The other characters don't cry nearly as much, if at all. This
is an extreme turnaround in a character that was originally written very
differently. Her crying, in addition to the physical changes in her
appearance, and the increasing references to her heterosexuality
culminating in her giving birth for someone else to me shows a major
re-working of the character, Major Kira, into something more palatably
"feminine". Secondly, I am not at all trying to suggest that crying makes a
character or a human being weak. All I'm saying is look at how all this
works together to change the representation of this female character. I
think this is different also from the issue of "character development".
Kym
>>I think it also takes
>>more strength to cry in public than to bottle it up because, when that's
>>done, it's suppressing an emotion.
>
> Often, when you have a character who's very abrasive, very
>>short-tempered, what have you, you have a very insecure person, which is
>>what I would see the old Kira as: insecure, defensive (rightfully so) and
>>probably uncomfortable with herself. I also, though, see a very passionate
>>person and I'm glad that's been kept but not to the extent of making Kira
>>narrow-minded.
>
>Well said, Sean! I agree with you - it takes incredible moral strength to
>recognize that some of your behaviors aren't working for you and to adjust
>yourself accordingly. What a leap it was for Kira to go from tough and
>defensive to being able to cry openly. How admirable. And while I agree
>that it's more interesting to see a character develop, I think Kira's
>transformation wasn't gradual enough for me - that is, I would have liked
>to have seen more "slips" on her part. A person just doesn't make 180
>degree turns like that.
>
>Laura
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:24 PDT