In a message dated 97-11-13 14:13:39 EST, Jennifer Krauel wrote:
> Anyway my purpose in writing is to ask all of you what feminist sf story
> should be made into a movie, if Stormship Troopers is such a bad
> example. Be fair and pick something that actually might have a chance
> of making it through hollywood.
What a wonderful idea!! Hmm. Most of the time when I imagine stories I know
to turn into movies, I use comics as a basis.
Hence, my first nominee: Birds of Prey: Black Canary and Oracle.
See, I've been dreaming of a Black Canary movie ever since I discovered her
six years ago. (I apologize to those of you for whom this means nothing.)
But she's always *acted* very feminist, even when she was running around in
fishnet stockings and high heels. And now that her costume has changed she's
even more feminist *and* in her current superheroing, her partner is Oracle,
also known as Barbara Gordon (funny thing, I really like that character too
;) ), formerly Batgirl, until The Joker shot her in the spine and so now
she's paralyzed from the waist down, but keeps up with the superheroing gig
by being an *extremely* covert behind-the-scenes operator, doing a lot of the
detective work via computer because Black Canary's a little too hot-headed to
slow down and think all the details through sometimes, and because Oracle is
the daughter of Commissioner Gordon and former kid-partner of Batman, one of
the greatest detectives to ever live (according to the DC Universe, that is).
Also, Oracle's been proving lately that she's more than just a person typing
on a computer, as in the most recent issue of Birds of Prey, she ended up
proving herself *more* than capable of taking care of herself when some hood
decided to try to mess with her. (Yay Oracle!!!) So while it's not a
perfect feminist model, it is a movie that would stand a good shot of making
it in Hollywood. (And I would just love it, everything else aside.)
Okay, on to actual SF ideas.
_Rimrunners_ by C.J. Cherryh could be good.
This is more fantasy than SF, but _The_Hero_and_The_Crown_ and (less so)
_The_Blue_Sword_ by Robin McKinley would be really good, and actually, while
connected, they both would stand just fine on their own.
I'm not sure how well _The_Gate_To_Women's_Country_ by Sheri S. Tepper would
translate to film, but I think it would do fairly well, although I'm sure
Hollywood would butcher it, or make the women out to be evil, rather than
self-preserving.
Again, more fantasy than sci-fi, but _The_Oathbound_ series by Mercedes
Lackey is pretty good, and would translate *well* to Hollywood, I think.
Well, that's it for now, but I'm going to think on this some more because
this is really one of my favorite things to do: picking a story and deciding
what the movie would be like (and casting it!).
Again, thanks for such a great idea.
Barbara Benesch
BJBenesch@aol.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:07:28 PDT