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Hollywood's 5 Saddest Attempts at Feminism
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Hollywood has a dilemma. Its blockbusters are all written by men, but to make the real money, they have to sell some tickets to females, too. What to do? Let a woman write a blockbuster? Ha! Of course not. Just insert a feisty woman into the story who won't take any crap from men in a really formulaic way! That should please the feminists, right? Well, when you look at the results, you see they probably shouldn't have bothered. #5.
Eowyn (The Lord of the Rings)
Eowyn is introduced in the second film as some sort of princess. Actually, we're really not sure; we sort of drifted off when there weren't stabbings going on. But we're reasonably sure she is related to that crazy dude that was the King, and that makes her a princess in our books. Supposed to be a Role Model Because: In the movies we see that she's an able ruler, and a trained warrior. Eowyn is told to stay behind and help protect the women and children of Rohan while all the men go off to ride horses and stab things.
As girls are wont to do in stories like this, she instead decides to abandon her responsibilities and run off to play with the boys. She disguises herself as a dude, which we noticed is sort of the opposite of how Legolas operates. The "You Go Girl!" Moment: While in battle, she manages to catch the fearsome Witch King off guard and stabs him right in the fucking head. The exchange plays out something like this: Witch King: No man can slay me! Mine is an evil laugh! Eowyn: Behold my vagina! Witch King: * dies *
The Problem: Aside from the fact that she ran off with the army because of her hots for Aragorn (who sadly only had eyes for the hobbits) thereby making her central motivation to get the approval of some filthy male, she rather quickly gives up her warrior woman ways and pretty much marries the first guy she sets eyes on after Aragorn gives her the "It's not you, it's me" speech. Luckily for her, it turns out to be a poor man's Sean Bean, but it could've been the burned out husk of Denethor. We're just saying.
The lesson here, impressionable young girls, is that playing soldier is all well and good in emergencies, but you're not really complete until you land a husband. Any husband. #4.
Padme Amidala (Star Wars Prequels)
Natalie Portman's Padme shows up in the Star Wars prequels as the Queen of some intergalactic backwater. Not only is Padme the youngest elected Queen in history (eh, we'll have to do another article on George Lucas's poor grasp of what a monarchy is) but she's a certified kicker of asses. After three movies, we know she is stern yet beautiful, driven equally by her duty and her love for a whiney Jedi wannabe who's totally half her age.
Supposed to be a Role Model Because: In The Phantom Menace we see her equally at ease arguing the finer points of Robert's Rules of Order on the Senate floor and personally leading a raid to bring down the brutal Gungun occupation of her homeland. In the second movie, we see her flying a jet and fighting off a brutal monster in some sort of alien gladiator contest. Plus, she's Princess Leia's mom, and we all know badassery is carried on the X chromosome. The "You Go Girl!" Moment: Anakin: You call this diplomacy? Padme: No, aggressive negotiations! *stuff blows up*
The Problem: Padme does just fine as an ass kicker until she starts using her uterus. As everyone in Hollywood knows, a uterus makes women do crazy things. In movies, pregnancy makes a heroine into a useless, whining, fragile creature (ok, other than Juno). The pregnant Padme spends most of the movie crying and wondering when Anakin will come home. After confronting her baby daddy about his experimentation with the Dark Side, she's injured and goes into labor. While giving birth to future ass kickers Leia and Luke, Padme decides to die.
Seriously, the movie makes it pretty clear: she just gives up. No serious injury, no difficult birth, no blood spurting onto the table. What about the two children she has to live for? Nope. She'll have none of that. The uterus will not allow it. #3.
River Tam (Firefly/Serenity)
In the Firefly universe, River is the genius kid sister of Serenity's ship's doctor, Simon. Lured away from her family at a young age with the promise of advanced schooling, River has been tortured and programmed as an assassin and possible psychic. Her abilities include mind reading, precognition, advanced weapons training and ballet. Supposed to be a Role Model Because: Since Firefly was created by Joss "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" Whedon, it's pretty much assumed that all the female characters will be ground breaking paragons of feminist virtue. Maybe this is because Whedon genuinely respects strong female characters, or maybe he's intimidated by a cult fanbase that demands every show of his have another Buffy in it. River, with her acrobatic fighting moves and penchant for exsanguinations, would seem to be a perfect fit.
The "You Go Girl!" Moment: After her brother is gunned down by bad guys, River proclaims "My turn", then proceeds to gleefully and gracefully mow down every last one of them with a mother fucking sickle. The Problem: Despite River's inherent ass-kicking abilities, she rarely uses them to the benefit of the crew. The character has been driven insane by her experiences, and therefore she spends most of her time saying crazy things and throwing up in her brother's bed.
In fact, protecting River forms the backbone of no less than five out of thirteen episodes, plus the theatrical movie. That's an awful lot of rescuing for a feminist hero. Many fans noticed this, too, and expressed their outrage on their Livejournals: "... I'm not sure that I will recover from the shock of watching the malicious way in which Joss stripped his female characters of their integrity, the pleasure he seemed to take from showing potentially powerful women bashed, the way he gleefully demonized female power and selfhood and smashed women into little bits, male fists in women's faces, male voices drowning out our words." Holy crap! They make it sound like the movie includes a 20-minute montage of Whedon pimp-slapping every female on the set. |
"Batman Returns" is indeed a lousy feminist movie, and not just because Catwoman is a "femme fatale." The 1992 sequel is basically a 118-minute-long "up yours" to women in general. EVERY female character in the movie - from the blonde who gets felt up by The Penguin at the rally to the circus floozies in his gang to the fur-lined bimbo who gets knocked off the building - are all evil, corrupt, weak, or - in Selina Kyle's case, f***ing insane. It's the only Batman movie without a single positive female character. Its producers seem to be terrified of the idea of women having power - which is very strange, because one of those producers was a woman.
Worst of all, even the hero of the story is a total pig. Batman tries to "save" Selina from becoming a murderer, which is completely hypocritical. (He felt sorry for Penguin, too; why didn't he try to save HIM? Fact is, all Batsy was concerned about was getting into Selina's panties.)
All in all, "Batman Returns" teaches us that women are silly, stupid children who need men to take care of them so that they don't get themselves killed or go postal. It's my second-favorite Bat-movie, but even I have to admit it that it's sexist to the max.
I only read the River part, because I'm a Whedon-fan. And something I love in his work is that no ones perfect. He doesn't write about heroes or icons, saints or superpeople without flaws. That would be unrealistic and not really portaying humanity. River is insane, because she had experiments done on her. Who would not be crazy? I don't understand why people have to go "Willow, Buffy, River are such bad rolemodels, Joss really dropped the ball". Joss didn't create robots, he created humans.
"That's an awful lot of rescuing for a feminist hero." Has Joss ever claimed that his characters are suppose to be "feminist heros"? Jesus Christ, she's just a girl who has had a very tough time. Give her a break.
how did ripley from alien not get in?
The first two were actually pretty funny, but the last three... did you run out of ideas? I mean, I might be wrong, but I'm sure Catwoman was NEVER meant to be a Role Model to... anyone.
And I'm not sure if you read the article you linked to for River Tam, but it wasn't based in fact. Or logic. Or rationality. But neither was what you wrote, so I guess that makes sense.
And no one really cares about any character in Pirates other than Jack Sparrow.
The first two were actually pretty funny, but the last three... did you run out of ideas? I mean, I might be wrong, but I'm sure Catwoman was NEVER meant to be a Role Model to... anyone.
And I'm not sure if you read the article you linked to for River Tam, but it wasn't based in fact. Or logic. Or rationality. But neither was what you wrote, so I guess that makes sense.
And no one really cares about any character in Pirates other than Jack Sparrow.
Poor man's Sean Bean!! Best (nerdy) line ever!
I guess what I don't get about this article is that it takes the long-way-around in trying mock Hollywood's bullshit feminist moments instead of just pointing out that all these characters are lame attempts at feminism because they were all written by men.
Wow, I read this when it first came out and thought it was pretty funny. Now I check the comments and you guys are a bunch of oversensitive little...school...boys....
and f**k of about River! the is "teh roxxors"
yah, this is pretty crap. i'm not even going to go into my Tolkien rant as I assume my commerades have already made my point there clear
And furthermore, the fact that you link to an article written by that moronic psychopath shows that you either were not paying attention, or are an idiot yourself (I'll assume the latter). She mentions that she has never known a white man to hook up with a black woman where he did not beat or abuse her. She basically seems to think men are evil, and hate women, especially black women.
this article is full of fail. About the only part i really agree with is queen amidala. But pretty much everything about the starwars prequels sucked in a "let's sell crap to stupid children by using bad cgi effects" kinda way. LOTR was pretty much crap to from what i could tell; i didn't bother watching more than the first one, so i can't comment too much there. But FIREFLY? are you serious? did you read that LJer's posts at all? she's not a feminist, she's a retard. And she's a racist. And a sexist piece of garbage. Here's a direct quote from here article entitled "Men are REALLY REALLY FxCKING DANGEROUS ":
"Men are not safe to be around.
Men are dangerous. Stay away from men.
Do not leave your children with men.
Men are dangerous."
Her insane rant about firefly sounds almost rational if you have never actually watched the show, or have never interacted with another human being. The events of the show she describes (badly) might sound like instances of woman bashing, if you take them entirely out of context, and totally ignore the feelings and social interactions of the characters described. Say, for instance, if you are an alien or a robot.
Wait a minute! That crazy LJ beyotch was NEVER a fan. AND she also implied that ALL heterosexual sex was rape because - how could a woman REALLY consent to having sex with her husband or boyfriend - living in such a blatantly misogynist, patriarchal society? And I THINK she also said that Joss Whedon "rapes" his wife on a regular basis.
So you might want to rethink your sources, Ms. Liang... or at least use quotes from people who are relatively sane. Just sayin'.
Some good points made, but with Serenity there are two other women on the show, one of whom is very much a leader in her own right. Maybe society is still a bit sexist, but you madam, are a racist!! Btw, who remembers Captain Janeway from Voyager?
s****y article.
Quite funny, but, despite its scarce faults, Firefly still kicks ass.
I think we can safely agree that both men and women can kick my ass. And I think we should let the matter rest there.
"Witch King: No man can slay me! Mine is an evil laugh!
Eowyn: Behold my vagina!
Witch King: * dies *"
I f*****g died.
On one hand, I hate most of those damned characters. What's more, I hate their slipshod, poorly-written, stupid-ass lines those actresses are forced to say with a straight face and without shame-puking.
But on the other hand, that reflexive anger could only be the product of a well-written article.
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Mysticnyx06
then again EVERY batman movie makes women out to be nothing but a damn distraction for batman to have his ass handed to him or have to make some fucked up choice between his girl and his friend... and then even when some girl starts to work her way in they just blow her ass up anyway. and you wanna know why!? Because Batman is the mother f*****g s**t and no one else compares...