From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Fri May 22 09:16:33 1998 Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 11:13:17 -0500 From: "L-Soft list server at University of Illinois at Chicago (1.8c)" To: lquilter@HOOKED.NET Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF LOG9711B" ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 01:39:54 -0400 Reply-To: gamgee@geocities.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Geoffrey D. Sperl" Organization: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/8499 Subject: Re: Introduction (Tardy) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Vonda N. McIntyre wrote: > Naturally I don't think that Star > Trek books are causing the end of science fiction > as we know it, but that's a rant deserving of its > own message. (One that I wrote but haven't decided > whether to post.) Vonda, Actually, I'd love to see that rant. Could you also address your experience at Bantam with _The Crystal Star_? And the _SW_ universe in contrast to the _ST_ universe? - Geoffrey ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 10:11:02 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Vonda N. McIntyre" Subject: Re: Introduction (Tardy) In-Reply-To: <3463AFC1.5220C0DE@mint.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Nina -- Thanks for the kind words. On Fri, 7 Nov 1997 19:18:09 -0500, "Nina M. Osier" wrote: >Vonda, please do post that so-called "rant"! I discovered your other OK. I may be sorry, but I'm persuaded. >books after reading one of your Star Trek novels, and I'm very glad that Me too. It's fairly rare, by the way, for media tie-in readers to pay attention to the authors. (Or to the original fiction by those authors.) Awfully nice when it occurs, though. >happened. Also, I will say shamelessly that I waited from 1966 until >ST:Voyager came on the air wishing to see a female ST captain who wasn't Me too. It gave me great pleasure to put Mandala Flynn and Captain Hunter into Entropy Effect. >a nut case (I'm referring to a certain episode of the original Star >Trek, either you'll understand this reference or you won't) and that I >thoroughly enjoy Kate Mulgrew's character. > If I'm thinking of the same episode you are, she wasn't a nut case captain. She was a nut case because she wasn't _allowed_ to be a captain. But it's been a long time so I could be wrong. I often am. Best, Vonda http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda Some official good news at http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 10:11:00 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Vonda N. McIntyre" Subject: Tie In Novels: The End of SF or the World as We Know It? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit (I debated with myself over whether to send this. It turned into a bit of a rant so it's kind of long; I apologize. You guys encouraged me, so it's all your fault. -- V.) A week or so ago someone bemoaned the poor quality of novel manuscripts by new writers and the poor judgment of the reading audience in preferring media tie-in books to mainstream sf. This was my response. I know writers who published two or three or TWENTY creditable sf novels but who cannot sell their (equally creditable, or better) third or fourth or twenty-first novels. The excuse is that their previous novels didn't sell enough copies so the chain stores will no longer order their books. (Whether this is true or not, I don't know; it's the reason they were given.) Some of these writers have been offered the chance to "start over" again with a new name, a third or fourth or twentieth novel published as a "first novel" -- and, oh, by the way, you have to take a first novel advance for the book, too. How can one enthusiastically encourage new writers when one is aware of the sort of treatment they're likely to encounter? What can one say to a new writer who has sent a bit of their heart to a publisher who's sat on it for a year without a word? As for tie-ins, I must disagree with the idea that the difficulties sf is having are due to the preference of readers for media tie-in books. This rather widely-held belief presupposes that the audience for tie-in books includes all the same people as the audience for mainstream sf, and that they choose tie-ins over original novels. It's always made to sound like a child choosing halloween candy over broccoli. I think this is a false analogy. One could make as good a case (probably better) for the preference of readers for romance or mystery or even fantasy over sf. It _is_ a difficulty that the means of production and the shelf space for media tie-ins are connected, more or less by accident, with the means of production and the shelf space for sf. If blockbuster movies were mysteries or romances, the tie-in production resources and shelf space would be in their corners of bookstores. SF movies and sf novels kinda sorta bear a vague resemblance to each other so they end up in the same place. The audience, however, is quite different. The audience for media tie-in books is at a minimum ten times the size of the audience for science fiction. It is, in my experience, an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT AUDIENCE. If I and every other writer who had ever written a Star Trek or Star Wars book were taken out and killed, as some of our colleagues would like, and all our books burned, it would make not a blip's worth of difference on the sales curve for mainstream science fiction. Having a bestselling tie-in novel will have virtually no effect on one's original fiction sales, much as one might wish the opposite. The folks who enjoy media tie-in books are looking for a different experience. Not better. Not worse. Just _different_. One thing tie-ins do accomplish, indirectly, for the reader of mainstream sf is that they support quite a large number of mainstream sf writers who would find it difficult to subsist on the advances for their original novels. It does none of us, readers or writers, any good to keep wailing about how media tie-in books are wiping out science fiction. It isn't true. Nor would wiping out media tie-in books help sf. The only thing that will keep sf from becoming boutique publishing, as the average sales of the average mass-market sf novel continue to plummet, is trying to expand the audience for science fiction. Whether that's possible, I have no idea. For all I know, the sf audience (actual _or_ potential) is finite and saturated. I know nothing about advertising or marketing. I wouldn't even know how to start attempting to enlarge the market. My level of advertising sophistication would run more or less to Uncle Martin growing his antennae and asking, "Got Science Fiction?" If I had a couple million bucks, I'd hire Eileen Gunn and ask her to try a publicity campaign. I think marketing niches and pigeonholing are a lot more dangerous to sf than media tie-in novels. I think we may be sub-ghettoizing ourselves out of existence: Can't count "Flowers for Algernon" as science fiction because... because why? Maybe because it was too good? (I heard that the following happened but have no independent proof of it. Consider it, at best, secondhand gossip. But I think it accurately reflects the mind-set of a large proportion of sf writers.) Michael Crichton wants to join SFWA? Let's ridicule him until he goes away, because... because why? Because he's a worse writer, technically, than anybody else in the organization? Not bloody likely. (Besides, nobody ever asks about the quality of your writing when you apply to join SFWA. They ask if you've sold something to a professional market.) Because he makes classic sf ideas accessible to a wider audience? (Gosh, what a horrible concept.) Could it be because... because he makes too much money? A long-time member of SFWA tried to define Ursula K. Le Guin as "not a science fiction writer" because she writes in other genres. (Ursula herself always describes herself, first, as "a science fiction writer," and this moronic campaign against her very much hurt her feelings.) I do know that my book The Moon and the Sun, which straddles several genres (sf, historical fiction, alternate history, fantasy), has gotten, first, the best reviews of any book of my career, and, second, the following comment from a seriously depressing number of publications that might have been expected to review it: "Gosh. It's a wonderful book. We love it. But... we don't know how to pigeonhole it. So we're going to ignore it." Vonda Fri, 31 Oct 1997 16:22:06 -0400: >I certainly haven't been deluged in quality >manuscripts from new authors http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda Some official good news at http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 10:21:19 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Vonda N. McIntyre" Subject: (fwd) Re: Introduction (Tardy) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Geoffrey, The rant is more about media tie-in books after they're published, than it is about writing them in the first place. I think I'm already pushing the envelope of "feminist sf" by posting my tie-in novel rant; probably would be best not to gum up the mailing list with Tie In Novel War Stories. Especially since my experiences were quite pleasant, particularly compared to the experiences of people who have worked in the field more recently. Now, if anybody wants to discuss the Bondage & Discipline B/a/r/b/i/e/ Leia action figure, which we are apparently supposed to run right out and buy for all the little girls on our Xmas lists, that might could fit the mailing list's parameters. Vonda On Sat, 8 Nov 1997 01:39:54 -0400, "Geoffrey D. Sperl" wrote: >Vonda, > >Actually, I'd love to see that rant. Could you also address your >experience at Bantam with _The Crystal Star_? And the _SW_ universe in >contrast to the _ST_ universe? > >- Geoffrey http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda Some official good news at http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 05:45:39 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Barbara Benesch Subject: Starship Troopers Movie Hi all. I realize this isn't a book, so please bear with my somewhat off-topic-ness, but I just have to rant about this big hunk of crap (pardon my language, but frankly, I'd like to call it a lot worse). For any who intend to see it, I would recommend not paying full price. Otherwise, on with my rant. <<<>>>>> First a disclaimer: I have not read the book, and I do realize that some of these problems may only be with the treatment of the story by the makers of the movie, and not any actual fault of the book itself, but right now I'm in no real hurry to read the book, so if the book does any of this better, I will bow to those who have read it. Okay. Here goes: 1.) Not only was it very anti-feminist, it wasn't even good sci-fi. 2.) I'm very very tired of movies which go along with the old slasher-flick rule of "Sex Equals Death." The only female character who survives the movie is the young woman who declines having sex with anyone (at least where we can see it). The woman who is the same age who decides to have sex (where we can see), dies as soon as possible. Of course she's given the "dignity" of first pulling off this big tactical win, but she dies pretty well right after. AND her dying words are something to the effect of "At least I got to have you," to the rich, white, brawn-over-brains hero of the whole thing, whose heart actually belongs to the other woman. 3.) A woman supposedly in an equal opportunity military outfit, upon being asked if she'll take a certain command, replies with "I'm your girl." Puh-lease!!!! 4.) Back to the "...not even good sci-fi" thing: A society that can come up with faster-than-light travel and can simply *mend* flesh by basically "knitting" it back together, somehow cannot come up with energy weapons, energy shields, or even decent armor. *Everything* gets through this armor!!! *And* they cannot build a fortification! They actually build a compound with the structural supports for the outer walls on the outside! (This is one of those that a friend reports was treated much better in the book.) 5.) By the end of the movie, I felt like I'd been watching Nazi propaganda. I saw a "Making of Starship Troopers" thing in which they said (sorry about the "they", I don't remember who exactly had been talking at the time, but "they" in this instance refers to the makers of the movie) that they'd been trying to copy the old WWII newsreels and that sort of thing, but they also brought along some frightening SS-looking uniforms for some of the good guys which made me, at least, distinctly uncomfortable. 6.) Final point: I've recently been re-reading _Backlash_ by Susan Faludi, and I'm reminded by Starship Troopers of the phenomenon in the fifties in which suddenly all the movies were Westerns or war movies, effectively shutting women completely off the screen. This movie doesn't shut women off the screen, but it does leave most women out of the theater. Both the "war" storyline, as well as the violence on the screen (I've been watching sci-fi since childhood, so I'm kind of used to a bit of ooky-ness, and this had me about ready to walk out of the theater), will make most women avoid it altogether. 7.) And finally, on a purely stylistic note: I have a very difficult time with any movie that decides it can depict the future by showing today's fashions, only shiny and with go-go boots. For a group of movie-makers who were so careful that their bugs looked good and realistic, they didn't care much if the non-bug portions of the movie were even remotely realistic. Okay, well, that's the basics of my rant. I just had to get this off my chest, and hopefully give fair warning to anyone who was considering spending real money on this. To be completely honest, I probably would have waited for the video (if I saw it at all), but I was coerced by my dearest boyfriend, who has a strange thing for bug movies. That's love for ya, I guess. To his credit, he was deeply disappointed by it as well. Well, thanks for listening (whatever) to my rant, and please forgive any typos, I started this at 4am after seeing a midnight showing (thank goodness I didn't pay full price for this thing!), and spending over an hour over sodas (no product placement here!) commiserating with said boyfriend over how bad it was. Barbara Benesch BJBenesch@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 06:25:03 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Barbara Benesch Subject: some intro, TV/movies I kind of did this a while ago, but for the newer folks, here goes: Barbara Benesch, 24, currently working as a temp and desperately looking for a job in word processing/desktop publishing (my kingdom for a job of my *own*!). Also living with my boyfriend of four years and wishing we could afford a dog. I actually do read "voraciously" - my mother used to comment that even cereal boxes weren't safe from me - and have been a feminist long before I really understood what the word meant. I grew up a Girl Scout (seriously, I was in for 13 years), and that's where a lot of my feminism came from, long before my first women's studies class. I went to Illinois State University for a few years until I realized I was spending more time at my job with the student newspaper than on my homework, at which point I left. While I was there, I was a double major in English and biology, and got very interested in women's studies along the way. I usually have several "soapboxes" going at any given time, but one of my most consistent (they never really leave, just kind of fade into the background for a while) is people who continue to allow "feminist" to be a dirty word, while enjoying the benefits of feminism at every turn. I live in central Illinois, and enjoy reading, writing (although I don't do as much fiction writing of my own as I would like), entertaining my media addiction (I try to keep it in check, or at least avoid those things which I really detest, but I must admit it doesn't always work - for instance I'm currently watching Tom & Jerry on Toon Network), and playing role playing games. I also *love* anything to do with the outdoors. Also, I'm very happy to be on this list, particulary with so many people who are actually out there making a living writing science fiction/fantasy. Perhaps it's not really *that* many, but since I hadn't actually thought I'd get to meet any celebrities on the 'net (I'm showing my "awestruck fan" roots here, I'm afraid), it seems like a lot. Regardless, I'm honored to share list space with people who are actually *making* science fiction today. Once again, more than some of you probably wanted to know, but it's me. In a message dated 97-11-07 19:07:43 EST, Stephen Smith (Julien?) wrote: > Though I do not read SF, I do watch a lot of it. I was kind of hoping > people > would be interested in discussing SF film. I got my BA in Art History and > my > MA in Religious Studies. Right now I'm taking some courses in photography > and > computers. I am also following a degree scheme in English (another MA). I > love literature, and my interests are in the revision of myth or fables. > Furthermore, I am interested in the critical analysis of film and art. I > also > find cultural and social constructions of gender and sexuality fascinating. > Julien > > I too watch a great deal of sci-fi, both TV and film, and would be interested in a list dealing with sf/fantasy TV and films and critical analysis of them, with particular interest in the treatment of gender/sexuality. I don't know if there are any out there, but perhaps if there isn't it's something that maybe should be an off-shoot of this one or something (I'm still kind of a novice at this sort of thing, so I'm speaking very much off-the-cuff here). Barbara Benesch BJBenesch@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 09:12:04 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Nina M. Osier" Subject: Re: Gibbon's Decline and Fall MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jana, this is a real problem for me and I suspect this may be true for more women than we realize. Spirituality and its corporate expression is by my own choice an important part of my life, and interacting within the church that I carefully chose in adulthood as being the least male-dominated one that answered my needs is an ongoing challenge. Yet just when I am utterly disgusted, I at last hear during the communion ritual the wonderful words: "God who gave birth to you..." and then I realize that all my ranting and raving during leadership functions is not only being heard, but sometimes actually comprehended. And so I stay, because to me this is important and someone has to keep do that yelling. Perhaps it may seem to someone looking on that I'm accepting oppression, but I doubt if my fellow members see me that way! "Suffer fools gladly" is one Biblical command I've never been the least bit able to obey.... Nina Jana C. McCormick wrote: > I found this an insightful novel. I appreciate the statements > concerning > female oppression and religion. I love the "Hail Mary Assumption" but > I > thought the ending and, especially, the character of Webster a > cop-out. > Why did this evil character, similar to the devil, have to be in the > book? I > felt this was an example of how we, as humans, want to blame our own > behavior > on a higher power instead of taking responsibility for it. > > The example of women's exclusion from religion is enough of an example > for me > of how men believe women are inferior. Even in this enlightened age, > we have > come a long way but not long enough (it is quite amazing when you > think back > 50 or just 20 years ago), women like myself still accept oppression, > especially in religion. Perhaps, that is part of the reason religion > appears > to be in decline among younger generations. > If this is not so, I'm sure someone will enlighten me? In my > viewpoint, the > younger (American) generation is not interested, a larger minority, in > what > biases and prejudices religion has to offer. > Perhaps, I simply speak for myself. Many young people I know are not > interested in putting their disinterest into words. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 09:30:12 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Nina M. Osier" Subject: Re: Tie In Novels: The End of SF or the World as We Know It? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Vonda, thank you for posting your "rant" after all! I do wish I had some ideas on how to change the larger world's perception of SF. I never cease to be amazed by the otherwise intelligent people who still regard speculative fiction of any type as something for adolescent boys only. Speaking as someone still in the process of breaking in, I am also saddened that the measure of success in this as in every other field of endeavor has to be "how much money have you made by doing it." That's our society, I accept it as it is; but it's still pitiful. How much money did Emily Dickinson make...? Nina ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 11:26:55 -0500 Reply-To: Unca-lloyd@sff.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: LLoyd McDaniel Subject: Re: from moderator: question re subscribers? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi; My intro seems to have missed a bit somewhere. I was all those things I quoted, (I'd thought privately to the listmgr...), in Orlando Florida, at the Orlando Area science-fiction Society convention, OASIS. Primarily 8-9-and ccnchair of 10. fannish Egoboo is my bane, so it's a little daunting to see yur name up in "lites" when you don't expect it... I'll go into 'lurk mode' for awhile.... LLoyd ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 12:00:41 -0500 Reply-To: "Jason A. Wallwork" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Jason A. Wallwork" Subject: Re: Introduction (Tardy) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>original novels. Naturally I don't think that Star >>Trek books are causing the end of science fiction >>as we know it, but that's a rant deserving of its >>own message. (One that I wrote but haven't decided >>whether to post.) >> > >Post it! Post it! Post it! Post it! I'm confused...are some of us here desirous of bashing Star Trek. Because if we're going to launch into that, I'd think it'd be off-focus and being a Star Trek fan, it would be a huge turn-off. Jason A. Wallwork jsheridan@bigfoot.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 17:14:49 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stephen Smith Subject: Re: Starship Troopers Movie Wow! that was a rant in the old style of rant...we have some commonalities:) Well my husband, who shares this email thing with me...hence the schitzophrenic name...also wants to see Starship Troopers. THe FX look brilliant, but I have been ambivalent about paying to see this. I like Verhoeven's work...esp Robocop, so I decided to take the gamble. The major drawback to this film seemed to me the casting. I hate it when they cast third rate American beauty kings and queens...as if we can all relate to that vacuousness. Also one of the only actresses I recognized ruined "Dragonheart." What is it with Hollywood casting an entire supporting cast of Brits and throwing in lead American actors who both cannot do an accent to save their lives and who really cannot act but add the beauty factor. (GRINDING OF TEETH) I appreciate your comments on both the need for a site for those of us movie-philes, SF aficianados, and feminists. Hollywood ALWAYS has me on a soapbox. I too own Faludi's backlash but haven't read it properly. I have about 1000 other books competing for my attention. I took a film criticism course that discussed the sci film, westerns and war films. WOmen are generally either absent or killed off quickly (well let's not forget the harlot with a heart of gold in westerns...ahhh!) That comment on women in slasher films is also a good one. Sex always equals death. If you see two going at it hot and heavy, you know a decapitation or slaughter isn't far away. Speaking of horror/sf films (you'll take note my nickname is grasshopper...aptly named as that describes my brain activity to a tee) Last night i finally watched "Videodrome" a movie from 1982. Directed by David Cronenberg (a man I love but don't know why.) and starring James Woods and Debbie Harry. He raises some really interesting ideas in that movie about violence as portrayed on tv and how it desensitizes people to violence inthe real world. I also found it interesting that he depicts sadio-masicistic (sp) gender roles...the woman of course being on the masicistic end. Angela Carter wrote a book called "the Sadeain Woman" about the women in novels by the Marquis de Sade. She examines the roles of women as both the victim and victor. ANYWAY my point is...women tend to always be on the receiving end of pain and torture...and so many movies love to show women in this light. TO me this is just sick...and supports a rape culture. (or it feeds that culture that perpetuates it. well that's it for me...I'm very glad to hear from you Barbara...and thanks for the warning about starship troopers...but are the FX good? Speaking of Insect films, did you and your boyfriend happen to see "Mimic? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 17:26:28 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stephen Smith Subject: Re: Gibbon's Decline and Fall Jana: I spent my M.A. years wrestling with the very problem of the exclusion or inferior placement of women within religious structures. During the course of my Religious studies degree, I took some courses in women's expression within Christianity, esp women's religious experiences. I also examined other religion's attitudes towards women. Islam is one of the most interesting, because they state that all should be equal. It was even something that Mohammed taught. However, in practice that isn't how it has come out. If you are interested in Islam read Mernissi's book called the "veil and the male elite." Mernissi is I think Egyptian and has studies Islamic tenets very thoroughly. THis is a brilliant analysis of how patriarchal culture twists things to mould their own ideas. Christianity is also very frustrating in many ways. Catholicism still won't allow women priests because they would distract the male priests from their vow of celibacy. This is also the argument for women to wear veils. Its as if men are so base they cannot control themselves. its a shame isn't it? (sarcasm) Instead of taking the blame themselves...they make women cover up and exclude them from religious vocation. SOmehow forgetting the problem will make it go away. Yeah right. ANother really interesting book on women's bodies within modern culture and religion is Bordo's "Unbearable weight." It is also a brilliant book. One of my interests is how women particularly feminist writers have taken religious myths and interverted them. Muriel Spark and Angela Carter (even Anne Sexton and SYlvia Plath) have taken biblical myths and played with them to expose the chauvenism of them. I think "Passion for a NEw Eve" by Carter exposes the social construct of gender. SHe really is a very witty and ascerbic writer. Julien ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 17:31:32 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stephen Smith Subject: Re: (fwd) Re: Introduction (Tardy) HI Vonda: I was rather shocked to find you posting on this site and must say I thought it was a bit of a fluke. In high school I was enamoured with "the Bride" for some reason (movie with Sting and Jennifer Beals) and used your movie adaptation for my forensics circuit. I am curious about this princess Leia bondage doll. If you could rant more about that I would be interested. Funny that men tend to remember Leia in that slave dress in the beginning of "Return of the Jedi" than anything else. (did you see the episode of Friends in which Ross wanted Rachel to dress like that? it was his sexual fantasy...yawn) Also where are all the females in Lucas's creations? the only main female character is Leia and she becomes more of a sexual pawn between Han and Luke...yes who will get the rich princess? I love Lucas don't get me wrong...but Julien ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 12:52:11 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Cheryl Hall Subject: Introduction In-Reply-To: <199711080603.AAA04516@piglet.cc.uic.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Following the tide of slightly-overdue-introductions-after-a-few-posts: If I remember correctly, I discovered this list when it was posted on the Society for Women in Philosophy discussion list. I teach political theory and feminist theory at the University of South Florida, which is in Tampa (and for those of you who know anything about Florida geography, no, there isn't a University of Really South Florida). I also currently co-edit _Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy_. My "fun" reading consists almost exclusively of feminist science fiction, but actually work and play aren't so separate since I think sf is essentially another form of political theory. As for how I got here, I remember reading things like the Narnia Tales, A Wrinkle in Time, and eventually Asimov's Foundation series as a kid, but didn't discover feminist science fiction until I got to UC Santa Cruz in the early 80's and met a friend who had taken a class on it from Donna Haraway the year before. Though I practically begged Donna to teach it again before I graduated, alas it was not to be. Still, my friend fed me novels all year long, and when she left I realized my source was gone and it was high time to start my own collection. Following common academic practice, my solution to not getting to take a course in feminist science fiction was to teach one at my earliest opportunity. My all time favorite feminist "utopia" remains Woman on the Edge of Time; I would move to Mattappoissett in two seconds flat. Other favorite novels include The Female Man, Native Tongue, A Door Into Ocean, some of Tiptree's stories, Cry Wolf (by Aileen La Tourette), The Kin of Ata (by Dorothy Bryant), and virtually anything by Le Guin, especially The Dispossessed and The Eye of the Heron. Recent (to me) discoveries include The Fifth Sacred Thing, The City, Not Long After (by Pat Murphy), Mindplayers (by Pat Cadigan), and Le Guin's 2 latest collections of stories. At least one recurring theme one might notice from this list is that of violent vs. nonviolent resistance to oppression; the question of *how* to "change reality" without reinstalling violence and domination continues to fascinate me. Quick aside to Susan Palwick: after reading about it on this list, I recently read Kim Antieau's The Jigsaw Woman, which deals with abuse, and at least to my mind had some echoes of what has been called multiple personality disorder, of course one not uncommon survival strategy for abuse survivors. Sign me another somewhat long-winded academic type-- --- Cheryl Hall Department of Government & International Affairs University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, 33620 ph:(813) 974-0819 fax:(813) 974-0832 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 12:25:51 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Becca Stoler Subject: Re: Seven Years in Tibet (The Movie) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -----Original Message----- From: Jana C. McCormick To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Date: Friday, November 07, 1997 11:22 PM Subject: [*FSFFU*] Seven Years in Tibet (The Movie) >Seven Years in Tibet, an excellent movie, is an example of how the "teaching >of compassion" depends upon the person and the setting/situation. >>Neil Rest says: >><< the purpost of the culture of Tibet is to maximize compassion.>> > >For instance, fear of foreigners kept the people from providing temporary >assistance. Until one man stepped in... >I don't want to ruin the story for anyone. It's in theaters now. >This is a true story and, I believe a wonderful opportunity, politically, for >the people of Tibet to let Americans know what is going on. Americans are >more likely to watch the movie than to seek out the few news reports >concerning the oppression of people of Tibet and the Dalai Lama. I agree, it was truly an excellent movie (even though it does star Brad Pitt) It is on a par with Schindler's List, only easier to watch. I think it is an excellent movie, that everyone should see. Perhaps even worthy of the Best Picture award! (no, I don't work for any movie company, I am just a college student.) Becca ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 12:37:45 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Becca Stoler Subject: Re: Gibbon's Decline and Fall MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >I found this an insightful novel. I appreciate the statements concerning >female oppression and religion. I love the "Hail Mary Assumption" but I >thought the ending and, especially, the character of Webster a cop-out. >Why did this evil character, similar to the devil, have to be in the book? I >felt this was an example of how we, as humans, want to blame our own behavior >on a higher power instead of taking responsibility for it. > >The example of women's exclusion from religion is enough of an example for me >of how men believe women are inferior. Even in this enlightened age, we have >come a long way but not long enough (it is quite amazing when you think back >50 or just 20 years ago), women like myself still accept oppression, >especially in religion. Perhaps, that is part of the reason religion appears >to be in decline among younger generations. >If this is not so, I'm sure someone will enlighten me? In my viewpoint, the >younger (American) generation is not interested, a larger minority, in what >biases and prejudices religion has to offer. >Perhaps, I simply speak for myself. Many young people I know are not >interested in putting their disinterest into words. > Speaking as an eighteen year old college student, I believe I am one of the "young people" you are referring to. I am very interested in putting my feelings into words. I grew up Jewish, was raised belonging to every type of Synagogue from Orthodox to Reform, and for a while, even considered becoming a Rabbi. what changed all that? When my grandfather died, our Rabbi learned that he had worked three jobs at a time to keep food on the table, and the Rabbi turned hi nose up at us and refused to lead the services of mourning after the funeral. I stepped in. I knew the services, and I had been leading the Sunday school services at the synagogue for over a year. (I was teaching there). When the rest of the community heard that I was leading the service for my family and friends, I got both barrels. (this was a reform community!) "A woman cannot lead the Shiva service" I heard this over and over. I became disgusted. I still attend high holiday services in respect for the family members of mine that died for Judaism (Dachau, Auschwitz, and some other less famous camps) But I am no longer a Jew. I cannot worship a deity that forbids womyn from praying, or practice a religion where in a Rabbi may turn their nose up at a family because they are not white-collar. I fell in with a group of Wiccans, they were very kind to me, and expected nothing from me. I now consider myself a pagan and I worship the goddess in her three forms (maid mother and crone), and I revere Gaia (the earth mother). This makes more sense to me. Paganism believes that people are people, and no-one needs to be subservient to any one else. The main tenant of paganism is : And it harm NONE! do what thou wilt. This I like. Sorry about my prattling off topic, but you did ask... ;) Becca ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 13:43:00 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Susan Palwick Subject: 7th Annual Cultural Studies Symposium, Religion, Leia, Starship , Troopers In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In response to Julien's question about the Kansas conference -- which is in Manhattan, not Wichita -- it's subtitled "Violence Incorporated" and is being held from March 12-14, 1998. I think the conference has a website, but I don't know the URL. Those of you out there debating the oppression of women in religion: what does anyone think of the work of Matthew Fox? I discovered his books a few years ago and felt as if FINALLY someone was describing my own spiritual beliefs -- beliefs I'd held for a long time but had never found written down in one place. For those of you who don't know his work, I recommend "A Spirituality Named Compassion" and "The Reinvention of Work." Now I'm going to go into Devil's Advocate mode. To the folks who are complaining about the Leia-in-bondage doll: yeah, it's a pretty silly outfit, but please remember that in the movie, that's what she's wearing when she strangles what's-his-face with the chain and manages to get away. She needs a bit of help to do it, but the silly outfit doesn't remove any of her spunk. Please, let's not judge the character even of so 2D a persona as Leia by what she's wearing: that's a bit anti-feminist in itself, no? To me, one of the things feminism is about is realizing that women have brains even when they're wearing skimpy outfits . . . and even (*gasp!*) when they may have *chosen,* unlike Leia, to wear those outfits, for whatever reason. Granted, this may not have been the rationale of the people doing the marketing. *Sigh* And to Barbara Benesch, who writes of "Starship Troopers," "both the 'war' storyline, as well as the violence on the screen . . . will make most women avoid it altogether," please watch your assumptions. :) I know *plenty* of women who enjoy the occasional shlock gore-fest, and who aren't inherently opposed to militarism. Heck, I know women who've been in the armed services. I'll probably be seeing the movie myself this weekend, and I cheerfully expect to hate it on a number of grounds (not least the fact that it's based on a Heinlein novel, and most of the women *I* know DO object to his misogyny). Still, there have been plenty of violent movies I've enjoyed (the work of Quentin Tarantino springs to mind). Again, for me, feminism means being able to define my *own* preferences and priorities, rather than having to accept the labels either of patriarchal men or of other feminists. Oh, one last thing -- although this may be off-topic (moderator, please squelch me if it is): what do folks here think about the SUNY controversy? (Seems to me that sexual imagination falls into the realm of fantasy, but maybe that's too broad an interpretation.) Okay, I'm done playing Devil's Advocate for the moment. Peace to all, Susan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 21:48:35 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: Market for SFF (was Tie In Novels: The End of SF or the World as We Know It?) >I wouldn't even know how to start attempting to enlarge the market. This is a question which has quite a bit of resonance for me at the moment as there's a move afoot at work (a specialist library) to try and get more readers through the doors, more quantifiable statistics of use, etc. The approach being undertaken seems to me a bit scattershot, as though getting people through the door is an end in itself, rather than making sure that the users who really need to know about our collections, but don't, are able to hear about us (and I'm sure there are large nos of these). And I often wonder, does anything have to appeal to everybody, or even the majority, or at least a large percentage? Why shouldn't things be a minority interest? There are innumerable minority interests which nonetheless have a wide enough basis of support (given that a single-figure percentage of the contemporary literate, book-buying population is still A LOT of people) that they are economically viable in publishing terms (not just fiction but hobby interests, etc). I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that far more people had bought the 2 anthologies in which my 2 published short stories appear, than either of my academic works, although (because of the economics of academic publication) both of the latter are thought to have done quite well, since more people buy Penguin anthologies (I imagine) than buy hardbacks from Yale UP. I realise that this may not be the way publishing conglomerates think: though I do have a vague sense of reading somewhere that the thing these days IS 'niche-marketing' rather than selling everything like boxes of washing powder. Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 16:21:10 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sean Johnston Subject: Re: (fwd) Re: Introduction (Tardy) In-Reply-To: <34853b0d.379924648@mail.oz.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >Now, if anybody wants to discuss the Bondage & >Discipline B/a/r/b/i/e/ Leia action figure, which >we are apparently supposed to run right out and >buy for all the little girls on our Xmas lists, >that might could fit the mailing list's >parameters. > >Vonda > Vonda, This sounds sorta spooky. What is it? Another rip on Barbie? -Sean Death has its own honor. To refuse to live is the height of dishonor. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 16:23:29 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sean Johnston Subject: Re: (fwd) Re: Introduction (Tardy) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >HI Vonda: > I was rather shocked to find you posting on this site and must >say I thought >it was a bit of a fluke. In high school I was enamoured with "the Bride" for >some reason (movie with Sting and Jennifer Beals) and used your movie >adaptation for my forensics circuit. > I am curious about this princess Leia bondage doll. If you could >rant more >about that I would be interested. Funny that men tend to remember Leia in >that slave dress in the beginning of "Return of the Jedi" than anything else. >(did you see the episode of Friends in which Ross wanted Rachel to dress like >that? it was his sexual fantasy...yawn) Funny, I almost always think of Leia in the white dress and the cinnamon roll hairdo. -Sean Death has its own honor. To refuse to live is the height of dishonor. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 17:18:09 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Becca Stoler Subject: Re: (fwd) Re: Introduction (Tardy) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -----Original Message----- From: Sean Johnston To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Date: Saturday, November 08, 1997 4:40 PM Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] (fwd) Re: Introduction (Tardy) >> >>Now, if anybody wants to discuss the Bondage & >>Discipline B/a/r/b/i/e/ Leia action figure, which >>we are apparently supposed to run right out and >>buy for all the little girls on our Xmas lists, >>that might could fit the mailing list's >>parameters. >> >>Vonda >> > >Vonda, > This sounds sorta spooky. What is it? Another rip on Barbie? > >-Sean > >Death has its own honor. To refuse to live is the height of dishonor. I too am very curious about this, I remember her with the funky bagel hair-do and the white dress, but I do see where the bondage doll could come from, but is Mattel (tm) actually doing that? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 21:57:34 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Barbara Benesch Subject: Re: Starship Troopers In a message dated 97-11-08 17:05:09 EST, Susan Palwick wrote: > And to Barbara Benesch, who writes of "Starship Troopers," "both the 'war' > storyline, as well as the violence on the screen . . . will make most > women avoid it altogether," please watch your assumptions. :) I know > *plenty* of women who enjoy the occasional shlock gore-fest, and who > aren't inherently opposed to militarism. Heck, I know women who've been > in the armed services. I'll probably be seeing the movie myself this > weekend, and I cheerfully expect to hate it on a number of grounds (not > least the fact that it's based on a Heinlein novel, and most of the women > *I* know DO object to his misogyny). Still, there have been plenty of > violent movies I've enjoyed (the work of Quentin Tarantino springs to > mind). Again, for me, feminism means being able to define my *own* > preferences and priorities, rather than having to accept the labels either > of patriarchal men or of other feminists. Susan, I stated myself badly (I was writing at 4a.m. after having been up all day and seeing a midnight show). I too enjoy a good "butt-kicking" sort of movie, and know women who've been in the armed forces, and even considered joining myself for a while, and (while this may be too much information) fully support women in combat, as far as that goes. When I spoke of "keeping most women out of the theater", I was speaking more of women like my mother, who would be willing to see "Men in Black" but will definitely not see "Alien: Resurrection" (which I am *desperately* looking forward to, although I am half-expecting to be disappointed by some of the feminist themes therein), as she is not actually "into" science fiction, but will watch the occasional more mainstream science fiction movie. Women who are not necessarily into science fiction were more of who I was discussing there. Sorry I was not clear. Also, as far as the gory aspect of the movie, I will fall upon the words of one of my friends who saw it with me: "After the tenth evisceration, you either got used to it or started to get sick." I can take a certain amount of violence, but after too much, I'm no longer comfortable, or enjoying whatever movie I'm watching (and I'm speaking strictly for myself here). I think what made me most uncomfortable was that if the point of the unending violence in the movie was to demonstrate the brutalities of war, then the teenage males I observed in the theater didn't seem touched by it. Susan, I agree - the point of feminism is for women to choose for themselves what they do and do not enjoy, free of patriarchal influence over what is "proper" for women to enjoy. Believe me, all through high school I was looked at strangely because I was a girl who was into science fiction, and so I'm definitely a supporter of women choosing for themselves what they do and do not enjoy. I would be interested to hear what you thought of the movie once you have seen it, if you don't mind. Barbara Benesch BJBenesch@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 03:45:01 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stephen Smith Subject: Re: Starship Troopers I must report that just a few hours ago, I sat through "starship troopers." First I would like to commend Verhoever for returning to a genre he does well. I think to appreciate the movie, you have to know some of his other work...most notably "robocop" of which this movie most resembles. I don't think that he was advocating violence, rather he is "taking the piss" (i don't know a good American equivalent to this phrase...maybe satirizing) of totalitarian, gung ho, I'm an American I'm going kick some alien butt ideologies. I think like Cronenberg he stretches the violence to its ultimate...not only for gross factor but to really evicerate his audience. If "videodrome" has any wisdom, its that what we see on screen registers as a kind of reality experience for us. War is grotesque and i think the movie depicts the guts and gore of it. People don't go into battle and emerge unscathed, they get limbs torn off or blown to bits. Verhoeven also follows "robocop" by employing the news updates or propaganda updates. They are, I think, not only showing what happens during wartime (remember the onslaught of coverage of the gulf war?) but he is also making a statement about the role of MEDIA in shaping peoples perceptions. In one scene a videographer keeps shooting the carnage despite the risk...think about the crazed papparazi that chase stars down the interstate at 100 miles an hour. I must also state that the females in the film don't fare that badly. There are atleast ENOUGH of them. In Gattaca ok there are women in the ranks, but they never say a word. Atleast these women can stand their own and in some cases out rank the men. I thought the shower scene was also interesting, as so many military films depict men as being slime of the earth. Sexually harrassing at every turn or atleast drawing attention to the physical differences (think GI JANE...she had to prove herself as a man to get that respect) in this film, the women are one of the guys. I think that has something to do with the Totalitarian or communist overtones...referring to others as "citizen" rather than Mr or Miss. Has anyone read this Heinlein book? I would be interested to know how it differs. Finally (yes I am going to stop soon) I agree with Barbara that those dying words of Dis were INCREDIBLY stupid. I do disagree that the response "I'm your girl" sounds dumb. Men say "im your man," so what is the difference? Overall I enjoyed the movie. At first it seems to be directed at the 16-18 crowd, as it has both an amazingly blemish free younger cast and stereotypical teenage angst storylines; however the often gratuitous violence rescues it from that. Anyone else for comment? Julien ---------- From: For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature on behalf of Barbara Benesch Sent: Saturday, November 08, 1997 8:57 PM To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Starship Troopers In a message dated 97-11-08 17:05:09 EST, Susan Palwick wrote: > And to Barbara Benesch, who writes of "Starship Troopers," "both the 'war' > storyline, as well as the violence on the screen . . . will make most > women avoid it altogether," please watch your assumptions. :) I know > *plenty* of women who enjoy the occasional shlock gore-fest, and who > aren't inherently opposed to militarism. Heck, I know women who've been > in the armed services. I'll probably be seeing the movie myself this > weekend, and I cheerfully expect to hate it on a number of grounds (not > least the fact that it's based on a Heinlein novel, and most of the women > *I* know DO object to his misogyny). Still, there have been plenty of > violent movies I've enjoyed (the work of Quentin Tarantino springs to > mind). Again, for me, feminism means being able to define my *own* > preferences and priorities, rather than having to accept the labels either > of patriarchal men or of other feminists. Susan, I stated myself badly (I was writing at 4a.m. after having been up all day and seeing a midnight show). I too enjoy a good "butt-kicking" sort of movie, and know women who've been in the armed forces, and even considered joining myself for a while, and (while this may be too much information) fully support women in combat, as far as that goes. When I spoke of "keeping most women out of the theater", I was speaking more of women like my mother, who would be willing to see "Men in Black" but will definitely not see "Alien: Resurrection" (which I am *desperately* looking forward to, although I am half-expecting to be disappointed by some of the feminist themes therein), as she is not actually "into" science fiction, but will watch the occasional more mainstream science fiction movie. Women who are not necessarily into science fiction were more of who I was discussing there. Sorry I was not clear. Also, as far as the gory aspect of the movie, I will fall upon the words of one of my friends who saw it with me: "After the tenth evisceration, you either got used to it or started to get sick." I can take a certain amount of violence, but after too much, I'm no longer comfortable, or enjoying whatever movie I'm watching (and I'm speaking strictly for myself here). I think what made me most uncomfortable was that if the point of the unending violence in the movie was to demonstrate the brutalities of war, then the teenage males I observed in the theater didn't seem touched by it. Susan, I agree - the point of feminism is for women to choose for themselves what they do and do not enjoy, free of patriarchal influence over what is "proper" for women to enjoy. Believe me, all through high school I was looked at strangely because I was a girl who was into science fiction, and so I'm definitely a supporter of women choosing for themselves what they do and do not enjoy. I would be interested to hear what you thought of the movie once you have seen it, if you don't mind. Barbara Benesch BJBenesch@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 03:59:00 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stephen Smith Subject: Re: 7th Annual Cultural Studies Symposium, Religion, Leia, Starship , Troopers Susan: I have heard a bit about Matthew Fox's writing, but have never read any. I think he embraces a more holistic approach to deity doesn't he? I've seen him written about along with Wiccans. I think the Catholic church chucked him out. This is all coming off of a shaky memory. I also want to clarify this Leia issue. I don't think that anyone was castigating her for that outfit. I was stating the issue, because that outfit seems to be a kind of sexual turnon for men. I think my point was more what people have made of the outfit rather than her wearing it. I don't know if that was Lucas' way of sexualizing a "cold" female character. who knows. (she does dress in white...hmmm.) Since you brought this one up...i'm curious...what do you think then about dress and feminism? Do you think that dress isn't responsible for seeing women as objects? Does dress matter? is it an issue? I think it must be in some light. Merchandisers of really bad B movies know that they can increase video sales of a movie with a no name cast, director, or scriptwriter simply by putting a sexy, scantily clad woman on the cover of their box and mention the words "hot, sexy..."etc. Clothes or lack there of must make some impression upon the consumer. Julien PS: Now whether we can castigate a woman for dressing like that to sell...well that's another story;) This is a late response but I'm going to say it anyhow...about the Uma Thurman character in Gattaca. I felt that yes she stretched a bit beyond her role. However, I also was a bit bothered by the lines (mentioned several times) "you look alright from where i'm standing" She was to some degree a show piece, a beautiful object...remember the ballroom scene? ---------- From: For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature on behalf of Susan Palwick Sent: Saturday, November 08, 1997 3:43 PM To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Subject: [*FSFFU*] 7th Annual Cultural Studies Symposium, Religion, Leia, Starship , Troopers In response to Julien's question about the Kansas conference -- which is in Manhattan, not Wichita -- it's subtitled "Violence Incorporated" and is being held from March 12-14, 1998. I think the conference has a website, but I don't know the URL. Those of you out there debating the oppression of women in religion: what does anyone think of the work of Matthew Fox? I discovered his books a few years ago and felt as if FINALLY someone was describing my own spiritual beliefs -- beliefs I'd held for a long time but had never found written down in one place. For those of you who don't know his work, I recommend "A Spirituality Named Compassion" and "The Reinvention of Work." Now I'm going to go into Devil's Advocate mode. To the folks who are complaining about the Leia-in-bondage doll: yeah, it's a pretty silly outfit, but please remember that in the movie, that's what she's wearing when she strangles what's-his-face with the chain and manages to get away. She needs a bit of help to do it, but the silly outfit doesn't remove any of her spunk. Please, let's not judge the character even of so 2D a persona as Leia by what she's wearing: that's a bit anti-feminist in itself, no? To me, one of the things feminism is about is realizing that women have brains even when they're wearing skimpy outfits . . . and even (*gasp!*) when they may have *chosen,* unlike Leia, to wear those outfits, for whatever reason. Granted, this may not have been the rationale of the people doing the marketing. *Sigh* And to Barbara Benesch, who writes of "Starship Troopers," "both the 'war' storyline, as well as the violence on the screen . . . will make most women avoid it altogether," please watch your assumptions. :) I know *plenty* of women who enjoy the occasional shlock gore-fest, and who aren't inherently opposed to militarism. Heck, I know women who've been in the armed services. I'll probably be seeing the movie myself this weekend, and I cheerfully expect to hate it on a number of grounds (not least the fact that it's based on a Heinlein novel, and most of the women *I* know DO object to his misogyny). Still, there have been plenty of violent movies I've enjoyed (the work of Quentin Tarantino springs to mind). Again, for me, feminism means being able to define my *own* preferences and priorities, rather than having to accept the labels either of patriarchal men or of other feminists. Oh, one last thing -- although this may be off-topic (moderator, please squelch me if it is): what do folks here think about the SUNY controversy? (Seems to me that sexual imagination falls into the realm of fantasy, but maybe that's too broad an interpretation.) Okay, I'm done playing Devil's Advocate for the moment. Peace to all, Susan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 20:09:53 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Lindy S. L. Lovvik" Subject: Re: Starship Troopers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Stephen Smith (Julien) wrote: > Finally (yes I am going to stop soon) I agree with Barbara that > those dying words of Dis were INCREDIBLY stupid. I do disagree > that the response "I'm your girl" sounds dumb. Men say "im your > man," so what is the difference? > Julien I suspect the difference lies in the fact that men are adults and girls are not. A man saying "I'm your boy" would sound equally idiotic. Lindy ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 23:20:08 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Allen Briggs Subject: Re: Starship Troopers Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I caught the late afternoon matinee of _Starship Troopers_ and found it to be rather cartoon-ish. It bears only a slight, superficial resemblance to the book (at least as I remember it). *sigh* If you do go, don't expect a movie version of the book. At all. I've heard it described as, "loosely based on the back cover of the Heinlein novel." There's spoiler stuff below because I just had to rant some... Anyway, I'm going to try and keep quiet about this from now on because I have a desire to rant about it... -allen PS. For newcomers on the list... I'm a 27 year-old computer programmer with a long-time love of Science Fiction, Feminism, and Gay (and Lesbian, and Bi- ;-) Rights. I'm just getting more into femsf as I find it (and write down recommendations that come across this list). I was raised as a liberal Quaker, but don't now claim any church affiliation beyond that. I tend to enjoy "hard-sf" and "eco-femi-utopias" as well as some cyberpunk and the occasional fantasy. Authors that I like are Heinlein (can't help it ;-), Asimov, Bear, Slonczewski, Piercy, Diane Duane, Sheri Tepper, O. Butler, Nicola Griffith (I haven't picked up Slow River yet, though)-:, Le Guin, Pat Murphy, and a host of others. I'm currently making my way through the "New Legends" anthology put together by Bear and Greenburg(?) that I picked up at ICFA last March. I was at ICFA because my wife was presenting a paper there. *** Spoiler stuff *** The eviscerations didn't bother me too much. Probably because Alien/s was worse and at least parts of this looked a bit like Nickelodeon "slime" or "goop" or whatever they call it. I didn't find the special effects looking that great. The bugs didn't move realistically to me, nor did the ships. Some of the props looked like painted cardboard and seemed as flimsy. The death and dismemberment came across as kind of comic-book-y. It didn't seem real to me at all. I was surprised that Diaz's character wasn't choking on the fake blood. Was it just me, or did the bugs look something like the aliens in Alien/s? Coincidence, or are these monsters some sort of an amalgamation of some common fears? Some of the plot changes were understandable. Some seemed completely gratuitous. The whole love interest thing seemed to fit both categories. The whole Nazi thing was annoying. The weaponry was ludicrous. The surrounding technology was unbelievable (yes, only a Hollywood set designer would build a fort with supporting structures on the outside and without being sure of the security of the foundation. I'm a pacifist, though, so what do I know? And the asteroids? The bugs are clear on the other side of the galaxy. That's 100,000 light-years. And they're propelling ROCKS from there? At sub-light speed? In response to human incursions into their space? And this is set in the 23rd century? That's a bit too much disbelief for me to suspend. Oh. On the point that Barbara, I think, mentioned. I think it's pretty clear that Carmen is not a virgin (unless I completely misread "my father won't be home tonight."), but I'm not sure if that affects your argument. I came away from this movie kind of like I came away from _First Knight_, actually. I felt like so much more could have been done and that the subject matter was completely misunderstood by everyone from the screenwriters to the producers and hence the audience. ...and was it just me, or did the mouth of the "brain" bug resemble a sinister view of a part of human anatomy just a little bit? [*] Anyway, I think I'm going to have to read the book again to see how skewed my memories are. I can't imagine what they'd do with _Tunnel In the Sky_... ALL that said, the only feminist aspect of the book that I recall was Heinlein's assertion that women have better reaction and decision-making times and therefore make better pilots than men. And that was barely implied by the movie, so I'm thinking that this is off-topic... [*] Frank and graphic description of what I mean that I will probably regret sending when the morning rolls around follows. Please delete now if you will take offense, and please don't try to psycho-analyze me based on this. The mouth of the "brain" bug looked to me like a vulva with the brain-sucking attachment. After it sucked the brains out of Carmen's partner and was oozing toward her, it looked like it was leaking semen. Reading (probably) waaaay too much into it, it took a woman (Carmen) to remove the brain-sucker so that the men (specifically, the ultra-man, drill-sarge-dude) could bring the bug in, but of course, Private Zim gets all the credit. Blech. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 00:25:20 -0600 Reply-To: lguerra@ibm.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: luz guerra Subject: Re: 7th Annual Cultural Studies Symposium, Religion, Leia, Starship , Troopers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Stephen Smith wrote: > > Susan: >....... > Since you brought this one up...i'm curious...what do you think then about > dress and feminism? Do you think that dress isn't responsible for seeing > women as objects? Does dress matter? is it an issue? I think it must be in > some light. Merchandisers of really bad B movies know that they can increase > video sales of a movie with a no name cast, director, or scriptwriter simply > by putting a sexy, scantily clad woman on the cover of their box and mention > the words "hot, sexy..."etc. Clothes or lack there of must make some > impression upon the consumer. > Julien > lg: Had to put in my two cents here (even though I haven't yet done the bio thing) 1) women were objectified BEFORE different cultures imposed an interpretation of what kind of women we were by what we were wearing. (Exposed or partially exposed breasts are not universal symbols of "hot & sexy", for example, but each culture has its image of what a "loose" or "bad" woman dresses like.) 2) Where men are, in general, NOT objectified, they can wear whatever they want and not necessarily be subjected to a cultural interpretation of their dress representing them as objects. For example, I live in a place where it is very HOT most of the year. Men can walk or run around with no shirts, body hair and nipples exposed, buttocks accentuated by clinging shorts and not be accused of dressing like sex objects, "asking for it" by their dress, or of presenting themselves as "hot, sexy..." the same is not true for women. Rambo was never called a slut for his bare chest. On the F/SF & movies theme and dress -- the daytime dress of men and women working at that "space corporation" in Gattaca tended towards gender-neutral and thus less sex-object-ish. (my ability to be coherent declines after 10 pm, sorry) In Star Wars, IMHO, clothing made clear that men were men and women were "princesses" -- thus the symbolism of Leia's white flowing gown-with-not-too-much-bosom vs Solo's rugged, sweaty gear. Then there were the days of Barbarella , Women of the Prehistoric Planet, One Million Years BC. Going back another decade, there was a Zsa Zsa Gabor movie about space queens on venus or something.... in all of these hollywood dressed women as "objects". Just in terms of dress not signifying women as objects the first Aliens film was a breath of fresh air... as it were. luz ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 01:56:20 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: Starship Troopers In-Reply-To: <19971108232008.20552@puma.macbsd.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I too saw Starship Troopers this evening. Amazingly, I liked it, though perhaps my reaction has something to do with the beer I drank beforehand! I have to say that I thought women in general fared pretty well. There were plenty of them among the soldiers, and their presence seemed taken for granted. The group shower scene, in particular, surprised me -- there seemed to be no sexual innuendo attached to the men and women being naked together -- it was just normal. There were also quite a few women officers. However, there were some things that struck me as a little odd. As Allen mentioned, the brain bug's orifice seemed very like a vagina. Apparently there is something so disturbing about women's genitals that they're a natural model for evil alien nasty bits. (A recurrent visual element in the Alien movies' marketing is a glowing vertical slit.) And I thought Dizzy's last words, "At least I got to have you," were silly as all get out. She seemed obsessively fixated on Rico. But then Rico's choice to join the service was predicated on his obsessive fixation on Carmen... Basically, the movie seemed tongue in cheek. Very cynical. I had heard some talk of it beforehand (I have not read the book), particularly regarding the "fascism". Yes, the military did come across as driven by propaganda (I too thought of the "War In The Gulf" television footage), and there was one hint early in the film that perhaps the bugs were acting defensively... but that was disregarded by everyone. I was very amused towards the end when the previously hypothetical brain bug appeared, and you know what? It actually looked like a brain! And when it was captured, helpless, surrounded by enemy troops, the "psychic" guy (Doogie Howser, MD) placed his hand on its quivering noggin and pronounced, "It's AFRAID!" Deanna Troi, he's out for your job! I can only imagine that Verhoeven is laughing all the way to the bank. -- Janice ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: Radiohead, OK Computer; Tricky, Pre-Millennium Tension "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 09:05:56 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Vonda N. McIntyre" Subject: Re: Tie In Novels: The End of SF or the World as We Know It? In-Reply-To: <34647774.AA8C9B91@mint.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Nina, I guess an eternal question of writing is the art v. business aspect. A benefit of success is that it allows you to continue doing what you like to do. Did Emily Dickinson ever have to worry where the next rent payment was coming from? (Or, if she did, did she have any reasonable hope of helping contribute to it, by publishing her poetry or in any other way? I don't know enough about her or the period she was living in to make even an educated guess.) Those of us who write tie-in novels have to put up with the occasional sneer down the nose from a certain small subset of our colleagues, who are of the opinion that we should go out and get honest jobs -- that the world in general and sf in particular would be better off, and that we ourselves would be behaving in a more honorable manner. Most of the sneerers, I note, are not among those who have to worry particularly about paying the rent. Vonda On Sat, 8 Nov 1997 09:30:12 -0500, "Nina M. Osier" wrote: >Vonda, thank you for posting your "rant" after all! I do wish I had >some ideas on how to change the larger world's perception of SF. I >never cease to be amazed by the otherwise intelligent people who still >regard speculative fiction of any type as something for adolescent boys >only. > >Speaking as someone still in the process of breaking in, I am also >saddened that the measure of success in this as in every other field of >endeavor has to be "how much money have you made by doing it." That's >our society, I accept it as it is; but it's still pitiful. How much >money did Emily Dickinson make...? > >Nina http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda Some official good news at http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 09:05:58 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Vonda N. McIntyre" Subject: Re: (fwd) Re: Introduction (Tardy) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Julien, On Sat, 8 Nov 1997 17:31:32 UT, Stephen Smith wrote: >HI Vonda: > I was rather shocked to find you posting on this site and must say I thought >it was a bit of a fluke. How so? Um... have I been out of line in posting? >In high school I was enamoured with "the Bride" for >some reason (movie with Sting and Jennifer Beals) and used your movie >adaptation for my forensics circuit. Do you mean, to read while you were travelling? I'm sorry to be so ignorant but I have no clue what a forensics circuit is. I talked to the editor after the book had been on the stands for a while and asked him how it was doing. "It was selling great," he said. "Until the movie came out." The original screenplay was a charming feminist remake of THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. The movie managed to take out most of Eve's spark. Maybe it was just that the director was enamored of filming Jennifer Beals lying on a fainting couch, I dunno. > I am curious about this princess Leia bondage doll. If you could rant more >about that I would be interested. Funny that men tend to remember Leia in >that slave dress in the beginning of "Return of the Jedi" than anything else. >(did you see the episode of Friends in which Ross wanted Rachel to dress like >that? it was his sexual fantasy...yawn) Also where are all the females in >Lucas's creations? the only main female character is Leia and she becomes >more of a sexual pawn between Han and Luke...yes who will get the rich >princess? I love Lucas don't get me wrong...but >Julien After STAR WARS came out and the studio was sending out representatives to sf conventions to plug the second movie, one of the guys showing clips swore swore swore that there would be more women in subsequent movies. I think there were, what, two? in the background of EMPIRE. I nearly got a speeding ticket trying to get my Camaro to go into hyperspace on my way home from seeing STAR WARS the first time, but the lack of women characters, particularly in the background parts, was a serious and distressing flaw as far as I was concerned. For all I know, the Leia action figure is aimed at men rather than at kids. That would almost explain it. Vonda http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda Some official good news at http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 09:06:03 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Vonda N. McIntyre" Subject: Re: Market for SFF (was Tie In Novels: The End of SF or the World as We Know It?) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Lesley, Everything shouldn't appeal to everyone -- but the idea that it should is a big huge enormous problem in publishing today (_I_ think). Books that _don't_ appeal to everyone are the ones being weeded out in favor of books that sell a quarter of a million copies in the first six weeks. The same books don't even get enough time to find their audience. It used to be that sf novels stayed in print for a long time. That doesn't happen much anymore. The current audience for books is such a minuscule part of the potential audience for books -- even a huge bestseller sells to, what, 1/2 of 1% of the population? -- that maybe it would be a useful thing to try to enlarge the current audience. Not try to jam science fiction down the throats of people who realio trulio wouldn't like it, but try to get people who might like it at least to try it. And they sure won't if we ourselves sub-ghettoize the field and throw out everything that's "too good" or "too popular." Literary SF probably always will be a relatively small audience -- isn't literary fiction, period, a relatively small audience? -- but why not try to draw in people who would be interested in it, the same way you'd like to get the word out about your library collections? Vonda (Who still has no idea how one would begin to do this.) On Sat, 8 Nov 1997 21:48:35 UT, Lesley Hall wrote: >>I wouldn't even know how to start attempting to enlarge the market. > >This is a question which has quite a bit of resonance for me at the moment as >there's a move afoot at work (a specialist library) to try and get more >readers through the doors, more quantifiable statistics of use, etc. The >approach being undertaken seems to me a bit scattershot, as though getting >people through the door is an end in itself, rather than making sure that the >users who really need to know about our collections, but don't, are able to >hear about us (and I'm sure there are large nos of these). > >And I often wonder, does anything have to appeal to everybody, or even the >majority, or at least a large percentage? Why shouldn't things be a minority >interest? There are innumerable minority interests which nonetheless have a >wide enough basis of support (given that a single-figure percentage of the >contemporary literate, book-buying population is still A LOT of people) that >they are economically viable in publishing terms (not just fiction but hobby >interests, etc). > >I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that far more people had bought the 2 >anthologies in which my 2 published short stories appear, than either of my >academic works, although (because of the economics of academic publication) >both of the latter are thought to have done quite well, since more people buy >Penguin anthologies (I imagine) than buy hardbacks from Yale UP. > >I realise that this may not be the way publishing conglomerates think: though >I do have a vague sense of reading somewhere that the thing these days IS >'niche-marketing' rather than selling everything like boxes of washing powder. > >Lesley >Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda Some official good news at http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 09:06:00 GMT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Vonda N. McIntyre" Subject: Re: 7th Annual Cultural Studies Symposium, Religion, Leia, Starship , Troopers In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Susan, Aiee, I was afraid my offhand mention of the Leia bondage action figure would start a flame war. I see and understand your point, but here's my take on it. I was talking to some friends last night about the action figure; I showed them the advertising flyer, which is the bulk of the Star Wars official newsletter. We were trying to figure out why it is that the action figure annoyed us while the movie scenes didn't necessarily do so. ("Us" being 4 people, all fans of the original movie series, one the author of a Star Wars novel mainly featuring Leia; all 4 of us of the feminist/ liberal stripe, computer geeks and writers, 2 women, 2 men, of Seattle fishbelly complexion, toward the straightish side of the preference curve.) As you say: In the movie Leia not only escapes, she uses the leash to strangle the slaver. With the action figure, there's no slaver to strangle. It's static. It's Leia in the bondage outfit, period. Neither the doll nor the character in the movie had any choice about the outfit she's wearing. I wouldn't bet that no woman had anything to say about the choice of the outfit... but I wouldn't bet against the possibility, either. (In what context does a slave have a choice about what to wear, in any event?) The other stuff being advertised prominently features the other characters (perhaps I should mention to any lurking Martians that the other characters in the Star Wars movies are men) in Jedi robes or flights suits or cool long black capes, mostly carrying guns or light sabers. I'm not that big on weapons -- though I have about a thousand letters from people who liked my Star Wars novel because it _wasn't_ all about space battles, I'm the spawn of satan on the internet for doing exactly what I was asked and expected to do in my book: including women and (eek!) children in the universe; and for _not_ blowing everything up real good. (Except an entire star system at the end, but I guess that doesn't count.) I'm not saying, Leia has to have a gun too, just like the boys. What I am saying is, why is the slave outfit the one they picked to sell her in? Why not the elegant senator's robes, or the flying motorcycle flight suit? Why not several outfits? (Then they could charge more.) Maybe they've done all those, but others aren't mentioned in the newsletter. There's no Luke covered with garbage action figure or Han Solo trapped in black plastic action figure. It just really pushed the wrong button for me. And it added to my distress and disillusionment about Lucasfilms, as did their support of the no-royalties contract for Star Wars books. (I won't bore the list with that story -- anybody who's interested can click on the "writers deserve royalties" button on my web page and get the original information & update.) I repeat to myself what I heard in Hollywood at every turn, every time I mentioned that a scene in a screenplay didn't make sense, that the emotional reaction of a character was absurd, that a biological process was spelled (and therefore pronounced) wrong: Vonda, don't be so PICKY. It's a MOVIE. Why should I let it bother me? It's only a movie. It's only a doll. It's only a modern myth. Shouldn't count for anything at all. Vonda On Sat, 8 Nov 1997 13:43:00 -0800, Susan Palwick wrote: >... >Now I'm going to go into Devil's Advocate mode. To the folks who are >complaining about the Leia-in-bondage doll: yeah, it's a pretty silly >outfit, but please remember that in the movie, that's what she's wearing >when she strangles what's-his-face with the chain and manages to get away. >She needs a bit of help to do it, but the silly outfit doesn't remove any >of her spunk. Please, let's not judge the character even of so 2D a >persona as Leia by what she's wearing: that's a bit anti-feminist in >itself, no? To me, one of the things feminism is about is realizing that >women have brains even when they're wearing skimpy outfits . . . and even >(*gasp!*) when they may have *chosen,* unlike Leia, to wear those outfits, >for whatever reason. Granted, this may not have been the rationale of the >people doing the marketing. *Sigh* > >... http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda Some official good news at http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 18:42:42 +0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: hongkai MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=HZ-GB-2312 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit unsubscibe feministsf ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 12:26:08 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: Market for SFF (was Tie In Novels: The End of SF or the World as We Know It?) Dear Vonda I toally agree that the problem is largely one not so much even of publishing economics but publishers' perception of what the market for books should be (i.e. more important that x no of people should buy the heavily marketed book within a few weeks of its appearance even if they don't finish it or even read it (Hawking's History of Time, anyone?), rather than that ?% of x should buy it, love it, and recommend it so that it gets a slow building word of mouth/e-mail list rep). (I heard somewhere that this was in some part due to some change in warehousing expenses?) Not unique to genre/fiction publishing of course: general plaint in academic circles that publishers are not interested in the serious research monographs which advance debate/state of knowledge but want text-books/collections of synthesis-essays which can be marketed in 1000s to the expanding (though how long for in the UK under current changes in higher education system) undergraduate market. The upside to academic publishers is that they do tend to realise that it may take some time for a scholarly work to take off to the point where it's being set as course reading and therefore keep it in print longer than a general press: sad saga of a friend of mine who has published a brilliant work on English feminism and sexual morality 1880 to 1914 (Lucy Bland, 'Banishing the Beast': highly recommended), with Penguin, and just as it's being assigned for student reading, it's gone out of print. The downside is that the books cost more! I suppose it is a question of how people get into reading sff in the first place: for me (looking back) I suppose that, apart from the usual Narnia books and so forth as a child, it was picking up 'The Left Hand of Darkness' in the local public library after Le Guin's Newbery (?) prize for 'Wizard of Earthsea' had been reported (and the book reviewed) in the 'Guardian'--very early '70s? Rather a haphazard process. How one promotes this--apart from the word-of-mouth process--I've no idea. Especially as the particular books one person loves may turn off another who might nonetheless be a potential 'convert'. Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 09:22:31 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Nina M. Osier" Subject: Re: Starship Troopers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Julien - The difference is that men do NOT say, "I'm your boy." Nina Osier > Finally (yes I am going to stop soon) I agree with Barbara > that those dying > words of Dis were INCREDIBLY stupid. I do disagree that the response > "I'm > your girl" sounds dumb. Men say "im your man," so what is the > difference? > Anyone else for comment? > Julien > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 09:31:12 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Nina M. Osier" Subject: Re: Tie In Novels: The End of SF or the World as We Know It? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit And you are so right, Vonda! Here I sit getting ready to go to work on a new mss - knowing that my paycheck will greet me on Wednesday morning, and that while I'll never get rich working at a government archives I will certainly be able to make the bank happy when it's time to pay the mortgage again. The downside of this, of course, is that no matter where I am in the writing process I will have to get a decent sleep tonight and be able to make sense to my staff tomorrow morning at 7:30. Fortunately I like - no make that LOVE - my "pay-the-mortgage" job; but then not every part-time writer has the privilege of working where I do. Nina Vonda N. McIntyre wrote: > Hi Nina, > > I guess an eternal question of writing is the art > v. business aspect. > > A benefit of success is that it allows you to > continue doing what you like to do. Did Emily > Dickinson ever have to worry where the next rent > payment was coming from? (Or, if she did, did she > have any reasonable hope of helping contribute to > it, by publishing her poetry or in any other way? > I don't know enough about her or the period she > was living in to make even an educated guess.) > > Those of us who write tie-in novels have to put up > with the occasional sneer down the nose from a > certain small subset of our colleagues, who are of > the opinion that we should go out and get honest > jobs -- that the world in general and sf in > particular would be better off, and that we > ourselves would be behaving in a more honorable > manner. Most of the sneerers, I note, are not > among those who have to worry particularly about > paying the rent. > > Vonda > > On Sat, 8 Nov 1997 09:30:12 -0500, "Nina M. Osier" > wrote: > > >Vonda, thank you for posting your "rant" after all! I do wish I had > >some ideas on how to change the larger world's perception of SF. I > >never cease to be amazed by the otherwise intelligent people who > still > >regard speculative fiction of any type as something for adolescent > boys > >only. > > > >Speaking as someone still in the process of breaking in, I am also > >saddened that the measure of success in this as in every other field > of > >endeavor has to be "how much money have you made by doing it." > That's > >our society, I accept it as it is; but it's still pitiful. How much > > >money did Emily Dickinson make...? > > > >Nina > > http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda > Some official good news at > http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 09:28:59 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sean Johnston In-Reply-To: <199711091032.SAA03632@public.zz.ha.cn> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >unsubscibe feministsf C-ya! Take care. -Sean "America doesn't exist. I know...I lived there."--'Mon Oncle' ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 16:49:02 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stephen Smith Subject: Re: (fwd) Re: Introduction (Tardy) Vonda: I don't mean that you are out of line posting, I was just surprised that someone who can be considered "a celebrity" was talking to regular people. Maybe its this idea I have of the public shy Hollywood actor. DO you punch out photographers?(just joking) Julien ---------- From: For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature on behalf of Vonda N. McIntyre Sent: Sunday, November 09, 1997 3:05 AM To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] (fwd) Re: Introduction (Tardy) Hi Julien, On Sat, 8 Nov 1997 17:31:32 UT, Stephen Smith wrote: >HI Vonda: > I was rather shocked to find you posting on this site and must say I thought >it was a bit of a fluke. How so? Um... have I been out of line in posting? >In high school I was enamoured with "the Bride" for >some reason (movie with Sting and Jennifer Beals) and used your movie >adaptation for my forensics circuit. Do you mean, to read while you were travelling? I'm sorry to be so ignorant but I have no clue what a forensics circuit is. I talked to the editor after the book had been on the stands for a while and asked him how it was doing. "It was selling great," he said. "Until the movie came out." The original screenplay was a charming feminist remake of THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. The movie managed to take out most of Eve's spark. Maybe it was just that the director was enamored of filming Jennifer Beals lying on a fainting couch, I dunno. > I am curious about this princess Leia bondage doll. If you could rant more >about that I would be interested. Funny that men tend to remember Leia in >that slave dress in the beginning of "Return of the Jedi" than anything else. >(did you see the episode of Friends in which Ross wanted Rachel to dress like >that? it was his sexual fantasy...yawn) Also where are all the females in >Lucas's creations? the only main female character is Leia and she becomes >more of a sexual pawn between Han and Luke...yes who will get the rich >princess? I love Lucas don't get me wrong...but >Julien After STAR WARS came out and the studio was sending out representatives to sf conventions to plug the second movie, one of the guys showing clips swore swore swore that there would be more women in subsequent movies. I think there were, what, two? in the background of EMPIRE. I nearly got a speeding ticket trying to get my Camaro to go into hyperspace on my way home from seeing STAR WARS the first time, but the lack of women characters, particularly in the background parts, was a serious and distressing flaw as far as I was concerned. For all I know, the Leia action figure is aimed at men rather than at kids. That would almost explain it. Vonda http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda Some official good news at http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 17:00:10 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stephen Smith Subject: Re: Starship Troopers Janice" Yes that was precisely something I caught and thought...oh yeah for once we are really the bad guys. I thought the movie also showed the blindedness of war...when the reporter mentions that the bugs got stirred up from our intruision, Rico yells something like "a good bug is a dead bug." I'm sure some people may be able to add someother derogatory words in for bug to illustrate how racists or even bigots work. "Kill anything with four legs" was another one that made me think "Oh yeah...as long as it can be made different than us, we have no problem objectifing it so we can kill it." The first thing I said after that movie was hmmm that mouth of the brain sure looks like a vagina. (I thought I had seen "Naked Lunch" too many times and its many talking orifices) Also does anyone else pick up on the fact that in three different sci-fi movies the brainy being looks like an obese' blob? Think of DUne, (Jabba the hut?) and Starship Trooper. Julien ---------- From: For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature on behalf of Janice E. Dawley Sent: Sunday, November 09, 1997 12:56 AM To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Starship Troopers I too saw Starship Troopers this evening. Amazingly, I liked it, though perhaps my reaction has something to do with the beer I drank beforehand! I have to say that I thought women in general fared pretty well. There were plenty of them among the soldiers, and their presence seemed taken for granted. The group shower scene, in particular, surprised me -- there seemed to be no sexual innuendo attached to the men and women being naked together -- it was just normal. There were also quite a few women officers. However, there were some things that struck me as a little odd. As Allen mentioned, the brain bug's orifice seemed very like a vagina. Apparently there is something so disturbing about women's genitals that they're a natural model for evil alien nasty bits. (A recurrent visual element in the Alien movies' marketing is a glowing vertical slit.) And I thought Dizzy's last words, "At least I got to have you," were silly as all get out. She seemed obsessively fixated on Rico. But then Rico's choice to join the service was predicated on his obsessive fixation on Carmen... Basically, the movie seemed tongue in cheek. Very cynical. I had heard some talk of it beforehand (I have not read the book), particularly regarding the "fascism". Yes, the military did come across as driven by propaganda (I too thought of the "War In The Gulf" television footage), and there was one hint early in the film that perhaps the bugs were acting defensively... but that was disregarded by everyone. I was very amused towards the end when the previously hypothetical brain bug appeared, and you know what? It actually looked like a brain! And when it was captured, helpless, surrounded by enemy troops, the "psychic" guy (Doogie Howser, MD) placed his hand on its quivering noggin and pronounced, "It's AFRAID!" Deanna Troi, he's out for your job! I can only imagine that Verhoeven is laughing all the way to the bank. -- Janice ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: Radiohead, OK Computer; Tricky, Pre-Millennium Tension "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 17:08:00 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stephen Smith Subject: Re: Starship Troopers True true...after I wrote that I thought Hmm Girl means something much different than woman...but that's not even common parlance is it? "I'm your woman?" That sounds more like a come on or something. I think you were the one who commented on the clothing bit. Thank you for your reactions. I wrote that to see what sort of bees I could stir up...actually I think it was Brownmiller who wrote about the dynamics of women and rape. She states that the very nature of BIOLOGy can be blamed for how women are objectified ( i would say or made inferior in most cultures) Men have a "weapon" with which to instill fear, women are largely biologically powerless. I found that argument interesting esp in light of the Brian DePalma movie "Casulties of War." ANother critic I read said that men see nakedness as powerful and freeing...it allows them to escape cultural conventions. WOmen on the other hand understand the Nakedness metaphor much differently...they cannot see it as powerful, for nakedness leads to exposure and danger. That would naturally lead us to a discussion on women and the body...which I won't go intol I DO agree that women are objectified before they even get dressed, but what can be done in a society that objectifies you...then can you really dress the way you want...I don't mean to stir anyone up...and perhaps this is a circular argument. Well if women were not objectified...then women could dress...but in order to not be objectified...AHHHHH! Forget it...no one wins with this one. ANyone for going back to square one and convincing that little fish to not breathe air? ;{ Julien ---------- From: For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature on behalf of Nina M. Osier Sent: Sunday, November 09, 1997 8:22 AM To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Starship Troopers > Julien - The difference is that men do NOT say, "I'm your boy." Nina Osier > Finally (yes I am going to stop soon) I agree with Barbara > that those dying > words of Dis were INCREDIBLY stupid. I do disagree that the response > "I'm > your girl" sounds dumb. Men say "im your man," so what is the > difference? > Anyone else for comment? > Julien > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 17:21:22 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stephen Smith Subject: Re: Starship Troopers Allen: ********SPOILER RESPONSE******** Having read too much Freud, here was my take on Carmen's interaction with the smart bug...there was the female element yes...but that probe hmmm well it seems awfully phallic to me. As if the being had the anatomy of both genders...a kind of hermaphrodite if you will. Carmen castrates the being thus leaving only as female. As a female now...it is no longer threatening and can be destroyed by the macho men. Insects (notice the recurring fear element of insects in sci-fi) Aliens, Mimic, this movie, Naked lunch,...im drawing a blank now...but I think part of the fear of insects comes from the fact that they (how about even in Temple of Doom...with the cave filled with bugs which leave Kate Capshaw screaming) oh and there is Arachnaphobia...are so elusive...and everywhere. If you see one cockroach you're in trouble say the experts, but insects are then upon you before you know. ALso bugs multiply so rapidly, and because their life span is so short, they can adapt to anything humans throw at them. Remember the only thing left after a nuclear war, may very well be insects. (You know what I thought dumb about the scene where they were on Planet P or whatever that place was called? The insects were EVERYWHERE. THeir defences were far superior, they bounced back like nothing...and the guy says "Nuke em." I thought why are these people running around if they are using nukes...but I guess that might just be a saying huh? About the fort...I thought that fort was started by the Mormons? I thought they said that they were told not to build the fort, but they did and were slaughtered. It was called Fort smith or something like that. Maybe it was military after the fact, but I understood it to be a fort built by religious separatists, then after they were killed, the military used it because they didn't have time to build anything better. Am I wrong? Julien ---------- From: For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature on behalf of Allen Briggs Sent: Saturday, November 08, 1997 10:20 PM To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Starship Troopers I caught the late afternoon matinee of _Starship Troopers_ and found it to be rather cartoon-ish. It bears only a slight, superficial resemblance to the book (at least as I remember it). *sigh* If you do go, don't expect a movie version of the book. At all. I've heard it described as, "loosely based on the back cover of the Heinlein novel." There's spoiler stuff below because I just had to rant some... Anyway, I'm going to try and keep quiet about this from now on because I have a desire to rant about it... -allen PS. For newcomers on the list... I'm a 27 year-old computer programmer with a long-time love of Science Fiction, Feminism, and Gay (and Lesbian, and Bi- ;-) Rights. I'm just getting more into femsf as I find it (and write down recommendations that come across this list). I was raised as a liberal Quaker, but don't now claim any church affiliation beyond that. I tend to enjoy "hard-sf" and "eco-femi-utopias" as well as some cyberpunk and the occasional fantasy. Authors that I like are Heinlein (can't help it ;-), Asimov, Bear, Slonczewski, Piercy, Diane Duane, Sheri Tepper, O. Butler, Nicola Griffith (I haven't picked up Slow River yet, though)-:, Le Guin, Pat Murphy, and a host of others. I'm currently making my way through the "New Legends" anthology put together by Bear and Greenburg(?) that I picked up at ICFA last March. I was at ICFA because my wife was presenting a paper there. *** Spoiler stuff *** The eviscerations didn't bother me too much. Probably because Alien/s was worse and at least parts of this looked a bit like Nickelodeon "slime" or "goop" or whatever they call it. I didn't find the special effects looking that great. The bugs didn't move realistically to me, nor did the ships. Some of the props looked like painted cardboard and seemed as flimsy. The death and dismemberment came across as kind of comic-book-y. It didn't seem real to me at all. I was surprised that Diaz's character wasn't choking on the fake blood. Was it just me, or did the bugs look something like the aliens in Alien/s? Coincidence, or are these monsters some sort of an amalgamation of some common fears? Some of the plot changes were understandable. Some seemed completely gratuitous. The whole love interest thing seemed to fit both categories. The whole Nazi thing was annoying. The weaponry was ludicrous. The surrounding technology was unbelievable (yes, only a Hollywood set designer would build a fort with supporting structures on the outside and without being sure of the security of the foundation. I'm a pacifist, though, so what do I know? And the asteroids? The bugs are clear on the other side of the galaxy. That's 100,000 light-years. And they're propelling ROCKS from there? At sub-light speed? In response to human incursions into their space? And this is set in the 23rd century? That's a bit too much disbelief for me to suspend. Oh. On the point that Barbara, I think, mentioned. I think it's pretty clear that Carmen is not a virgin (unless I completely misread "my father won't be home tonight."), but I'm not sure if that affects your argument. I came away from this movie kind of like I came away from _First Knight_, actually. I felt like so much more could have been done and that the subject matter was completely misunderstood by everyone from the screenwriters to the producers and hence the audience. ...and was it just me, or did the mouth of the "brain" bug resemble a sinister view of a part of human anatomy just a little bit? [*] Anyway, I think I'm going to have to read the book again to see how skewed my memories are. I can't imagine what they'd do with _Tunnel In the Sky_... ALL that said, the only feminist aspect of the book that I recall was Heinlein's assertion that women have better reaction and decision-making times and therefore make better pilots than men. And that was barely implied by the movie, so I'm thinking that this is off-topic... [*] Frank and graphic description of what I mean that I will probably regret sending when the morning rolls around follows. Please delete now if you will take offense, and please don't try to psycho-analyze me based on this. The mouth of the "brain" bug looked to me like a vulva with the brain-sucking attachment. After it sucked the brains out of Carmen's partner and was oozing toward her, it looked like it was leaking semen. Reading (probably) waaaay too much into it, it took a woman (Carmen) to remove the brain-sucker so that the men (specifically, the ultra-man, drill-sarge-dude) could bring the bug in, but of course, Private Zim gets all the credit. Blech. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 17:29:02 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stephen Smith Subject: Re: Tie In Novels: The End of SF or the World as We Know It? THe problem with the Emily Dickenson analogy...is that in the 19th century...women didn't have the luxury of having a job to pay the rent and one to do for fun. Women had children, stayed home, and did womanly things. Emily couldn't even go out and get a job, (well maybe schoolmistress or some such designated job...as long as it conformed to womens work) let alone have an identity. WOmen were largely dependent upon the males. Think "Sense and Sensibility." If you didn't have a father, you were married off, or went to live with an uncle. Writing for many women was their way of expressing themselves in a confining patriarchal structure. (SO nothing has changed ;) Julien ---------- From: For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature on behalf of Vonda N. McIntyre Sent: Sunday, November 09, 1997 3:05 AM To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Tie In Novels: The End of SF or the World as We Know It? Hi Nina, I guess an eternal question of writing is the art v. business aspect. A benefit of success is that it allows you to continue doing what you like to do. Did Emily Dickinson ever have to worry where the next rent payment was coming from? (Or, if she did, did she have any reasonable hope of helping contribute to it, by publishing her poetry or in any other way? I don't know enough about her or the period she was living in to make even an educated guess.) Those of us who write tie-in novels have to put up with the occasional sneer down the nose from a certain small subset of our colleagues, who are of the opinion that we should go out and get honest jobs -- that the world in general and sf in particular would be better off, and that we ourselves would be behaving in a more honorable manner. Most of the sneerers, I note, are not among those who have to worry particularly about paying the rent. Vonda On Sat, 8 Nov 1997 09:30:12 -0500, "Nina M. Osier" wrote: >Vonda, thank you for posting your "rant" after all! I do wish I had >some ideas on how to change the larger world's perception of SF. I >never cease to be amazed by the otherwise intelligent people who still >regard speculative fiction of any type as something for adolescent boys >only. > >Speaking as someone still in the process of breaking in, I am also >saddened that the measure of success in this as in every other field of >endeavor has to be "how much money have you made by doing it." That's >our society, I accept it as it is; but it's still pitiful. How much >money did Emily Dickinson make...? > >Nina http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda Some official good news at http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 13:18:15 -0600 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Becca Stoler Subject: Re: Tie In Novels: The End of SF or the World as We Know It? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On a whole, you are correct... however.... There were womyn, other than school mistresses that did have jobs. It was by no means a common practice, but womyn ran/owned shops, were seamstresses, cooks, maids, household servants, they worked in debtors prisons and orphanages, in short, womyn did indeed have jobs. If I remember the statistics right, something like 38 percent of womyn in 19th century England held jobs. The upper class (where Dickinson was), had a much lower percentage. Something around 6.5 percent, but still, it was possible. In the United States, the numbers were even higher. Emily Dickinson even held a job on her one for a while. If memory serves, she worked in a ladies dress shop. Sorry to burst your bubble. Becca Dreams Are Born In The Heart And Mind, And Only There Can They Ever Die remember Narnia, wonderland, MiddleEarth, and Never Never Land, and you shall truly never die. Peace Be With Thee and Blessed Be -----Original Message----- From: Stephen Smith To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Date: Sunday, November 09, 1997 1:02 PM Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Tie In Novels: The End of SF or the World as We Know It? >THe problem with the Emily Dickenson analogy...is that in the 19th >century...women didn't have the luxury of having a job to pay the rent and one >to do for fun. Women had children, stayed home, and did womanly things. >Emily couldn't even go out and get a job, (well maybe schoolmistress or some >such designated job...as long as it conformed to womens work) let alone have >an identity. WOmen were largely dependent upon the males. Think "Sense and >Sensibility." If you didn't have a father, you were married off, or went to >live with an uncle. Writing for many women was their way of expressing >themselves in a confining patriarchal structure. (SO nothing has changed ;) >Julien > >---------- >From: For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature on behalf >of Vonda N. McIntyre >Sent: Sunday, November 09, 1997 3:05 AM >To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Tie In Novels: The End of SF or the World as We > Know It? > >Hi Nina, > >I guess an eternal question of writing is the art >v. business aspect. > >A benefit of success is that it allows you to >continue doing what you like to do. Did Emily >Dickinson ever have to worry where the next rent >payment was coming from? (Or, if she did, did she >have any reasonable hope of helping contribute to >it, by publishing her poetry or in any other way? >I don't know enough about her or the period she >was living in to make even an educated guess.) > >Those of us who write tie-in novels have to put up >with the occasional sneer down the nose from a >certain small subset of our colleagues, who are of >the opinion that we should go out and get honest >jobs -- that the world in general and sf in >particular would be better off, and that we >ourselves would be behaving in a more honorable >manner. Most of the sneerers, I note, are not >among those who have to worry particularly about >paying the rent. > >Vonda > >On Sat, 8 Nov 1997 09:30:12 -0500, "Nina M. Osier" > wrote: > >>Vonda, thank you for posting your "rant" after all! I do wish I had >>some ideas on how to change the larger world's perception of SF. I >>never cease to be amazed by the otherwise intelligent people who still >>regard speculative fiction of any type as something for adolescent boys >>only. >> >>Speaking as someone still in the process of breaking in, I am also >>saddened that the measure of success in this as in every other field of >>endeavor has to be "how much money have you made by doing it." That's >>our society, I accept it as it is; but it's still pitiful. How much >>money did Emily Dickinson make...? >> >>Nina > >http://www.sff.net/people/Vonda >Some official good news at >http://www.bookwire.com/pw/bestbooks97.article$3946 > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 15:04:10 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: netiquette reminder Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sorry to seem like a schoolmarm, but some recent messages prompt me to remind list members that when replying to someone's message it's not necessary to quote the original message in its entirety. This practice often increases the size of the message by two or three times, which wastes Internet bandwidth. Selectively quoting is much easier on the ol' pipeline. -- Janice ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: Radiohead, OK Computer; Tricky, Pre-Millennium Tension "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 12:56:13 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Lindy S. L. Lovvik" Subject: Re: Tie In Novels: The End of SF or the World as We Know It? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Stephen Smith wrote: > THe problem with the Emily Dickenson analogy...is that in the 19th > century...women didn't have the luxury of having a job to pay the rent and one > to do for fun. Women had children, stayed home, and did womanly things. > Emily couldn't even go out and get a job, (well maybe schoolmistress or some > such designated job...as long as it conformed to womens work) let alone have > an identity. Women have always worked both inside and outside the home. When we think of women in a Jane Austen novel, we are thinking of white women of a particularly priveledged class. While a widespread lack of education, voting rights and access to the public sector of the culture was no picnic, work relegated to poorer women and men (washing and pressing other people's clothes, cleaning their houses and/or performing farm and factory work) could be deadly. Most women of color had even fewer choices and received lower pay. Amazingly, women were (and are!) writing and creating despite difficult conditions. Stories crafted and retold for generations, essays, novels, sculpture, poetry and gardens. . . I feel fortunate. Lindy ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Nov 1997 16:23:54 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Barbara Benesch Subject: Re: Starship Troopers Movie Sorry I'm so late in getting back to you Julien. You've probably seen it already, but I'll give you my take. In a message dated 97-11-08 12:16:06 EST, Julien write: > Wow! that was a rant in the old style of rant...we have some commonalities:) I'm glad, I was a little worried that people would be offended. > Well my husband, who shares this email thing with me...hence the > schitzophrenic name...also wants to see Starship Troopers. THe FX look > brilliant, but I have been ambivalent about paying to see this. I like > Verhoeven's work...esp Robocop, so I decided to take the gamble. The major > drawback to this film seemed to me the casting. I hate it when they cast > third rate American beauty kings and queens...as if we can all relate to > that > vacuousness. Also one of the only actresses I recognized ruined > "Dragonheart." What is it with Hollywood casting an entire supporting cast > of > Brits and throwing in lead American actors who both cannot do an accent to > save their lives and who really cannot act but add the beauty factor. > (GRINDING OF TEETH) Yes, the I thought the FX were okay, although if there were too many bugs on the screen at once, they started to look fakey to me. I also liked Robocop, and my boyfriend spent a while extolling the good work Verhoeven has done in order further inspire me to go. I too thought that the big problem with the movie was the casting. The woman from "Dragonheart" also was in "Johnny Mnemonic", and that was another example of a great idea for a movie that was made with way too small a budget (Well, except for the part of the budget that paid for Keanu Reeves) and too much emphasis was placed on the FX and not enough on the rest of the story. I'm starting to wonder if I should just avoid movies with her in them, except that I kind of feel for her as an actress, since she seems to always be trying to find strong female roles, but they never quite turn out to be good *feminist* roles. But anyway, yes, the casting bothered me as well, since it was really obvious that they didn't spend as much on it as they should have. > I appreciate your comments on both the need for a site for those of > us > movie-philes, SF aficianados, and feminists. Hollywood ALWAYS has me on a > soapbox. I too own Fal